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1. Many USB-C jack adapters are poor quality. 2. USB-C adapters are one extra thing to carry around and easy to lose or forget, unless you just never unplug it

1. Many USB-C jack adapters are poor quality. 2. USB-C adapters are one extra thing to carry around and easy to lose or forget, unless you just never unplug it, which is cumbersome 3. Many people who were born before the year 2005 (me included) have wired headphones that they prefer and have used for years that still work fine and have the sound quality and comfort that fit our needs. 4. Outside of the smart phone world, 3.5mm audio jacks are still very common and not obsolete 5. Bluetooth is cumbersome on many phones and headphones, introduces latency, and affects audio quality I wouldn't buy a phone just because it had a headphone jack, but it's definitely a draw for me when a phone does (+ a removable battery or expandable storage, but HN is probably gonna tell me those things are obsolete as well).

scheeseman486 3y ago
1. buy a good adapter 2. connect it to the end of your headphones and leave it there 3. do the above 4. buy a good adapter 5. don't use bluetooth and buy an adapter e: I was a little flippant. Point being: Time has marched on, TVs don't have RCA jacks either. You are an enthusiast and that's fine, I am too, but everyone else has moved on to bluetooth and wifi-enabled speakers and TVs. I'm happy to simply have the option, it's not like half-decent dongles are particularly expensive.
- cthulhus_crocs 3y ago
  1. waste money on good adapter when jack worked fine 2. connect it to the end of my headphones and leave it there 3. remove it so I can connect same headphones to laptop 4. lose adapter repeat
  - scheeseman486 3y ago
    It doesn't work anymore because no one cares about audio jacks on their devices, so no manufacturer puts them in. Apple may have started it, but every other manufacturer eventually followed as not enough people complained. Doesn't your laptop have USB ports?
    - einr 3y ago
      Roughly speaking every laptop on the face of the earth, including every Apple MacBook, has a headphone jack. Speaking of Macs, many of them have very high-quality DACs and amps that can drive quality headphones. Apple has gone out of their way to make the headphone outputs very good.[1] Why then would you occupy one of your maybe two USB ports with an inferior dongle? "Not enough people complained" is a terrible metric. Companies do anti-consumer nonsense all the time and there is no effective way for the customer to "vote with their wallets" when near enough everyone converges on the same solution. And why did Apple do it? Don't overthink it -- it is more profitable for Apple not to put headphone jacks in their phones because then they get to sell expensive AirPods. That's it, that's the reason. There have to be millions of super frustrated iPhone users like me out there that are annoyed every single time they have to use a stupid fucking Lightning dongle just to listen to stuff with decent headphones, but Android is not an option for me and the iPhone 7 is too old to be viable, so I just clench my fists in my pockets every time I think about my garbage iPhone (and sometimes whine about it on the internet.) Removing the headphone jack was bad, is bad, and will forever be bad. Just bring it back. Sell it in the Pro Max as a super audiophile high end DAC thing, I'll pay the $2000 or whatever you want, I don't care, just put the fucking jack back in. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212856 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212856
      - scheeseman486 3y ago
        Space is at a premium on mobile and water ingress is a problem, there's no licensing fees to use such a jack and the part itself is absolute peanuts to buy. The real estate they gained by getting rid of the part eventually got filled by something that's almost certainly more expensive. You don't have to overthink, you just need to think. Why permanently graft a part to a highly space optimized device when it isn't even being used most of the time? I got over it, you should too. It helps to try to put off the onset of grumpy old man syndrome as long as possible.
        einr 3y ago
        Why permanently graft a part to a highly space optimized device when it isn't even being used most of the time? I mean, that's a valid way to view it, but I doubt it was an engineering decision first and foremost. Hanlon's razor applies: 1) Apple makes a ton of money from selling AirPods and 2) this decision was made during the Jony Ive era of "remove literally everything that is not strictly necessary just because fewer ports is more aesthetically pleasing". Under these conditions, of course they would remove the headphone jack. It's Apple doing Apple shit. But: people used the same arguments -- less ports saves space, who needs it, etc -- to argue that the HDMI port, MagSafe, and decent keyboards would never come back. But they did, in MacBooks that were thicker than the previous generation. Sometimes you can teach old dogs new tricks. They could have polled the market to see what it wants: release an iPhone that has a headphone jack and is slightly bigger if needed, and a slim one that doesn't have one. This will never happen, and that is my point: you or I will never know if people care, because people never had the ability to choose.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- crashmat 3y ago
  I would say less people have moved to wireless for at-home headphones, with many pairs of headphones intended for use with a pc still being wired, so I dont think 'everyone else' has moved 'on' to wireless in all contexts.
- toastercat 3y ago
  I have an adapter. I still would rather have a phone with an audio jack built-in. > Time has marched on, TVs don't have RCA jacks either. Bad comparison. 3.5mm audio is still standard almost everywhere else for audio. RCA jacks are not. Your laptop, speakers, Steam Deck, monitor, and yeah probably your TV still have an audio jack. > You are an enthusiast and that's fine, I am too, but everyone else has moved on to bluetooth and wifi-enabled speakers and TVs. I'm happy to simply have the option, it's not like half-decent dongles are particularly expensive. I'm not an enthusiast; I, like probably 90% of the US population, have wired 3.5mm headphones in my home that I like to use with my electronics. It's bonkers to me that people are calling wired headphones obsolete; this makes me think that they either throw away all of their electronics when something new comes out, or are under eighteen years old and have never owned a pair.
izacus 3y ago
The fact of the matter is that phones that still have headphone jacks don't sell that well. There's always something else that demanders of that feature find wrong with them. You can list things as much as you want, but the market shows that almost noone puts their money where their mouth is once a phone with a jack is launched.
- toastercat 3y ago
  > The fact of the matter is that phones that still have headphone jacks don't sell that well. There's always something else that demanders of that feature find wrong with them. This likely has more to do with the fact that the only phones that have headphone jacks are low-end "cheap" phones with worse specs everywhere else. If the new Galaxy came out with a headphone jeack, I don't think their sales would suddenly tank.

scheeseman486 3y ago

1. buy a good adapter 2. connect it to the end of your headphones and leave it there 3. do the above 4. buy a good adapter 5. don't use bluetooth and buy an adapter e: I was a little flippant. Point being: Time has marched on, TVs don't have RCA jacks either. You are an enthusiast and that's fine, I am too, but everyone else has moved on to bluetooth and wifi-enabled speakers and TVs. I'm happy to simply have the option, it's not like half-decent dongles are particularly expensive.

cthulhus_crocs 3y ago
1. waste money on good adapter when jack worked fine 2. connect it to the end of my headphones and leave it there 3. remove it so I can connect same headphones to laptop 4. lose adapter repeat
- scheeseman486 3y ago
  It doesn't work anymore because no one cares about audio jacks on their devices, so no manufacturer puts them in. Apple may have started it, but every other manufacturer eventually followed as not enough people complained. Doesn't your laptop have USB ports?
  - einr 3y ago
    Roughly speaking every laptop on the face of the earth, including every Apple MacBook, has a headphone jack. Speaking of Macs, many of them have very high-quality DACs and amps that can drive quality headphones. Apple has gone out of their way to make the headphone outputs very good.[1] Why then would you occupy one of your maybe two USB ports with an inferior dongle? "Not enough people complained" is a terrible metric. Companies do anti-consumer nonsense all the time and there is no effective way for the customer to "vote with their wallets" when near enough everyone converges on the same solution. And why did Apple do it? Don't overthink it -- it is more profitable for Apple not to put headphone jacks in their phones because then they get to sell expensive AirPods. That's it, that's the reason. There have to be millions of super frustrated iPhone users like me out there that are annoyed every single time they have to use a stupid fucking Lightning dongle just to listen to stuff with decent headphones, but Android is not an option for me and the iPhone 7 is too old to be viable, so I just clench my fists in my pockets every time I think about my garbage iPhone (and sometimes whine about it on the internet.) Removing the headphone jack was bad, is bad, and will forever be bad. Just bring it back. Sell it in the Pro Max as a super audiophile high end DAC thing, I'll pay the $2000 or whatever you want, I don't care, just put the fucking jack back in. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212856 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212856
    - scheeseman486 3y ago
      Space is at a premium on mobile and water ingress is a problem, there's no licensing fees to use such a jack and the part itself is absolute peanuts to buy. The real estate they gained by getting rid of the part eventually got filled by something that's almost certainly more expensive. You don't have to overthink, you just need to think. Why permanently graft a part to a highly space optimized device when it isn't even being used most of the time? I got over it, you should too. It helps to try to put off the onset of grumpy old man syndrome as long as possible.
      - einr 3y ago
        Why permanently graft a part to a highly space optimized device when it isn't even being used most of the time? I mean, that's a valid way to view it, but I doubt it was an engineering decision first and foremost. Hanlon's razor applies: 1) Apple makes a ton of money from selling AirPods and 2) this decision was made during the Jony Ive era of "remove literally everything that is not strictly necessary just because fewer ports is more aesthetically pleasing". Under these conditions, of course they would remove the headphone jack. It's Apple doing Apple shit. But: people used the same arguments -- less ports saves space, who needs it, etc -- to argue that the HDMI port, MagSafe, and decent keyboards would never come back. But they did, in MacBooks that were thicker than the previous generation. Sometimes you can teach old dogs new tricks. They could have polled the market to see what it wants: release an iPhone that has a headphone jack and is slightly bigger if needed, and a slim one that doesn't have one. This will never happen, and that is my point: you or I will never know if people care, because people never had the ability to choose.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
crashmat 3y ago
I would say less people have moved to wireless for at-home headphones, with many pairs of headphones intended for use with a pc still being wired, so I dont think 'everyone else' has moved 'on' to wireless in all contexts.
toastercat 3y ago
I have an adapter. I still would rather have a phone with an audio jack built-in. > Time has marched on, TVs don't have RCA jacks either. Bad comparison. 3.5mm audio is still standard almost everywhere else for audio. RCA jacks are not. Your laptop, speakers, Steam Deck, monitor, and yeah probably your TV still have an audio jack. > You are an enthusiast and that's fine, I am too, but everyone else has moved on to bluetooth and wifi-enabled speakers and TVs. I'm happy to simply have the option, it's not like half-decent dongles are particularly expensive. I'm not an enthusiast; I, like probably 90% of the US population, have wired 3.5mm headphones in my home that I like to use with my electronics. It's bonkers to me that people are calling wired headphones obsolete; this makes me think that they either throw away all of their electronics when something new comes out, or are under eighteen years old and have never owned a pair.

izacus 3y ago

The fact of the matter is that phones that still have headphone jacks don't sell that well. There's always something else that demanders of that feature find wrong with them. You can list things as much as you want, but the market shows that almost noone puts their money where their mouth is once a phone with a jack is launched.

toastercat 3y ago
> The fact of the matter is that phones that still have headphone jacks don't sell that well. There's always something else that demanders of that feature find wrong with them. This likely has more to do with the fact that the only phones that have headphone jacks are low-end "cheap" phones with worse specs everywhere else. If the new Galaxy came out with a headphone jeack, I don't think their sales would suddenly tank.