12 ms·

They don't make 'em like that any more: the 3.5mm headphone jack socket

• gloosx 2y ago
  I wish there were phone with 3.5mm jack... ...which can also lie down of the table flatly. I would vote with all my money for it, maybe I would even buy few in advance for future. Unfortunately these are sick man dreams these days.
• MrVandemar 2y ago
  I went shopping for a new mobile phone this year. Excluded anything that did not include 3.5mm headphone jack. I don't own wireless headphones, and while I grant it does solve the various problem of wires it clearly introduces the problem of batteries and charging. (Can you even replace batteries in wireless headphones that aren't holding charge anymore? Never mind, don't answer that, I can guess). Anecdotally I feel like wired headphones run the battery down less than bluetooth broadcast. I bought a Motorola something or other. Works fine.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • hddherman 2y ago
    Fairphone has made Fairbuds [0] and Fairbuds XL [1], both with easily replaceable batteries. So at least there is one option out there. [0] https://shop.fairphone.com/fairbuds https://shop.fairphone.com/fairbuds [1] https://shop.fairphone.com/fairbuds-xl https://shop.fairphone.com/fairbuds-xl
    • ray_v 2y ago
      I want to love these but at the price point you can basically buy 3-4 sets of (likely) technically comparable wireless earbuds that will (likely) last a year or two. How long can I expect fairbuds to last? I can't imagine it would be close to a decade even with replacing batteries
      • prmoustache 2y ago
        The point is mostly to avoid ewaste, not save money.
        • ray_v 2y ago
          I guess that's also kinda my poorly made point -- I imagine that these earbuds are like any other electronic device in the fact that they'll break in a handful of years and end up being irreparable in some way that results in just replacing them. I'm not sure what the answer is to any of this of course
        • LegitShady 2y ago
          if they wanted to avoid ewaste they wouldn't have removed the 3.5mm jack and I would still use normal headphones.
        • dzhiurgis 2y ago
          Fair, but tiny earbuds are not exactly massive contributor to ewaste (or total waste).
    • lillesvin 2y ago
      I got a set of Fairbuds XL at work because it made sense to buy something that could last a long time and be repaired and I really wanted to support Fairphone's basic premise — repairable gadgets with long support. Here's my experience with them that nobody asked for. First of all, the sound is fine. Nothing exceptional but certainly not bad. I'd say they compare pretty well to my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro (80 Ohm) or my old Sennheiser Urbanite XL. They also sit pretty well on my head for extended periods of time, which is nice, but will obviously vary from person to person. They don't have any fancy Teams-integration, which is a plus for me but a deal-breaker to others. They hold battery very well. I haven't tested it in depth but I've used them for maybe 3 full workdays without charging them, so maybe around 24 hours of active use and they still had some juice left. But the firmware... What a disappointment. The headphones have 3 settings, ANC, ambient and "normal". I personally prefer "normal" but the headphones don't remember the setting across restarts, so every time I turn them on I have to sit through the boot sound (because system sounds can't be interrupted), wait for the audio feedback to finish saying "connected", and if a second device is connected, "second device connected", then click a physical button, wait for it to finish saying "ambient sounds", and finally click a third time to hear it say: "noise cancelling off", and _then_ I can start using them. It's OK the first 5-10 times but then it just gets really, really annoying. I went to their forums about a year ago to suggest it as a feature but learned that Fairphone actually don't interact with the forums, it's just user-to-user interaction, so suggestions don't really make it further from there. That's fair, so I contacted their support about it instead. They suggested that I contact the store that my workplace bought the headphones from. (I didn't think that was really going to solve the issue, so I chose to just ignore that.) They've released 2 firmware updates since then, but no storing mode across reboots. They did however manage to glitch out the boot sound in one firmware update, so it played 2/3 of the audio only to interrupt itself and play the second half of the sound again. The last firmware update fixed that at least. And before someone suggests that there might be no place to store aforementioned setting, they can store bluetooth pairings and EQ presets on the headphones. The noise cancellation preference could be stored in less than a byte. Unfortunately the firmware isn't OSS so I can't even fix it myself. /rant
      • mardifoufs 2y ago
        Wait, the firmware isn't OSS? Did they ever mention why? I completely understand that they can't open source stuff like a phone's modem firmware, but I don't get it here. Was it written in house or did they use some off the shelf solution (would explain why they can't open source it). I mean, I know that fairphone doesn't market themselves as OSS centric (like purism does for example), but you'd think that it would fit their ewaste reduction goal in this case.
  • davkan 2y ago
    I used to be on the wired only train until I got bone conducting headphones (shokz). Those became 90% of my usage. I don’t really have problems with battery life or charging now that I’ve switched.
    • WaitWaitWha 2y ago
      I love the idea, look, and feel. How is the external sounds impact your hearing? i.e. can you process the shokz audio when there is too much external/extraneous audio?
      • Game_Ender 2y ago
        Since they lack noise isolation over ear or tight fitting buds this can be a problem. I have the OpenSwim Pro and they are fine outside except for really high noise. But while on a treadmill in the Gym they could not overwhelm the background noise.
      • davkan 2y ago
        They do compete with external sound. If there’s noise you want to drown out you can do it by turning up the volume. You can also plug your ears or wear ear plugs which I will do on occasion, like when grinding coffee while listening to a podcast. Likewise if you want to be able to hear the outside world you have to turn down the headphones. On the quieter side you can hear what people are saying to you but you probably want to pause to talk. Medium volume i can hear people talking to me but cant make out what they’re saying. Louder volume they gotta be close or shouting. They’re mostly used in situations where you want to hear your surroundings. On a plane I use airpods with anc. Around the house or on a run I use shokz. I can wear them all day unlike airpods which I hate the sensation of having the world dulled and something in my ear. Probably the single best piece of tech I’ve found since getting a smartphone. I wear the all the time, if they break I’m buying a new pair same day. They kinda suck for music but i would never use anything else for spoken word unless I was on a plane or something.
    • limit499karma 2y ago
      I have one of those - great for video calls but music after 30 minutes gives me serious headaches.
  • djtango 2y ago
    I have been using my current Beyerdynamics for about 8-9 years now, still going strong. I changed out the velour pads and they feel like new. I've lugged them around across the world and commuted with them day in day out. They have no place in this world of planned obsolescence but I'm still more than happy with them. Didn't realise motorola's made 3.5mm phones. I have been bound to Asus and Xperias who made smaller phones with water resistance and a 3.5mm jack. Now I think I'm back to Xperia again because Asus have vacated the small phone segment
    • secondcoming 2y ago
      I've used a Nokia (HMD) XR20 phone for a few years. Weather proof with a 3.5mm jack.
  • KoolKat23 2y ago
    Charging is barely an issue these days. I use nothing ear 2a earphones. They last 7/8 hours on a charge but I've never noticed this as they charge when I put them in the case (the case has 40 hours charge I believe). I think, since April, I've plugged them in twice. I switch between these and Sennheiser headphones, which I've probably charged 3 times in the same period. Some of the other brands have wireless charging for the case too, so if you've set up the charger somewhere convenient that the case is used, honestly I don't think you'd notice it has a battery.
  • secondcoming 2y ago
    Same, I have too many things to charge as it is. I also own pricey earphones that have worked fine for years. Just throwing them away is dumb. When I had to upgrade my iPad only one had a 3.5mm jack option and was fortunately the cheapest.
  • input_sh 2y ago
    I'm sure you'd like my (over-ear) Sennheisers. A battery lasts around 20h (2-3x that on newer models), I can just insert a 3.5mm cable and they work, and I have successfully replaced the battery and the earpads. Been using the same pair since around 2017. The only reason I'm seriously considering it's time for an upgrade is that they charge via a micro-B cable, which was quite frankly unacceptable for a "premium" brand even back in 2017. The question I keep asking myself for the past two or so years is: is that enough of a nuisance to spend another €400?
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • lm28469 2y ago
    I finally had to update from a phone with a jack to a phone without and it sucks as much as I expected... The three first dongles I bought produced static noise in the background, the only that works is the apple usb-c to jack but it's super flimsy and doesn't allow full volume on android. For the same reason as you I will never buy wireless headphones, it's the epitome of disposable tech, at best you'd get 3-5 years of use, then you'd have to trash them because there is no easy way to replace the batteries
  • kyorochan 2y ago
    I changed the batteries in my Sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds without too much trouble. Unfortunately I don't think you can easily replace the battery in the case, so I still had to charge the case pretty often.
• scrapheap 2y ago
  It's disappointing seeing the slow decline in the number of devices that include a 3.5mm headphone jack. Personally I don't want any hassle from my headphones, I just want to plug them in and use them.
  • johnchristopher 2y ago
    Does it apply to usb-c headphones ? I am quite happy with the AKG usb-c wired headphone I got w/ my samsung phone (I even bought a second set as a replacement for when I misplace them).
    • scrapheap 2y ago
      I suspect that if the current trend in dropping the 3.5mm headphone jack continues then I'll have to move to USB-C headphones or at least an adapter.
• cosmotic 2y ago
  Another positive point for wireless headphones: you never have to deal with detangling a cord, getting caught in it, or it pulling on you.
  • hobs 2y ago
    Yep, and then they are much easier to lose, step on, have drop out of your ear while you are running and disappear. I have literally found a half dozen sets of airpods out in the world, whereas before wireless earbuds became popular I never found a single pair of abandoned headphones. The bigger headphones dont have this problem as much but they are significantly heavier because they have to include all the electronics and batteries in them.
    • mikestew 2y ago
      Yep, and then they are much easier to lose, step on, have drop out of your ear while you are running and disappear Somewhere on a rails-to-trails at the foot of the Cascade Mountains is a single Beats Powerbeat that was flung to the ground in the middle of a 50 mile race after I pulled a piece of clothing over my head. I was leading the race, so I spent just the barest amount of time looking, but never found it. Damned things ain’t cheap, either. I should have just thrown the other one to the ground, so at least someone might have a matched set. At the same time, if I had to dick around with wired headphones, I wouldn’t have used them at all.
• zeta0134 2y ago
  I've come around on USB-C headphones, which seem to be reeeeasonably decent and which, as an added bonus, bypass the absurdly terrible sound chip on my laptop to provide decent quality audio for two of my devices. But until phones ship with two of the ports, they fail to solve the "use while charging" issue, and there's still the secondary issue of 3.5mm devices being absolutely everywhere on this green earth, and not in the remotest way compatible with this fancy new USB-C thing. There's not a reverse dongle, and there really can't be, as the 3.5mm jack doesn't provide power.
  • prmoustache 2y ago
    The reverse dongle could exist but it would have to be battery powered. This is just an analog to digital converter after all.
• ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  As much as I agree generally that headphone sockets are great, there's a couple of missed disadvantages with including them in your phone: waterproofing and thickness.
  • searedsteak 2y ago
    The article addresses both points: > The first manufacturer to make a point of dropping the headphone jack (I believe) was not Apple – as is commonly believed – but Oppo, and back in 2014. Their reason for doing so was at least a credible technical one: they said it made their phones about half a millimetre thinner. Maybe that was a selling point, maybe it wasn’t. But Apple couldn’t fall back even on this claim, because people found ways to fit a 3.5mm jack socket into the iPhones that lacked one, and even posted videos on Youtube showing how they did it. It wasn’t easy, but it was clearly possible. If Apple genuinely thought that omitting the jack would leave more room for other features, they didn’t actually provide any. > Some manufacturers claimed that the presence of the headphone jack made it difficult to keep their phones waterproof; but there’s a whole range of good-quality phones from around 2019-2020 that are waterproof to a reasonable degree, without sacrificing the jack.
  • criley2 2y ago
    Many phones had great waterproof ratings with a headphone socket. Nearly all phones today are thick enough for sockets, a 3.5mm would fit fine on my Pixel 7 pro. The thinness wars ended when too many people sat on their phones and bent them.
  • Kirby64 2y ago
    Did you even read the article? The author points out both of those points are essentially just excuses. Phones haven’t been made thinner, and you can still fit 3.5mm jacks in most phones, and there are plenty of waterproof phones with a 3.5mm jack.
    • saberience 2y ago
      Dude, no one ever claimed that you can't have a waterproof phone with a jack, the point, which is fairly obvious, is that it's much harder to make a highly waterproof phone when you have a big ass hole in it for a 3.5mm jack. I.e. it's cost benefit analysis. It's annoying, hard, and expensive if you want to make a phone which is say waterproof to 10m or 15m while having a 3.5mm jack hole in it, which most people don't care about anyway. So easy solution, stop having the jack.
• bloopernova 2y ago
  Ugh, this infuriates me to no end. I used to own LG V-series of mobile phones. They had a better-than-usual DAC and a headphone socket. Then LG stopped making that series. Now I have a pixel. Now I have a USB external DAC (TempoTec Sonata HD pro) that used to work with Spotify, but now the only way I can use it is with a specific USB DAC application that hooks into Tidal. I'm assuming Android updated its audio stack in such a way as to break my external DAC. It's the same with my little desktop DAC, a Schiit Modi. I just want to be able to listen to music on my preferred headphones, using a good quality DAC!
• jessriedel 2y ago
  Obviously there is the cynical explanation of forcing consumers to buy pricey wireless headphone, but what are the stated arguments that manufacturers give for not including the jack? Is it literally the space requirements? (But ofc my wireless headphones and their charging case take up much more room.) Separately on this: > The way to discourage companies behaving this way is for us all to take our business elsewhere. It’s still possible to get decent cellphones from Motorola, Asus, and Sony that retain the 3.5mm jack. Choosing the most important tool in your life based on this one hostile feature seems like a high price to pay. (Should I vow to never do business with Google in any form?) Maybe just better to commit to buying wireless headphones from an opposing company? That removes the manufacturers incentive.
  • j16sdiz 2y ago
    Space, and water/dust proofing
    • catlikesshrimp 2y ago
      There have been aweasome flagship phones with ip68 and 3.5mm audio jack https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S8 So, no. Waterproof casing is an excuse. I went to (Edited) A Mainstream Chinese Brand now that Samsung dropped the ball. I dont get audio jack, either, but I have IR blaster and double physical sim
      • saberience 2y ago
        I think you've missed the point a little or are perhaps are being slightly obtuse. Of course it's POSSIBLE to make a phone with waterproofing and a 3.5mm headphone jack, and of course it POSSIBLE to make a modern thin phone with a 3.5.mm headphone jack taking up extra space... The point is, it's simply harder and more expensive to make a highly waterproof and slim phone, while having to have another large hole in the phone which requires a long connector to fit inside it. And when you consider that extra expense and R&D required to design the phone shell and internal architecture, versus the actual demand for wired headphones (basically zero these days), it's obvious why major phone makers don't bother to include it. It's simply a matter of cost benefit analysis. Lots of cost, very little benefit. No mystery.
• EarlKing 2y ago
  > The headphone jack just works ...except when you can't make good contact and you wind up with one stereo channel muted and you have to fidget manically to fix it....which seems to occur with every damn headphone jack on every device without exception.
  • ThrowawayR2 2y ago
    Amen; I'm surprised more people aren't bringing this up. I like the idea of having a wired headphone connection to my phone and other audio devices but I don't like the 3.5mm TRS headphone plugs/jacks. Make it a magsafe-style connector or something that's immune from wearing out or bad connections and I'd be delighted.
• inciampati 2y ago
  Is water resistance a reason why we're seeing the elimination of the 3.5mm jack?
  • searedsteak 2y ago
    From the article: > Some manufacturers claimed that the presence of the headphone jack made it difficult to keep their phones waterproof; but there’s a whole range of good-quality phones from around 2019-2020 that are waterproof to a reasonable degree, without sacrificing the jack.
  • KoolKat23 2y ago
    Lower bill of material cost for the manufacturers and more space for other parts in the device.
• thousand_nights 2y ago
  i don't get why the author makes it out to be some big conspiracy, many people including myself are very happy with wireless headphones and would never go back to the hassle of untangling wires also there are wireless headphones which have 24 hour battery life
  • Miraltar 2y ago
    Yes but why don't they give us both options as many people miss the jack ?
  • asadotzler 2y ago
    And many people, including myself, are not very happy with wireless headphones and would prefer to go back to using wires. See how easy your low effort comment was. Why bother?
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  I recently tried out wired headphones (over a USBC adapter) after years of using true wireless ones and was blown away by the sound quality difference. I forgot how amazing things can sound, when I chose convenience. Apart from limitations of Bluetooth and the confusing landscape of codecs, there are physical limitations - wireless sets have to make room for antennas and batteries and chips that could otherwise be used for pure sound quality instead.
• buro9 2y ago
  I know it's not what he is looking for: https://www.belkin.com/uk/p/3.5mm-audio-usb-c-charge-adapter/NPA004btWH.html https://www.belkin.com/uk/p/3.5mm-audio-usb-c-charge-adapter... A USB-C adaptor for mobile phones to allow charging whilst listening on a 3.5mm headphone jack.
  • Vecr 2y ago
    How's the quality on that? I think similar devices made weird popping noises sometimes.
    • buro9 2y ago
      Belkin, along with Anker, make pretty good things and I trust them... I don't know how to criticise a "charge whilst playing music" thing as it does both of the things it claims to do and I've not tried silly things like chaining this with other dongles.
• Kim_Bruning 2y ago
  Bluetooth headphones seem to add sufficient lag that they prevent me from playing an instrument (like a synth) over them. I'm not sure bluetooth can solve this problem, but I'd be pleased to be surprised.
  • pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Bluetooth builds in some buffering to deal with contention on the airwaves and packet loss while keeping the audio stream going. That buffer is the lag you are hearing. It is quite substantial, and there is a natural tradeoff here - you can use more power to (theoretically) reduce buffer size by improving the SNR of the signal, but if you run out of buffer, you are going to drop samples. Even USB audio has some buffering to handle bus contention, but it is quite small in comparison.
  • luuurker 2y ago
    Some headphones have a low latency mode. On mine it's called "gaming mode": https://i.imgur.com/4h5Oj4S.png https://i.imgur.com/4h5Oj4S.png I don't know what changes behind the scenes, but it does improve latency. The only downside I noticed is the reduced range, eg, it stops working on a different room where normal mode still works.
• striking 2y ago
  Voting with your wallet probably isn't going to work, because you probably represent a drop in the bucket of sales. If you want this changed, start a campaign and write to your representative in Congress. If the EU could make Apple put USB-C on the iPhone, maybe you can get the 3.5mm jack back on your phone. But you won't get there by kidding yourself thinking your individual sale matters. --- I'm seeing any number of dongles that include a charge port on Amazon, like this one: https://a.co/d/hwiLAqp https://a.co/d/hwiLAqp Wireless charging for your phone is also an option.
  • margalabargala 2y ago
    Voting with your wallet by failing to purchase a phone from a huge corp like Samsung, is not something that will change Samsung's behavior, I agree. Voting with your wallet by buying a phone with a headphone jack, especially from a smaller maker like Unihertz, is impactful and helps ensure those alternatives stay around.
    • striking 2y ago
      Maybe! But I checked Unihertz's site and it seems like their newest upcoming release, the Jelly Max, will be lacking a headphone jack too: https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-max https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-max To their credit, it appears to come with an adapter. My guess is that Unihertz, among others, is probably either reselling an existing design or contracting minor changes to an existing design. So unless you're voting with your wallet hard enough to shift the tides of the entire white-label phone manufacturing industry, I think I'm still doubting the impact here.
      • margalabargala 2y ago
        I don't think that Unihertz is reselling white-label phones; I've seen no other phone that remotely resembles theirs, and considering their form factor I don't think the innards are reusable without a lot of design rework. The lack of the headphone jack on the Jelly Max is disappointing, though.
  • 2y ago
• bloak 2y ago
  It's nowhere near as widely used, but there is such a thing as a 2.5mm jack, and you can buy a converter from 2.5mm male to 3.5mm female. Has any telephone handset ever had a 2.5mm headphone jack? (Presumably no telephone handset has ever had a ¼-inch jack, even in olden times?)
  • searedsteak 2y ago
    I had an HTC Wizard (branded by T-Mobile) many year ago, which had a 2.5mm jack.
    • Astronaut3315 2y ago
      I have the Cingular version and had forgotten this detail. Sure enough, you’re right- it has a 2.5mm jack on it. How unusual.
  • prmoustache 2y ago
    My Bose QC 35 headphones have a 2.5mm socket but on the headphones end for when you'd want to use them wired. It came with a cable with a 3.5mm male plug for the source device and the 2.5mm male plug on the side that goes to the headphones. Never seen a wired headset with 2.5mm male plug that goes to the source device however.
  • Kirby64 2y ago
    Not headsets, but Bose ANC headphones have used a 2.5mm jacks for years (and still do). They give you a 2.5 to 3.5mm cable, though. I imagine this is likely just to drive cable sales, though, as there isn’t any real reason you need the 2.5mm jack on their relatively big headphones.
  • findthewords 2y ago
    Old Nokias and other pre-smartphone era phones did.
  • ginko 2y ago
    I think some portable minidisc players and discmans around 2000 used 2.5mm.
• maeln 2y ago
  I use to own expensive (~250+€) bluetooth earbuds, with ANC and all that jazz. I broke them by trying to clean them one time (my ears are very "waxy" and every earbuds always ends up coating in nastiness from my ears very quickly, so i need to clean them regularly). So I went back to the cheap wired (but still USB-c) earbuds I got. I do resonate a lot with this article. Wired earbuds just works. With wireless earbuds I cannot count how many time I had issue with bluetooth. The microphone on every wireless earbuds is awful because you cannot put it right to your mouth like you can with wired ones. You have a limited battery time. Wireless earbuds are bulkier so they get out of your ears easier, ... The only thing I miss is the ANC, which was surprisingly working well on trains and planes. And yeah, I which I still had a jack on my phone. My best wired earbuds use jack, so I have to carry this annoying dongle, usb-c is also flimsier, and I am way more worried about breaking it, since I also need it to charge my phone and transfer files.
• rwmj 2y ago
  I'd probably like bluetooth headphones more if they actually worked more than 50% of the time. Probably because the rooms where I use them are filled with RF noise from so many other devices, they just don't work reliably enough to be usable. They work for a while and then drop out, or simply can't connect at all. Luckily Sony still sell wired headphones.
• prmoustache 2y ago
  While it is hard to do damage to a 6.3mm TRS socket and plug, I wouldn't say the same of the 3.5mm one. As a kid / teenager I damaged a number of sockets and bent a number of 3.5mm male TRS plugs. So I wouldn't call it a "just works" technology as it is far from perfect.
  • floodle 2y ago
    USB C ports break just when I look at them slightly wrongly. In comparison to that, 3.5mm is a dream.
    • prmoustache 2y ago
      I haven't managed to brake one yet but I admit on a thinkpad I own the cable appear to be wiggly once plugged to it.
      • Izkata 2y ago
        This happened to one of my phones after a few years, turned out it was a bunch of lint compressed into the port preventing the cable from going in all the way. I got it all out with a staple (only thing I could find that was small enough to fit), then the cable started snapping into the port like new.
    • martin_a 2y ago
      Just use wireless charging. It works fine. I've 3D printed a little cover for my USB C port as I just don't need it for anything. Will keep that little port fresh for years...
      • prmoustache 2y ago
        You are saying that as if all smartphone were compatible.
        • martin_a 2y ago
• NoboruWataya 2y ago
  I too like the simplicity and standardisation of the 3.5mm headphone jack, and think it's a shame that it's fallen out of fashion in smartphones. But I think this is something that a small number of people get really disproportionately angry about. It's most obvious every time Fairphone crops up in discussion here, and all you see on HN are people furiously shitting on it over its lack of headphone jack. > If you’re a fan of the 3.5mm jack, it’s time to vote with your wallet. Not sure why the author thinks this hasn't been happening already, and the 3.5mm jack is simply losing the popular vote. I really just don't think that many people care about it, in the scheme of things. If removing it helps make the phone even marginally thinner, cheaper or more waterproof, I suspect most consumers will happily make that trade-off. Bluetooth headphones can also be more convenient in that you don't have to remain wired to your phone or deal with tangled cords, etc. Like the author, I also have a Samsung Galaxy S10 that still has the headphone jack but a few months ago I finally caved and bought a pair of bluetooth earphones.
  • bombcar 2y ago
    The modern 3.5 jack is wired CarPlay. That's the entirety of the matter; and bluetooth is finally good enough for wireless headphones.
    • Klonoar 2y ago
      This is definitely a solution, but for whatever reason using these destroys my charging port over time - and I’ve experienced this over multiple devices now. :(
  • martin_a 2y ago
    > But I think this is something that a small number of people get really disproportionately angry about. Totally true! I'm also baffled by the number of people who seem to lose anything that is not connected to something else with a wire. Just the commenters in this thread that are just a tiny 3.5 mm jack away from losing their fifteenth pair of headsets... Amazing!
    • 2y ago
• mproud 2y ago
  Isn’t adding a headphone jack introducing another pathway for liquid to enter a device, or would well-constructed hardware prevent that from happening?
  • searedsteak 2y ago
    From the article: > Some manufacturers claimed that the presence of the headphone jack made it difficult to keep their phones waterproof; but there’s a whole range of good-quality phones from around 2019-2020 that are waterproof to a reasonable degree, without sacrificing the jack.
• bluedino 2y ago
  I own at least ten pairs of headphones, as well as some small amps and a DAC, but I end up going back to the $19 Aukey Bluetooth earbuds from Amazon. They sound good enough, battery still lasts 5 hours and they must be six years old, and they're cheap enough where I don't care if they are damaged or lost, but I haven't managed to lose them. Sure, on an airplane I'll drag along some noise cancelling ones, and I keep a wired set of Sennheisers in my bag for a backup, but I never use them otherwise.
• acheron 2y ago
  [flagged]
• aredox 2y ago
  Rose-tinted glasses strike again... The audio chips in phones were woeful. Not every headphones could be driven by them. There was a whole cottage industry of DAC that you had to plug between your phone and your headset. As a very deep hole, the jack was also a dust/lint catcher, almost impossible to clean. And because of its length, it had a lot of leverage on the board, requiring fairly heavy-duty soldering to avoid damaging the board. And the first reason the jack went out is not thinness but water resistance.
  • pessimizer 2y ago
    You aren't speaking to infants, we were all alive when the only real choice was wired headphones, and plenty of people still use wired headphones now. I think it was wonderful when headphones always worked, usually sounded fine (sometimes magnificent), and were available for $10. > There was a whole cottage industry of DAC that you had to plug between your phone and your headset. If there was, it was minuscule. I've never heard of people doing that in the wild. > As a very deep hole, the jack was also a dust/lint catcher, almost impossible to clean. Back then, the products were expected to be used long enough for this to become a problem. After a decade, I bet some of those holes were pretty dirty, although who would know. Modern portable tech does not have the disadvantage of durability. > because of its length, it had a lot of leverage on the board, requiring fairly heavy-duty soldering to avoid damaging the board. True. Can't deny this.
    • catlikesshrimp 2y ago
      >>because of its length, it had a lot of leverage on the board, requiring fairly heavy-duty soldering to avoid damaging the board. Strawman? I doubt many people even thought about it. For them, bluetooth was available. Now it is almost the only option.
      • pdoege 2y ago
        Z stack strength and rigidity is a huge driver because it reduces charge back. Margins are super tight for a lot of OEMs and the PMs eliminate any non-profit features. Off the top of my head, there are savings in: Pick and place Stack Assembly Testing Improved phones/hour and therefore shorter/cheaper factory runs Packaging, especially if you eliminate the shitty wired earpieces in the box Less weight/volume and cheaper shipping Reduced warranty / chargeback because things that don’t exist can’t fail All of these savings are small. But remember that the goal is to make/sell 500K+ units. And, this is an industry where the bean counters will kill their mothers to shave a penny off of the BOM. So, yeah, for the OEM eliminating headphone jacks is a complete no brainer.
• exabrial 2y ago
  Its literally one of the dumbest things the "environmentalists" have shoved down consumers throats. "environmentalists" being you know: - https://www.apple.com/environment/ https://www.apple.com/environment/ - https://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/sustainability/environment/climate-action/ https://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/sustainability/envir... - https://sustainability.google/ https://sustainability.google/ It's all greenwashed bullshit.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• tlhunter 2y ago
  I've held onto my Pixel 4a5g as long as I could, being the last Google phone with a headphone jack. My Pixel 9 arrives in a few weeks but I was able to buy a used iPod to help satisfy my 3.5mm needs.
• Jakob 2y ago
  I prefer wired too, because of the much reduced latency and better sound quality both in and out. Especially important with calls around the world, where electron/light speed already adds 150 ms. I would hope that my call partner acted similarly but unfortunately they nearly never do. Maybe some future directed microphone and speaker setup in rooms will finally lead to the same comfort without the wire.
  • thayne 2y ago
    > electron/light speed Tangent, but changes in the electric field travel at the speed of light (in a copper wire, which is slightly slower than in a vacuum). The electrons themselves move much, much slower. The speed of light is what matters for speed of information transfer. It is analogous to a pipe of water. If you increase or decrease the pressure of the water at the input of the pipe, you can detect that difference in pressure at the other end long before the water molecules at the beginning of the pipe get at the time of the change get to the end of the pipe.
    • arh68 2y ago
      > changes in the electric field travel at the speed of light Isn't it ~2/3 c thru copper? Roughly equivalent to light-thru-glass. I'm not quite sure who is running hollow-core fiber.
      • thayne 2y ago
        It depends on the properties of the wire, but it can be as high as over 0.99c.
      • Jakob 2y ago
        TIL that signal speed in copper and in fiber is roughly similar, around 2/3 c. Thanks!
        • thayne 2y ago
          It depends on the properties of the wire, such as the diameter, the purity of the copper, type of insulation, etc. In a twisted pair wire the length the light travels is also longer than the external lenghth of the wire. Cat5 is has about the same velocity factor as fiber: 2/3, but Cat7 is closer to 3/4. Coaxial can get even higher.
• d_sem 2y ago
  Reminds me of the late Neil Postman, who gave space to consider that technological trends have secondary effects that can potential make life worse. As an avid user of wireless headphones I think its worth briefly entertaining the side effects. Increased expectation of isolation in classically social settings, possible long term ear damage, increased baseline cost to consumer.
• mikestew 2y ago
  My only complaint with the lack of a 3.5mm jack is that people apparently can’t figure out BT headphones, so they just play anything and everything through the phone speakers, whether others are around or not. It’s like the boombox era of the 80s, only with much more shitty sound quality, and it’s Grandma being obnoxious and not some punk teenager.
  • sincerely 2y ago
    I think it’s that phones no longer ship with a cheap pair of wired headphones
• soniman 2y ago
  Does anyone else use a cheap MP3 player and RSS feeds or am I the last dinosaur?
  • luuurker 2y ago
    I use RSS feeds. No MP3 player because my phone does the same job without me having to carry a second device :P
  • saulpw 2y ago
    I use a Sansa clip because it has clickable buttons that I can feel for when I can't use a phone screen, like at the dentist or in a sky village with light restrictions. Also I don't ever load my phone with the 2GB of my favorite mp3s, and I don't want to (and sometimes can't) stream music from a service on the internet.
    • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
      I use this too, since like 2013 or something. Still works. Also it has an SD card slot, so plenty of storage. And it includes a real working FM radio, weighs approximately nothing, and can clip to my sleeve. Battery lasts for ages. I never saw the appeal of putting music on my phone.
• thusky 2y ago
  They missed my biggest frustration with Bluetooth audio. I want to connect to the TV or my phone, but my headphones want to connect to my computer upstairs or vice versa. Now I have to go upstairs, apologize to the person using that device, and reach over their shoulder to unpair before it lets me connect to my phone. With a 3.5mm I know exactly which device I'm going to connect to and I don't have to negotiate with any 3rd parties for the privilege.
  • ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
    Totally - the user interface is so much easier with a 3.5mm jack. Want to pair it to a different device, just unplug it from the current one and plug it in the new one. No limits such as being only able to pair with two or three devices.
  • goosedragons 2y ago
    I wish NFC pairing was more widespread. It's only really supported on Android phones but it solved that issue. Just tap the two things together and boom paired.
  • TheBozzCL 2y ago
    This is incredibly frustrating with iPhones. At least Android and Windows lets you disable automatic connections, but on an iPhone your only choice is to unpair.
    • davesmylie 2y ago
      I think this apple in general. It astounds me that after so many years there is still no option in OSX to disable automatic connection to specific bluetooth devices. There are many, many threads on various forumns on the web, going back years, looking for a resolution to this, and the fix from apples end would appear to be trivial.
      • wwweston 2y ago
        The “don’t make me think” mantra got noticed by too many product stakeholders who made it their life motto, and so didn’t notice when it metastatized into “don’t let me think.”
• BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  Everyone gets to feel their own feelings, but there's just so much that doesn't resonate with me here... > I can’t use my Bluetooth earbuds while they’re charging. Many bluetooth headphones have battery life measuring in tens of hours. And every set I've used, long life or otherwise, recharge to 80% in a handful of minutes. I agree that an airpod's miniscule battery life is appalling, but you can stand to pull them out of your ears for five minutes every four hours, and you can charge them one at a time so you never need to stop listening, and my Bose QC35IIs still get more than an entire day of playtime after multiple years of recharge cycles. > In a critical-care facility, it’s hard enough to find one free mains socket to connect a charger to, let alone two. I haven't used a single-port USB charger in a decade. All of my chargers have multiple ports on them. GaN tech makes them very compact even at high power output. > Sound quality is better. Maybe in the abstract, but for most people this isn't meaningfully true in any way that actually matters to them. And if you're listening to "comedy shows and audiobooks" it definitely doesn't matter. Speech has an extremely limited useful frequency range, and those tracks are typically extremely compressed without any ill effect. > The headphone jack is a “just works” kind of technology... Nothing is ever fully a "just works" kind of technology. Things only just work until they stop working. The 3.5mm jack wore out after a year or so on every device I've ever owned that experienced plug/unplug cycles a few times per day because of accumulated minuscule amounts of force over time. This is more likely for devices like phones which are ultracompact and go in your pocket. Google for variations of "3.5mm port broken" or "loose audio jack" some time and you'll see that this is a common problem. The wires themselves also wear out from repeated flexing over time, even with strain relief. I had a pair of Shure E2c years ago that stopped working if I didn't hold a bend in the non-replaceable cable at a particular spot with a rubber band. > Ordinary wired earbuds can be small enough to wear whilst sleeping. I’ve never seen Bluetooth earbuds that are. Then you didn't really look IMO. Bluetooth headsets for sleeping is a whole cottage industry now. Anecdotally, I personally sleep fine in honking large Bose QC35 IIs, but that obviously depends on sleep position.
  • D13Fd 2y ago
    Completely agreed. Beyond that , the cost of adding a headphone jack is not the price of the physical component. It’s the fact that it forces the phone to be bulkier in one dimension or another. There is less space for other components.
• luuurker 2y ago
  I avoided phones without a headphone jack for a while for similar reasons. I didn't want to use a dongle or buy new wired headphones, and I didn't want to use a 1-to-2 USB-C/lightning dongle to listen to music and charge at the same time. Then I invested on a Sony WH-1000XM3 and suddenly battery life wasn't a problem anymore. That was a big change from the cheap bluetooth earphones I had used until that point, which had terrible battery life. I could use them for a full day, maybe forget to charge them, and it never ran out of battery. So I stopped using wired headphones. The downside was the price... the WH-1000XM3 wasn't cheap, but things have changed. Last year I wanted something smaller, so I bough the Anker Liberty 4 NC. Much cheaper, good noise cancelling, good enough sound quality, and from time to time use them for 8 hours straight (AAC mode) without putting them in the case. The earphones + case can last a week without charging them (with my usage of course). It wouldn't be a problem even if I was in hospital for a while, like in OP's case. So I'd say that the list of downsides is getting shorter as good bluetooth headphones get cheaper. It's still more expensive, but it's a different world compared to 5 years ago. If you still want to use wired headphones, then yeah, nothing has changed and losing the headphone jack is bad. But if you're willing to try wireless, then it's not as bad as it used to be.
• thusky 2y ago
  It isn't even "Bluetooth vs 3.5mm" it's 3.5mm vs. Not having 3.5mm Every phone prior to 2020 had both. If your 3.5mm broke that sucks, but that would just put you in the exact situation we have today generally. If you never use it anyway why do you care? I just don't understand how so many people are arguing in favor of a company obviously making a move to force their customers into buying something they didn't necessarily want.
• catlikesshrimp 2y ago
  It seems they flagged this post. I can only find it by searching for keywords. I think I will change one of the speakers of my new jack-less phone for a switching audio jack port.
• gpsx 2y ago
  I seem to have noticed a marked increase in the number of people in public listening to music with no headphones over the past several years, as in going from essentially 0 to it now being a thing. I wonder if this came from people not wanting use or buy USB headphones? Or because phones don't come with headphones anymore? (Personally, I have earpods but don't like them. I use a set of standard Apple headphones.)
  • baal80spam 2y ago
    I honestly think it's because people don't give a damn about people around them.
• WaitWaitWha 2y ago
  I prefer wireless locally, and wired when traveling. I use a two inexpensive LG neckband style wireless headsets during workout, short (under 4 hour flight); and whatever I can get my hands on flat wired headset, for long flights. Loss of buds: I have seen too many travelers freak out with their earbuds dropping on the floor on trains, planes, and taxis. With the wireless neckband and wired sets, there is much less chance of losing them, and even if I lose them the cost is minimal. Battery runs out: I have yet to have a wireless headset that can do a good job on long flights. They will run out of juice, specially if I turn on noise cancellation. Battery concerns: At several airports, I have to pull the wireless headsets out and place them separately because (justified or not) concerns over battery fires and "technology". No one cares about wired headsets. Microphones: I have yet to experience small, portable wireless headsets (not headphones) that have good enough microphones without a boom. Even the "inline" microphones for wired headsets often out-do wireless earbuds and similar. Size: Unless I use earbuds of some sort, a full around and even over the ear wireless headsets are significantly larger than some small wireless in-ear solution. When traveling size and weight counts. Earbuds although significantly smaller, they still have the charging pod/box that make them larger. The flat wired headsets just rarely tangle, and easy to fold. I can shovel one (or more) in any pocket, not have to worry about batteries, batteries exploding, and recharging. I do like the freedom of wireless when working out. Q: Anyone uses earbuds for conference calls? The biggest issues for me are either they cannot hear me, the background noise is too much, or they die too fast. I would welcome some suggestions. It would need to be able to pair with Android, iOS and PC. Thanks!
  • vindex10 2y ago
    > I prefer wireless locally, and wired when traveling. I'd go even bolder: wireless locally, mp3 player (wired) when traveling. I still have an IRiver from 2010s and its battery lasts forever. While my phone can survive a day, then, without me worrying about getting lost without Maps and power :)
  • Kirby64 2y ago
    Modern ANC headphones (over ear) have plenty of battery life for any flight. Most are north of 30 hours, some reaching 50 hours even with ANC on. For planes there’s just nothing better than over ear headphones for noise canceling.
• liendolucas 2y ago
  Nothing beats the cable. It simply works. You don't need to worry about running out of battery, bluetooth disconnections or getting hurt in case a battery explodes (as was discussed in a thread about someone who if I recall correctly got their Bose headphones turning on fire). Wireless audio should always be a secondary thing. All devices should come with the beloved jack. Even if you purchase some respectable audio speakers or sound bars is very likely they come without it. Is really lame. But as the article mentions, these wireless headphones are designed to be purchased over and over again, hence the reason to put this technology everywhere. As someone else said it, would be awesome to have a regulation to force companies to always provide the headphone jack.
  • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Nothing beats the cable. It simply works Except when it didn’t. The cables got tangled, caught, kinked and broken. Sure, the well-made ones didn’t threaten to detach from the buds. But well-made wireless headphones don’t suffer the problems you mention. > would be awesome to have a regulation to force companies to always provide the headphone jack I suppose we should also require everything play vinyl?
    • liendolucas 2y ago
      Wireless headphones have an expiry date, when the battery is completely out you have to throw them away. Up to this date I haven't witnessed a single pair of earbuds that its battery can be easily replaced. Attempting to do so might break them beyond repairability. So is not only that is the wireless thing, is that these are also built so if you attempt to open them you break them, this for me is another reason not to buy them. I do own a pair of wired Audio Technica headphones. Since 2016 they have experienced use almost every day. I do still use them to this very day. Only thing I have to do is replace the earpads from time to time.
      • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > do own a pair of wired Audio Technica headphones They seem to work well for you. I respect that choice. That doesn’t mean it has to be compatible without an adapter with every device on the market. (In the same way every device shouldn’t have to support wireless headphones.)
• AStonesThrow 2y ago
  I was pleased to find that USB-C earphones are now inexpensive and plentiful. It was a must-purchase for my Pixel. The USB audio interface is mature and stable. It better supports the little remote button controls too. There are unfortunately two drawbacks which may make USB inferior to other interfaces: the C plug is small and weak. Already my first set of earphones became unusable due to a loose, flaky connector. Also, given that phones only sport a single USB, the earphones monopolize it and, sadly, prevent charging, PC interface, tethering, etc.
• debo_ 2y ago
  If USB-C becomes the new standard for wired headphones, I'm ok with that, especially if it means thinner phones. I inherited a Pixel 3A a couple years after it was released, and I still have it. I didn't even realize that headphone jacks were being phased out. It would be nice if we started to get more than one usb port on a phone, but I already have small USB-C docks for laptops that would work well.
• dgrin91 2y ago
  My understanding of the advantages is that the 3.5mm Jack is "big" in terms of space taken on the internal of the phone, and that real estate is valuable. Also it was becoming a bottleneck for phone thickness. Don't know if that's all just marketing bs though
• whs 2y ago
  All the phones I used were Nexus and Pixel. Pixel 3a XL was my last Pixel and now I switched to Sony. They're expensive - they're priced without care to competitor's pricing and sold at Sony stores only. Most people in the street wouldn't know Sony still make phones today. I don't think I'll go back to Pixel until Sony drop the headphone jack as well, or someone invented a lightweight pluggable backpack that charges everything inside. Until then I'm not touching the backpack when I'm at home - the wireless mouse use disposable AA batteries, my portable battery stays uncharged, the laptop is charged while using it. Also on Bluetooth, the phone connects to the Tesla and the Samsung soundbar with SBC as the only option. The only thing that use something else is my DAC with Sony's own LDAC. There's nowhere telling you why it doesn't use better codec. Wired always deliver the best quality your hardware could.
• Eric_WVGG 2y ago
  My unpopular opinion is that wired earphones are really great if you really love the sensation of getting your ears ripped off when your cord hooks on something when you stand up, and you don't care much about maximizing battery life in your mobile device. They are also truly ridiculous now that you can just swap out your cable for a USB audio cable. (If the cord is hard-wired to the headphones… okay so you have cheap headphones? Why even care then?) I don't get it.
  • exodust 2y ago
    > I don't get it. My iPad Pro has no 3.5mm jack, so I must use the flimsy USB dongle to use my Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro headphones (great open-back headphones). Why doesn't a "pro" iPad have a 3.5mm jack? It makes no sense. When the iPad battery gets low, I can't charge the iPad while using the headphones. There is nothing "pro" about this. Sometimes I like to connect my phone to my powered studio monitors with a 3.5mm cable. Again, the phone can't be charged while I do this. It's why I keep an old iPhone 6s around because it has the 3.5mm.
    • Eric_WVGG 2y ago
      > Again, the phone can't be charged while I do this Magsafe! (Yes, that's not a solution for your iPad Pro. I wish they'd extend Smart Connector — basically MagSafe for iPad — licensing to more charging devices, and build it into all models.)
  • ziml77 2y ago
    Door handles loved to take them too. You could try to make the cord taut to reduce snagging but then turning your head or sitting down would pull them out. And I often had issues with cord noise from the cable rubbing against clothing. I was glad when wireless headphone sound quality and battery life became good enough and was more than happy to use them over higher end IEMs.
  • camgunz 2y ago
    I just run the cable under my shirt/sweater/hoodie/jacket; problem solved.
• TheBozzCL 2y ago
  It’s sad, but at least portable USB DACs have come a long way. My personal choice is the Qudelix 5K.
• sandreas 2y ago
  So, while this is kind of true, and I totally support having headphone jacks in phones (I'm on a Pixel 4a) this post lacks many details and "alternatives". Modern phones might have wireless charging - so charging while listening is possible even with a dongle. There are USB-C only headphones - so not always a dongle is required. There are (overear) Bluetooth headphones that support charging while listening > The headphone jack is a “just works” kind of technology: there’s nothing complicated about it, and its not encumbered by patents, so anybody can make compatible equipment. Oh boy did Apple have success using a proprietary chip for their volume control in EarPods[1] and preventing others except 1more from supporting it. Although proprietary I just love the support oft TRRS driven playback control Apple introduced (play, Pause, rewind etc). Android also supports this these days, although not AS good. I even submitted a PR[2] to audiobookshelf to support Apple like headset controls, but it has not been merged yet. I still use an iPod Nano 7g to listen to audio books until today :-) 1: https://tinymicros.com/wiki/Apple_iPod_Remote_Protocol https://tinymicros.com/wiki/Apple_iPod_Remote_Protocol 2: https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf-app/pull/1218 https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf-app/pull/1218
  • zczc 2y ago
    As far as I remember, TRRS playback control was implemented first by Nokia, but Nokias had 2.5mm jack and switched to 3.5mm only after iPhone.
    • sandreas 2y ago
      Cool i didn't know that
  • jauntywundrkind 2y ago
    Some of the dongles are also absurdly unobtrusive. And stunningly cheap. The main downside as i see it (besides the jack not being a default) is that few also are sleek and have usb power. I also think people don't really grok how much complexity & size the jack adds. The footprint of the jack is significant (>3 the plug size). It requires physical reinforcement around it. Often it needs additional chips & passives that take up more space. Keeping water intrusion out requires more careful design. I spent a decade quietly thinking I might never ever use Bluetooth, wondering why people would give up something so concrete for something a little more complex. But I bought some cheap Plantronics Backbeat 903's and found it quite enjoyable being untethered, used them for almost a decade, and have found few of my fears or concerns manifested in practice. It's been great.
• TrianguloY 2y ago
  My reason for sticking with the jack (and buying a phone that has one) is that I extensively jump between my phone, computer, tablet, 3ds, switch (and sometimes other consoles) and the jack is the most plug&listen I know that just works
• t0bia_s 2y ago
  I don't use wireless headphones because they are impractical and quality is low and I feel unconfortable to put wireless emitter almost in my brain. I don't use 3,5mm jack on my phone as well, because output from S10e is terrible. So I connect fiio DAC via USB-C and wired Shure headphones to DAC. I don't understand why anyone, who cares about sound quality, complainis about output, that crippling that quality.
  • vel0city 2y ago
    The drivers in your wired headphones are also wireless emitters almost in your brain.
    • t0bia_s 2y ago
      How something wired is suddenly wireless?
      • vel0city 2y ago
        In reality there is no "wired" and "wireless". Things which are "wireless" just use the air as a crappy wire. Anything with current flowing is creating electromagnetic fields. The wires and coils driving the magnets also act like little antennas and lose energy to the surrounding environment through RF radiation. In fact, it is exactly the property that the field exists outside of the wire which enables it to push/pull the magnet in the driver. It is the RF emissions produced by the coils that moves the magnet which pushes the diaphragm which makes the pressure waves you experience as sound. This is why crosstalk on cables is an issue. This is why little transformers can cause issues with wireless devices. Everything electronic creates some kind of RF emission. Everything electronic is a wireless emitter. You can even end up seeing the contents of a wired display because of the RF leakage of monitors. These aren't "wireless" by any measure, and yet their video can be detected and decoded wirelessly. https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/exposing-computer-monitor-side-channel-vulnerabilities-with-tempestsdr/ https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/exposing-computer-monitor-si...
• gravitronic 2y ago
  Brings to mind a viral tweet I saw years ago, "my roommate asked to charge his cigarette but he had to wait as I was charging my book. The future sucks"
• freehorse 2y ago
  > The headphone jack is a “just works” kind of technology: there’s nothing complicated about it [..] While the connector itself is indeed simple, a DAC is also needed inside, and one needs a decent DAC/amp on the phone to get a decent signal. In a cheaper smartphone, you are probably better off with bluetooth/aptx. Moreover, jack cables "just work" until they start making weird stuff depended on how they get bent or stretched or the connectors touch. I experience a surge of anxiety even writing this right now.
  • ghusto 2y ago
    > In a cheaper smartphone, you are probably better off with bluetooth/aptx Even a cheap phone’s DAC is going to sound better than any BT codecs.
    • Kirby64 2y ago
      Not true, modern BT codecs can be essentially transparent, and cheap 3.5mm jacks can have all sorts of issues. Bad noise performance, bad interchannel isolation, pop click issues, etc. don’t underestimate how badly you can design a 3.5mm jack especially if the phone only costs like $50 total.
      • brnt 2y ago
        Despite what audiophiles believe, DACs are a relatively solved problem and quality does not correlate with price.
        • Kirby64 2y ago
          As a non audiophile who designs this stuff for a living, you’re correct it’s not difficult or even particularly expensive. But it’s also surprisingly common to do it poorly.
    • noisem4ker 2y ago
      The only truly, audibly lousy Bluetooth codec is low-bitrate SBC. Anything better than that is going to be transparent to most ears. The awfulness of cheap/low-power DACs, on the other hand, knows no limit.
• UtopiaPunk 2y ago
  Headphone jacks are easier to use with friends. A few years ago, if a friend was riding with me in the car, I would offer them a chance to plug their phone into the audio system using a 3.5mm cable. Now, most of my friends don't have a phone with the audio jack, and pairing their phone via bluetooth is a small headache that also seems to have a small random chance of failure. Similarly, I used to keep a "headphone splitter" cable in my laptop back and backpack. If I were listening to something interesting or funny, I could share that with someone, connecting two (or more!) pairs of headphones to one device. I think it may be technically possible to do something similar on the latest bluetooth standards, but even thinking about trying to do it makes me tired. On a different note, I have an old but nice hifi stereo in my home. It has a few different audio sources, but the one I use the most is my previous smartphone, which sits next to the stereo, permanently connected with a 3.5mm cable. It has no mobile data plan, but it connects to my home's wifi, and I use it to play music from a streaming service and to my media server that holds a collection of ripped CDs. I think it's a great way to extend the usefulness of an elecronic device, but that is only made possible by utilizing widely adopted standards.
  • outlore 2y ago
    i feel your pain about splitting of audio without a headphone jack. there are some devices like the Airfly Duo (no affiliation) that can connect via Bluetooth to two devices, but those require that at least your device has an audio jack
    • hoerensagen 2y ago
      Splitting audio via Bluetooth works completely fine for me. Doesn't need any extra apps or devices. But I was also very surprised when found out that this works now.
      • ofrzeta 2y ago
        How does it work? I've never seen it and a Google search doesn't show anything useful. What Bluetooth version?
• outlore 2y ago
  i’ve started carrying the cheap wired Apple earbuds because the call/microphone quality on Bose QC45 headphones and Ultra Open earbuds is so bad, especially when outside. i really wish there existed some solution to use the phone’s built-in mic when using bluetooth headphones
• drivingmenuts 2y ago
  It's easy to absolutely prove that wired headphones/earbuds are better than wireless: 1. Have one person with wireless earbuds and one person with wired earbuds stand over a street grate. 2. Each person removes one phone from one ear and drops it. 3. The one who can recover their earpiece wins.
• alasarmas 2y ago
  I feel like Bluetooth earbuds are almost in the phase where they will, at the low end of the market, completely displace wired earbuds. At my local Dollar Tree, wired earbuds (and USB-C charging cables) are now available for $1.25. Micro USB charging cables are no longer in stock, but a couple of years ago, they were $1, while USB-C charging cables were too expensive to appear at the Dollar Tree. At that same location, Bluetooth earbuds are now available for $5, but perhaps in a couple of years they will be $1.25, or whatever the least expensive items at a “dollar store” will cost at that time.
• ofrzeta 2y ago
  FWIW you can get adapters from Lightning or USB-C to 3.5 mm jack for 5 Euros/Dollars.
• anal_reactor 2y ago
  I disagree with the sentiment "wired headphones are better by every metric" because when doing sports, cables are simply annoying. Having said that, my phone does have an audio jack, because once a year I actually do need it.
• vegadw 2y ago
  I just this weekend """upgraded""" from an S9+ to an S24+, losing the 3.5mm jack, but not without the exact sentiment of the author. I looked at every possible option to retain my jack, but ultimately found myself forced into either a new Samsung or Pixel due to their commitment to an actually reasonable-ish update lifetime promise of 7-ish years. (I'd really expect 10 at this point, but c'est la vie). I upgraded ONLY because I'm uncomfortable not having security updates/patches. Otherwise, frankly, I can't even tell the difference. Upon quick tests, I think I even prefer the camera on my S9+. I absolutely, passionately hate Bluetooth. I hate not being able to share the jack in the car. I hate spotty connections. I hate needing a dongle. I hate the subtle loss of high end frequency content's quality. I hate the pain in the ass of pairing. 3.5mm had its share of problems, but this was a cartel making a cash grab and I am absolutely livid I have to play the game. I've ran a poll in a lot of the tech group chat's I'm in multiple times. Over 40%, each time, is willing to pay $50 more to have the jack back. The manufactures know this, but know it pales in comparison to the profit of some new bluetooth headphones. We don't need monoplolies to negatively impact tech, just a few big players to intentionally normalize boning their own customers. We need consumer protection laws that reflect that normal.