Slashdot Mirror
Phones Without Headphone Jacks Are Here... and They're Extremely Annoying (mashable.com)
A few weeks ago, we had an intense discussion on what would happen if Apple's next iPhone doesn't have a headphone port -- and what that means for the rest of the industry, as well as the pros and cons of ditching the legacy port. Over the past few months, we have seen many smartphone manufacturers launch new handsets that don't have a headphone jack. Mashable has a report today in which it says that it is already causing frustration among users. From the article: In the Android camp, phones like Lenovo's Moto Z and Moto Z Force and China's LeEco have already scrapped the 3.5mm headphone jack; to listen to music on the company's three latest phones, users need to plug in USB Type-C headphones, go wireless, or use a dongle. I'm all for letting go of old technologies to push forward, but what is happening is actually going to make things worse. The headphone jack has worked for 50 years and it can work for another 50 more because it's universal. Headphones I plug into my iPhone work in an Android phone, in a BlackBerry, in my computer, in my PS4 controller, in my tablet, in any speaker with audio-out, and so on. I can walk into any electronics store and pick up a pair of headphones and not have to worry about compatibility with any of my devices. I know it'll work. [...] With a universal headphone jack, I never have to worry whether or not the crappy pack-in iPhone EarPods I have will work with the Android phone I'm reviewing or not. I also never have to worry if I'll be able to plug my headphones into a friend's phone to listen to some new song. Same applies for when I want to use my earbuds and headphones with another person's device. And there lies the real issue. I will need different dongles -- a Lightning-to-headphone-jack and a USB-Type-C-to-headphone-jack to be prepared because I do carry both iPhone and Android phone on me daily. Dongles also get lost.
What needs to happen but NEVER will, is people need to STOP BUYING products that do asinine stuff like this.. I guar-on-teeee if NOBODY bought these phones and raised a stink with the manufacturer of said phones, you'd get some action.. Not from the "raising a stink" but from the NOT BUYING....
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
I've never had that problem in 40+ years of using headphone jacks and plugs. Maybe you're using them improperly.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I don't think the 3.5mm jack is actually a panacea. It's limited to a single stereo output, and numerous incompatible hacks have been grafted on to allow it be used for microphone input and for phone or music controls.
But you can't just get rid of it without an adequate replacement at the ready, with cheap adapters available that you can easily just slot onto the end of a 3.5mm jack.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In no particular order:
That first one by itself is a showstopper for me. The rest just add more reasons to question the sanity of Apple's upper management. Not that I needed more reasons to question their sanity given that they're still trying to make the d**n things thinner even after they were forced to reengineer parts of the iPhone 6 Plus to fix bending problems....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
50 years ago, most everyone's headphone jacks were 1/4" (6.35mm), and only monaural. They introduced 3.5mm (still mono) way back when, but almost nobody was using them until much more recently. When stereo was needed, two 3.5mm jacks/pins were used side-by-side. It was only more recently that 3-connector stereo jacks were introduced.
They also shrunk it again to 2.5mm, which was popular on dumb phones and 2-way radios, but that one didn't catch on too well. But you can just as easily say that sub-mini plug has been around for decades, so we should all be happy to use that...
And they added a 4th conductor, most often for video (but possibly for a microphone), but nobody agreed to a standard so the wiring is always incompatible between devices, and that didn't catch on very well, either.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Perhaps the Peter principle applies to bad ideas, as well as people. Perhaps a 'headphone-ports considered harmful' meme has arisen to its level of incompetence within Motorola. And it attempts to propagate itself every decade or so...
In 2006, I remember being bugged that my Motorola SLVR required a special USB headphone jack. Plus, you couldn't charge the phone and use the headset at the same time (say, for listening to music). Other people thought so too... from this phone's top rated Amazon review :
"CONS... No dedicated headphone jack ( form over function compromise)"
So the idea failed and Moto went back to headphone jacks.
Now its 2016. Bluetooth and Apple seem to have encouraged this meme to reemerge at Motorola. So we now have ... the Moto Z Force, with its innovative USB headphone port. And it appears you cannot charge the phone and use the headset at the same time. .
The micro USB wear issue is largely because the port wasn't designed for regular use. The USB logo certification spec only requires 500 plug-unplug cycles. USB Type C spec requires 10,000.
Far from standard except that 99.999% of stereo headphones will work in 99.99% of equipment with an audio jack.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
MicroUSB was designed for 10,000 cycles, the same as Type-C. You might be thinking of MiniUSB, but even that was for 5000 cycles, not 500. Standard A/B was designed for 1500 cycles.
Music at http://www.ignorantbliss.co.uk/
I don't know who modded this up but it is wrong.
The Micro-USB jack was designed for the same amount of cycles as the the USB-C port. The MINI-USB jack was not designed for so many plug cycles, and even that was larger than 500. Furthermore the Micro-USB jack was designed such that the failure point is the cable end, not in the jack itself.
The micro-USB wear issue is due to cheap and nasty connectors combined with poor integration, nothing more nothing less. There's a world of difference in quality out there and the good connectors rarely if ever have an issue.