Sorry, Apple, the Headphone Jack Isn't Going Anywhere (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Rob Pegoraro via Yahoo Finance: Two things unite almost every phone on display here at Mobile World Congress 2017: Android and a headphone jack. Apple doesn't exhibit its wares at this trade show, so the domination of Google's operating system is predictable. But the headphone jack's persistence did not look so inevitable when Apple cut it from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus last September. Lenovo's Motorola subsidiary had already shipped a phone without a headphone hack, the Moto Z, and Apple's influence over the rest of the smartphone industry remains formidable -- indeed, within months, the Chinese firm LeEco had debuted a lineup of Android phones devoid of headphone jacks. As my colleague David Pogue predicted in a post approving Apple's move: "Other brands worldwide will be following suit." The hardware on display here at the world's largest mobile tech conference, though, suggests otherwise. Two days of walking around the show floor showed companies expressing a consistent unwillingness to abandon the humble headphone jack, even on models as thin as, or thinner than, the iPhone 7. The MWC floor revealed only one company willing to do away with the headphone jack: HTC. The Taiwan-based firm, which has struggled financially for years despite shipping such well-reviewed models as the HTC 10, used its exhibit to showcase the U Ultra and the U Play, which rely on their USB-C ports for audio output. Unlike, Apple, though, the company didn't make the move to save space, but rather to incorporate its "USonic" feature, which lets the phones' headphones calibrate themselves to your ears and provide noise cancellation.

Comments

HTC

[msauve]

"Unlike, Apple, though, the company didn't make the move to save space, but rather to incorporate its "USonic" feature, which lets the [USB] phones' headphones calibrate themselves to your ears and provide noise cancellation."

Oh, bullshit. There's no reason the headphone jack has to be removed to support that. They're not mutually exclusive.

Re:HTC

[Tx]

It's true that you need power for active noise cancellation, however it's pretty trivial to supply that power via a DC bias voltage over the regular audio signal on a headphone jack, and use any one of many trivial methods to detect supported headphone to switch that bias voltage on or off.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone honestly think that Apple cares whether other companies drop the headphone jack on their phones?

Re:Really?

[MBGMorden]

They kinda do. Apple has be seen as a trendsetter. We were the FIRST to remove the old outdated headphone jack.

If the other companies buck the trend, then there is the public perception to think of iPhones as "those stupid phones that don't even have a headphone jack" instead of "those cool phones that did away with that outdated tech".

If they public's opinion doesn't sway I'd expect to see the headphone jack back on the iPhone by the time the iPhone 9 comes out.

Re:Remember when Apple went full USB?

[gaiageek]

This is the exact argument that I'm sure someone at Apple made -- and the exact argument that shows that some people just don't get it.

Headphones are not SCSI hard drives. Headphones are not PS/2 mice. One of my favorite pairs of headphones was purchased around the same year I once bought a SCSI card (1996), and I still use them today.

They're an item which is very personal. You don't wear a hard drive. You WEAR headphones. On walks to class or work, riding the subway, on transcontinental flights, lying in bed late at night. They may be pressed up against or even inside your ears for hours each day. When someone who uses headphones a lot finds a pair that they love, it's a bond that is not easily broken. And certainly not for something new that will either 1. easily get lost, 2. require recharging at some inconvenient time or 3. die a slow death as their rechargeable batteries wear out.

Apple was the brand for many musicians and music producers. Taking away the audio jack was another big "fuck you" to that following who were long some of Apple's most ardent supporters.