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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.
It's simple, really. New is not necessarily better. Change for the sake of change is rarely beneficial to the end user.
But, unfortunately for the public, neither observation helps sell more widgets. Rather quite the opposite.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
.
The media content industry has already done away with analogue video output jacks. Now they are focusing on audio.
It's been decades I got plagued with loose mini-jack connectors. My 4s and iPad 1 still work perfectly, as do newer devices I have.
It's been a complain by Apple for long that MiniJack is too thick for the design goals they were targeting. Reusing BT or USB/C or Lightning connectors saves port space, allows for a second speaker (eg., in Apple's forthcoming design if we're to believe the hype). I think manufacturers will come to realize we still want jacks (I do as I dont want to have to charge my headphones) and provide combined-plug allowing charging while still having MiniJack headphones connected. If not, their loss.
Micro USB jacks wear out even more quickly. I wonder what the new connectors will be like. Everything is getting shittier.
For what value of "ridiculously"? I don't have a single 3.5 mm jack in the house with bad connection poltergeists.
But then, I'm still running an NAD 7140 from the 1980s as my stereo amplifier. Had to go in there last week with electrical contact cleaner to take the crackle out of the volume and balance pots, but I'm sure the audio jack still works perfectly. I'd have replaced some of the electrolytics, too, if my ears could hear any defects.
Obviously, though, I'm not a desirable Apple customer on several counts (ability to fix things myself, willingness to keep using unfashionable equipment that still works fine, ability to tell whether unfashionable equipment still works fine), so there is that.
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..)
That's exactly the problem. The companies want proprietary. Hell, this goes back the earliest Macs, with their unique mouse, keyboard, and printer ports, and their scuzzy drive connectors... I can understand the reasons, but it's one of those things held them back in market share. Imagine, with their unquestionably superior software and CPUs of the time, how much they would completely dominate if they just opened the tent a little bit to let others play.
And where would the PC be if IBM's bios wasn't pried open? Too bad the same ruling didn't apply to Apple
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I haven't had to fiddle with poor jacks in nearly 20 years. Stop buying cheap garbage and you'll be okay.
It wears out ridiculously fast. I've had to find the "sweet spot" on an untold number of 3.5mm jacks. You either have to twist the plug to the perfect angle or apply pressure on the correct side, or else you get no sound or severely diminished sound.
This has been my experience as well. Not every jack fails - but it still happens more often than for any other jack type that I commonly use. However, I'm still not happy about the move to USB (or Lightning) for everything.
Why? Because manufacturers are cheaping out by actually removing the headphone jack, rather than replacing it. If everything plugs in by USB, good - but I still need to be able to plug in more than one thing at a time, and no I don't want to add a bulky hub to do it.
Phones are the size of mini-tablets these days and you're telling me there is no more room for a headphone jack?
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.
This is the problem with your analog headphone jack -- there's no vendor lock-in possible! This grievous error must be stopped.
Apple almost had this going on with the original iPhone, they just sank the jack down a couple millimeters into the phone so most headphones couldn't plug in properly because their plug was too large. But soon headphone makers started slimming down the plug diameter, and those crafty Chinese made little dongles for existing phones to connect. And what could Apple do? They couldn't copyright a certain diameter hole. But now, oh, but now... we have digital audio transmission possible and decoding chips so small they can literally be inside the headphones themselves, or even just the plug you hook into the device. So now we can just encrypt everything and make headphone producers pay the device manufacturer for a license to be allowed to make third-party accessories. Apple can make money without lifting a finger now. And you wont be able to use your nice $300 earphones your got for your android device or laptop on your iPhone as well. No, now your get to buy two pairs of headphones for twice the price instead.
Seriously, though. I can't wait to hear how Apple spins this as being a good thing at the next iPhone announcement in a few months here.
It wears out ridiculously fast. I've had to find the "sweet spot" on an untold number of 3.5mm jacks. You either have to twist the plug to the perfect angle or apply pressure on the correct side, or else you get no sound or severely diminished sound.
This has been my experience as well. Not every jack fails - but it still happens more often than for any other jack type that I commonly use.
This is cray. I've used tons of audio jacks over the years (being both an audio person and a mobile DJ). I've worn our FAR more micro-USB ports (and more expensively to replace) than I've ever had problems with headphone jacks. And the two times I've had problems with headphones, a tiny amount of solder fixed it.
More to the point -- simpler is better.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
So instead you want to break your power charging plug hole, the one you now generally use once per day and that with a fixed battery. So instead a potential proprietary socket, that will wear out, destroying the phone because no it connects to nothing and you can not pull out a flat battery and replace it with a charged battery. Yep, gullibly being sold another B$ marketing line. So with an existing ear socket phone you can listen through the usb socket with the right hardware and software but not fucking while you are charging the phone but that's OK you can swap out the battery and charge it separately, oh wait no you fucking can't.
When I am sitting back at home listening to my phone with a headset, as I am not moving, I charge up the phone at the same time, it's common sense and I have decades old cd/radio players that still plug fine their headsets work fine, so worn socket, likely crappy off spec plugs.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
expect to buy one in the next couple months (OK, I'm not all that serious about it yet). The 2 things I demand are a regular headphone jack, and an SDCC card slot. If a phone has both of those I go on to look at other features.
Using the headphone jack I can plug my phone into my stereo system and listen to MP3s. Granted, it's not top quality. But it's better than earbud, and definitely better than nothing. My stereo has neither USB nor bluetooth, and damned if I'm gonna buy a new stereo with my new phone.
I've never had that problem in 40+ years of using headphone jacks and plugs.
Actually, I have had this problem before - but not for the past 20-30 years. Back in the days when cheap transistor radios were a thing, I semi-regularly had earphone/headphone jacks break on me. Usually you could easily re-solder them, unless the manufacturer did something evil like encase it in rubber.
But with computers, iPods, and smartphones? Never had an issue.
#DeleteChrome
Oh man, I would definitely carry a tube smartphone.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Indeed, I've never had a modern 3,5mm headphone port wear out. I've had a lot of micro-USB ports wear out. : And it's only logical that would be the case, the electrodes on the headphone port are far more robust than those on a micro-USB port.
I know that the standard response to "3,5mm port removal is the feature that nobody requested" is "it'll be painless and we'll be able to use the extra space to more useful internal hardware without having to make the phone bigger". But just ignoring the "painless" thing... how much more "capability" can you add in such a little space? That's enough for what, maybe 5% more battery time?
Maybe I'm wierd, but I couldn't give a rat's arse how thick a phone is... I just want it to be robost and not a big headache.
Hourglass says she knows a kid in Iowa who grows up to be president.
So far, my objection is that they don't work well. I got a BT hands-free headset, and had the idea of listening to audiobooks on my commute. Nope - after a while, my Android phone somehow borked the volume. It plays so soft I can't hear the thing. Until this tech gets much more reliable, it's too early to kill the analog jack.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
If that is true, then it is true because it is the jack that you use far more often than any other type of jack. I treat headphones like crap, and headphone jacks even more horribly. The last time I had one actually break was on a PowerBook 145 (where I broke at least two or three headphone jacks). Even with massive abuse, I haven't broken one in any hardware built in the past twenty years.
On my first iPhone, I did have one instance where the jack thought headphones were plugged in when they weren't. That took a little bit of jiggling with a pair of headphones to resolve. But at no point have I ever seen a modern jack break. Not in my gear, not in gear belonging to anyone I know.
I have, however, seen Lightning plugs break off in the jacks. Not only will you lose your headphones when that happens, but also the ability to charge your phone. On the plus side, Apple is going to sell a LOT more AppleCare plans after people break their third or fourth Lightning jack. So my stock loves the idea....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
that's the darkest wiki entry ever for a consumer electronics product. literally:
* reaction at launch
* criticism
* discontinuation
at the very least, they could link to what the reviewers said at the time it was released.
I've had to find the "sweet spot" on an untold number of 3.5mm jacks.
Well... Your partners say you try to find it and give you an "A" for effort.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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....
I've used about 10 BT headsets over the years. The best ones for latency of response are my LG HBS 730's (not the newer ones) and those were really good (100 milliseconds, no sound delay) However, I don't wear BT headphones because they strain my neck, fall off, or (in the case of those cheap Amazon eel-looking ones - simply didn't hold in my ear too well.
They're really convenient, but there's a reason I don't use them anymore (other than they wore out). I use Apple Earpods (don't buy those on Amazon either - too many knockoffs and AZ doesn't care if you get scammed) - they're essentially sweatproof, they stay in nicely, don't tangle, and are relatively cheap for decent sound quality ($30).
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You are apparently unaware that, to date, the only phones which have shipped without headphone jacks are Android phones...
No, I'm very aware of that -- it's kinda the point of TFA. There are already devices with this design decision, and there seems to be no positive in it (for the consumer), it just saves the manufacturer a few cents a unit and makes locking music playback down easier. All the ways people could listen to music on their phone without using the 3.5mm headphone jack were available before the change, so removing the port only stands to remove that other option for the user. It adds zilch to the customer experience.
The issue here is, unlike the Android platform, the customer can't just say "Well, if Apple is going to get rid of the headphone jack on the next iPhone, I'll just get another manufacturer's iOS smartphone". That's why this is a bigger deal.
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
The headphone jack interface is ancient. So is the Edison screw light bulb, but that fitting is still commonplace. Simply being old is not a good reason to abandon technology. The floppy drive was killed off not because it was old, but because superior alternatives were available. What is the superior alternative to the headphone jack? What else can offer the same convenience, low cost, universal compatibility, and reliability?
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. .
You mean Monster Aether? Plugs into the wall like those room perfume thingies, and spreads complex organic molecules tuned to the specific BT frequencies, to help carry the signal and keep it coherent. Reduces noise in BT headsets and results in a more natural, warmer sound, and completely eliminates bit-flutter. Comes in pine & lavender or sweet jasmine. Only €49,99
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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.
Everyone hates all-caps.
NOT ME!
Micro USB jacks wear out even more quickly. I wonder what the new connectors will be like. Everything is getting shittier.
And increasing their usage will decrease their lifetime.
I like my headphone jack near the top of the phone, not at the bottom where the usb port typically is. I also may want to listen while I am charging. I also don't like the extra bulk of BT headphones, nor the cost for what is often crappy audio quality.
That's why I fitted my phone with an XLR socket.
It's sufficient to bear my own bodyweight.
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.