Rejoice: Samsung's Next Flagship Smartphone Looks To Keep the Headphone Jack Alive (theverge.com)

Notorious smartphone leaker Evan Blass has leaked a couple press images of the Galaxy S9, giving us the first indication that it will still have a headphone jack. "The full information spill today is actually focused on a new Samsung DeX Pad, which appears to be an evolution of last year's DeX dock for the Galaxy S8," reports The Verge. From the report: Samsung, LG, and a couple of other companies like OnePlus have remained resolute in their inclusion of a headphone jack, but that was far from a certainty for the next Galaxy S iteration. This is a phone that will compete against the iPhone X, Huawei Mate 10 Pro, and more niche rivals like Google's Pixel 2: all of them surviving sans a headphone jack. So Samsung could have dumped the analog audio output, but it seems to have opted against it, and that's worthy of commendation. USB-C earphones are all still either bad or expensive -- or both -- and phones that retain compatibility with 3.5mm connectors remain profoundly useful to consumers that aren't yet convinced by Bluetooth.

Comments

One Word

[Anonymous Coward]

This move of keeping the headphone jack can be summed up in one word: Cowardice

Re: One Word

[Anonymous Coward]

They're afraid to get rid of a user friendly restore to try to squeeze even more cash out of consumers? Instead they opted to allow us to use our existing headphone, and provide high quality AKGs in the box too, which are excellent with Skype for Business for meetings on the go. Or I could piss around with expensive Bluetooth earbuds, hoping they're charged and I didn't lose one.

Idiot.

Re: One Word

[Anonymous Coward]

I am fairly certain the AC was being facetious.

Re: One Word

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a pair of Beats wireless and they aren't that great anyway. The fit isn't the best, the sound isn't the best, and you have to charge them. There are some instances I prefer them, namely when on a treadmill and I don't want a cord flaying around, but otherwise I prefer regular headphone-jack encumbered earphones. One instance where I was specifically disappointed with the bluetooth headphones is I went for a walk with them and 10 minutes later the battery died. Too far to turn back, I walked the rest of the way with no music. Lame.

Re: One Word

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's play a game - every time your wireless headphones die on you while you go for a walk - you rape your sister.

Re: One Word

[dbialac]

Truthfully, the sound would suck even if they were wired because they're Beats. Beats makes shitty headphones and then sells them as though they're high quality by putting them in that price range. Read any review of them, they're always last or close to it and never recommended.

Re: One Word

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the reason Apple bought them. They fit perfectly together

Re: One Word

[desdinova 216]

I was surprised by getting those AKG earbuds when recently bought a S8. I probably won't use them since I don't find earbuds comfortable.

Thanks Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be switching to you when I next upgrade.

Re:Thanks Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be switching to you when I next upgrade.

BOOM!

Re:Thanks Samsung

[ColdWetDog]

I'll be switching to you when I next upgrade.

Come on baby, light my fire.

Re:Thanks Samsung

[green1]

Why? to reward them for all the other horrible things they've done?

They've removed almost every feature they used to include on their devices (IR transmitters, HDMI output, SD card slots, user replaceable batteries, phones that weren't so slippery you couldn't hold them without a case, widest screens in the market) and instead given a slightly faster phone than their previous offerings, but because they didn't remove one more feature you think they deserve your loyalty?

Wow we've set the bar low these days!

Re:Thanks Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

We always set the bar lower for companies we've established a strong emotional attachment to. Observe how google & fb are turning into the monsters that ate free speech and hardly a word is mentioned anywhere.

Re:Thanks Samsung

[rtb61]

I am holding off for the next phone that provides user replaceable battery and screen. Something that really extends the life of a phone.

Re:Thanks Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

Still better than apple.

But...

[squiggleslash]

...will they fuck it up and have the headphone jack interpret minor electrical faults with the cable or plug as instructions to pause music, or even to search Google?

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell would they remove the headphone jack? Just because their competitor decides to do something stupid like jump off a bridge, doesn't mean they need to!

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Apple did it first. Still does with their laptops.

It's great because there is no option to disable "control from headphones" and never has been. OS X users found this so annoying that someone actually wrote a kernel driver to block it - which Apple, of course, actively blocks in more recent versions of macOS.

I'm not sure why other companies bothered implementing that "feature" but you can blame Apple for inventing it.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

The same engineering reasons that drove their competitors to do it - headphones need a deep hole with lots of mechanical support because of simple leverage. It's harder to waterproof and it takes up more space that could be dedicated to battery or another function. The jack is hard to design such that the point of failure is guaranteed to be the plug and not the socket. It requires a high-quality built-in amp. But yeah, if the market segment for people who want a jack is high enough, it's a good business move.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just need removable batteries and they might get a sale.

Re: But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Had nothing to do with engineering needs, and everything to do with finding a way to sell expensive and proprietary versions of a product that has long been cheap, universally compatible and ubiquitous.

Stop pretending otherwise.

Re:But...

[Bing Tsher E]

A headphone jack is clearly too hard for Apple to design into their phone. they have poor case design through their whole range of products. any time a key component of the case design of an electronic device is 'glue' it's a slack design.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Apple did it first. Still does with their laptops.

Apple laptops are a joke. That's why people still pay high dollar on the 2013 model of the Macbook Pro just to get an optical drive. They are so trendsetting that their 5 year old devices are still in high demand because their new devices lack basic functionality that is very important to a lot of people.

Re:But...

[freeze128]

Nobody said the phone should be waterproof. Electronics should ALWAYS be kept away from water.

It's *NOT* hard to prevent the mechanical force from damaging the board. They could do what some laptop makers have done with their power jacks: Mount the jack to the case, and then run wires/cable to the board.
How much more room would that take up? Maybe an additional centimeter in phone length? I think that's acceptable.

Re:But...

[v1]

Why the hell would they remove the headphone jack?

Yeah I'm still pissed off that they removed my serial port, floppy drive, S-video, and scsi dammit! Now they want my wired headphones jack too, what are they thinking?!

Blue what? No, I want my headphones in black, you dolt!

Re:But...

[Anne Thwacks]

Just because their competitor decides to do something stupid like jump off a bridge, doesn't mean they need to!

You don't seem to understand Samsung's marketing division.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even so, it seems Samsung has had no trouble releasing water proof phones with headphone jacks intact. Are you telling me apple with all its design engineers couldn't figure it out as well? Oh that's right they are all overpaid millennial whine babies who probably couldn't engineer themselves out of a wet paper sack. Here's a hint. You gold plate the headphone jack contacts and treat the jack barrel as an external part of the phone. Water proof around the casing of the jack.

My guess is a company that actually innovates like Samsung figured it out 1st, patented it and apple doesn't want to pay the royalties, so lets roll our own propitiatory POS jack

Re:But...

[Anne Thwacks]

and scsi dammit

You got a phone with a SCSI port? Where can I get one?

I can't even get my USB DAT drive to work from the OTG port!

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, I demand a headphones/mic jack, removable battery and microsd slot in order to even consider buying a particular handset. If they don't at least have that going for them, then I definitely won't be buying.

Samsung has other issues that cause me to resist buying another one, the main being that they don't understand that when they sell me a phone, I own the phone and should be able to do anything legal that I like with it. I shouldn't have to deal with that Knox bullshit.

Re:But...

[fluffernutter]

There were replacements to all those when they came out. For example, cd drives didn't start to disappear until flash drives were so cheap they were just easier than CDs. Now the fact that my Macbook Pro has a USB-C port it's making me wish I had a CD drive again. Anyhow, bluetooth headphones don't replace wired because they are limited in sound quality, require constant charging, are easier to lose and break, and cost 5x more. Lighting headphones and dongles won't work for a lot of people who want to charge as well. Sure, many people don't care and just spend the money they need to, but they are the suckers born every minute.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

You misunderstand: when you buy a smartphone, the makers own YOU. And there is nothing you can do about it.

Re: But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree, absolutely no excuse to omit a key interface component in pursuit of lame ugly thinness.

I've noticed that over time headphone jack got shittier in an iPhone. iPhone 4 had a very satisfying click when you plugged into it, and it was very reliable. With iPhone 5,6,7 it became just cheap garbage.

Re: But...

[Anonymous Coward]

"design engineers" at crapple are being run by a clueless fatass hack jony ive. That stupid bitch has no idea what she's doing.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I don't vote for Republicans and most Democrats. They can go fuck themselves over that pro-corporate bullshit.

I bought the device, I own the device and if they don't like it, they can just fuck themselves with the nearest convenient staph infected gardening implement. Preferably, one that's sharp.

Re:But...

[Antique Geekmeister]

We also need a trusty XKCD universal connector box.

https://xkcd.com/1406/

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that why the Galaxy S8 is IP68 rated with a headphone jack whilst the newest iPhones are ip67 rated without one?

Re:But...

[hey!]

Unfortunately that pushes off the engineering problem to someone else. So far as I can see nobody has figured out how to make a usb to analog audio dongle that lasts more than a few weeks, so that means your only real choice is bluetooth, which doesn't meet everyone's needs.

And basically, why? So you can make your phone thinner, when virtually everyone goes out and buys fat old case. This is a case of engineering for showroom appeal rather than use.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's harder to waterproof"
Explain why it is harder to waterproof, if anything it should be easier than any USB type plug.

"The jack is hard to design such that the point of failure is guaranteed to be the plug and not the socket."
It hasn't changed since the late 1800's (well miniaturised but the same for over 50, if it worked fine for my 1986 walkman, admittedly there have been some engineering regressions since the 80's but most things are better)

"It requires a high-quality built-in amp"
And the speakers are driven by magical unicorns?

"But yeah, if the market segment for people who want a jack is high enough, it's a good business move."
Isn't that true for all products, hard work to engineer well but they sell.

Re:But...

[Solandri]

a deep hole with lots of mechanical support because of simple leverage

You have it backwards. The length of the jack reduces the leverage on the internal components. The leverage an outside force has depends on the length of the headphone jack outside the device. The length of the jack inside the device increases the leverage of the internal components, increasing their ability to resist torque from something outside yanking on the headphone cable..

it takes up more space that could be dedicated to battery or another function.

Yes, that space is sooooo valuable that when Apple removed the headphone jack, they filled the space with a piece of molded plastic.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

The length of the jack reduces the leverage on the internal components.

Whether it reduces leverage or not, the plug itself is very strong with a 1/8" audio connection. It's hard to make the jack stronger than the plug. With USB-C, the plug is supposed to be the wear part, the weakest link.

they filled the space with a piece of molded plastic

That's incredibly misleading. Sure, it's a piece of molded plastic. What you fail to mention is that it is a functional piece of molded plastic - part of the speaker.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

Explain why it is harder to waterproof, if anything it should be easier than any USB type plug.

Not my field, but you can take a SWAG and just look at the size of the connector. Just Google for waterproof headphone connector and waterproof USB-C connector and look a the huge difference in size of the surface mount stuff.

It hasn't changed since the late 1800's

I can't believe you are listing that as an advantage. Almost without exception, the failure mode of my headphones has been that plug and the failure mode of my portable audio equipment... well, it's been drops, actually... but I've also had jacks fail. Most recently on a Samsung phone and a Amazon Kindle tablet. I've never had a USB jack fail, though I've certainly lost cable connections - that's a design feature, actually. It certainly is easier to solder on a new audio jack, though. I've never bother to try to fix a USB plug.

And the speakers are driven by magical unicorns?

Audiophiles get all angsty over built-in phone speakers now? No, the built-in speakers can have a very shitty amp.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

I can't answer that part - I spend $200 on a phone, max. And only under duress. I use both bluetooth and wired headphones, depending on the situation. What Apple and Samsung do with $600 phones hasn't trickled down to riff raff like me yet.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

The fact that they were able to produce a phone with a water resistant headphone jack says nothing about the cost or other engineering tradeoffs they had to make.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

Of course you can still do these things, but everything you mentioned requires a tradeoff.

Re: But...

[MightyYar]

What is so proprietary about Bluetooth headphones?

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

My crappy Samsung Galaxy J has both a headphone jack and a removable battery. You need to go ghetto if you want the best features.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

None of those reasons you provided are valid:

"It's harder to waterproof and it takes up more space that could be dedicated to battery or another function. The jack is hard to design such that the point of failure is guaranteed to be the plug and not the socket. "

There were plenty of phones that came before iphone with water proof capability, yet were far more reliable than iphone. How many people have you heard having to fix their phone jack before? The USB port is far less reliable then the phone jack and much more damage prone.

"It requires a high-quality built-in amp"

High end phones used to include very high quality built-in amp on the main board. Now you need to squeeze in all those DAC, amp and filter circuitry into a tiny dongle, while making the BOM cost less than half of before. As a result the sound quality has became garbage, and you can't even use the $200 pre-amp that uses phone jack to improve the sound quality. I have also tried both Google and Apple's bluetooth ear-buds and I am not impressed.

I am not going to replace my earphone costing almost of as much as a new cell phone just because the vendor want to be trendy and copy from Apple, period! If the next pixel still want to be an overpriced iphone copy then I am buying Samsung instead.

Re:But...

[torkus]

With all those difficulties I can see why no one - especially Samsung - has come up with a waterproof phone that also has a decent battery while retaining the headphones jack. Right?

*eyeroll*

Is it harder than not having one? Yes. Is it better? Fuk no. The "difficulty" in providing a product that people want is called 'business'. It's what good companies do for their customers so their customers keep buying their products.

And besides, it's not REALLY that hard to do compared to all the other insane shit they've crammed into phones these days.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Note 8 and S8 are both waterproof - and both sport the 3.5mm jack. Seems that Samsung was able to figure that one out. As far as the "high quality built-in amp" goes, don't you need one of those in the dongle? Or does the lack of a jack magically free you from using a "high quality built-in amp" in your Lightning-to-analog dongle?

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

What hardware features does the iPhone have that the S8 (or its predecessors) not have?

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

I'm not familiar enough to say, and I'm not willing to dig that deep right now. The presence of features does not tell the story of engineering compromises and tradeoffs that needed to be made, so it wouldn't be a worthwhile effort anyway. You'd really need to talk to the engineers at both Apple and Samsung to hear the different challenges that they encountered, and how they solved them.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

The fact that they were able to waterproof the phone does not mean that they were able to do so without any cost or engineering tradeoffs.

You absolutely need to put a high-quality amp in the dongle or bluetooth module - but it saves you from needing to put it in the phone, saving cost and potentially space. In principle, only people with "golden ears" would need to buy the nice amp. Or they could buy one with a tube in it or some other such nonsense. In practice, it sounds like audiophiles shun both bluetooth and the wired adapters.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

Samsung - has come up with a waterproof phone that also has a decent battery while retaining the headphones jack

Yes, they have. And we have no idea what cost or engineering tradeoffs they made to get there.

It's what good companies do for their customers so their customers keep buying their products.

Isn't that just a restatement of what I said in my last sentence? I think we agree.

it's not REALLY that hard to do compared

I have no way to judge that, since I work on fairly big machines where miniaturization is not much of an issue. I suspect you aren't qualified to make that statement, either.

Re:But...

[MightyYar]

How many people have you heard having to fix their phone jack before?

I've had two fail recently - one on an Amazon Fire tablet and one on a Samsung phone. Over my life, I've lost innumerable walkmen and headphones to that shitty connection design. I just soldered the connector back on my Sennheisers.

I have also tried both Google and Apple's bluetooth ear-buds and I am not impressed.

This is a completely legitimate complaint. I don't have golden ears and so I'm fine with even cheap bluetooth adaptors - but audiophiles seem to be universally negative about them. Now the circuitry needs to be duplicated in every device. On the plus side, if manufacturers could get their act together, there is a market catering to audiophiles for very expensive dongles that should in principle exceed anything that could be stuffed into a phone. My phone still has a headphone jack, and so I end up using both. Typically the bluetooth when doing something active (and so when audio quality is not that important) and wired when I'm sitting at my desk working.

I am not going to replace my earphone costing almost of as much as a new cell phone just because the vendor want to be trendy and copy from Apple, period!

I have bluetooth adaptors that standard headphones can plug into. And of course Apple sells their dongle. I don't spend $600 on phones, so this is all academic for me.

Re: But...

[Brockmire]

How is it part of the speaker? Basically, they fucked up something else and this was their fix: From a link posted above, "Apple told The Verge that the plastic is a "barometric vent" â" the new iPhone is water-resistant, which messed with the device's built-in barometer." Speaker? Bad engineering is spun as a feature.

Re: But...

[MightyYar]

Your source and Solandri's source differ on the purpose of the plastic, but it doesn't change my argument. Whatever it is, it serves a purpose and is not simply a filler piece of plastic as Solandri's comment implied.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would make more sense to have a magnetic connection with a magnetic induction based signal transfer. I imagine a little flat block thanks fits in a slightly indent which magnetically locks in place. A hard yank would just pull off the block, with no damage to anything.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be able to tap out sms's with my phone under my pillow whilst barely awake. No can do with with these new phones.
I used to be able to drop my phone whilst running, pick it up, and keep on running. No can do with these new phones.
I used to be able to see my phones screen in direct overhead sunlight. No can do with these new phones.
I used to have a phone that could easily fit in my back pocket that I could sit on and have my partner and child sit on my lap. No can do with these new phones.

The headphone jack seems insignificant to these other issues I have.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

To add to that and your comment about batteries.
I used to have a phone that had 1 month standby time and days of talk time. No can do with these new phones.

You Know Jack?

[Mr D from 63]

I'm glad Headphone Jack will live longer. He's an old friend.

Re: You Know Jack?

[Anonymous Coward]

And, clearly, those jerks at Apple don't know Jack.

Samsung to produce floppy disk drives next.

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Samsung, where we are the LUDDITES number one choice.

forethought

[goombah99]

Apple has a history of dropping old well established standards about 2 to 3 years before people can see they were right. It's actually a bit uncanny how good they have been done guessing correctly.

a few example:
Parallel port
RS-232 port
dropping support of all printers except postscript (which is what let the original mac/lisa clear the way for real WYSISWYG for the first time on third party printers. a BFD)
floppy drives
ADB ....
everyone thought these moves were crazy at the time. so much legacy support was dropped. the they were always right in the end for the following reason:

by requiring that any device plugged in met some higher level of service expectation they could write software that took advantage of that requirement sooner than their competition who had to have legacy support. I give you the WYSIWYG revolution as exhibit A.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, well I'm betting that post-Jobs their magic touch disappears.

Job wouldn't have got rid of the headphone jack, because there is currently nothing better to take its place.

Apple were flexing their muscles, and they got it wrong.

Re:forethought

[VeryFluffyBunny]

[ sarcasm ] And HDMI? Yeah, that's a useless, antiquated standard. Don't bother with that anymore. [ /sarcasm ]

On a more immediate note, those of us who value high quality audio can now turn to Samsung to support our high quality headphones and earbuds, and not have all the disadvantages of Bluetooth batteries, charging, the higher price, that ambient microwave radiation degrades the signal, etc..

And, I've got a pair of earbuds I really like and they're probably gonna last a good few years more. There's no way I'm gonna buy a phone that doesn't let me plug them in.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. My $400 Shures are not getting replaced on the back of Apple's decision to kill the headphone jack.

Apple are forgetting how the iPod made them into an incrediblly profitable company. Later, millions of people bought iPhones as a DIRECT replacement for their iPods.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

If you valued high quality audio you would not be listening to music on a smartphone.

Re:forethought

[Bing Tsher E]

Apple computers never, ever had parallel ports. their RS-232 ports were not, because they used a different connector. The Apple Desktop Bus was their proprietary kludge.

And the acronym is pronounced 'what you see is all you get' because there is no room for variance. What the Apple designer contrived is all you will get.

Re:forethought

[e432776]

Would you add optical disc drives to that list? Seems to me that the market might, though I personally miss them and use external units..

Re:forethought

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

If you valued high quality audio you would not be listening to music on a smartphone.

You might be surprised. I don't know how good the Samsung phones sound, but I know there are a lot of audiophiles who have good things to say about the Apple products. The iPods in particular were well liked, especially the older models with the Wolfson DAC chip.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPods were never popular with people who cared about sound quality. They became popular because Apple had a successful marketing campaign and packaged it with an easy to use music store that had a corner on most music that people would want.

But, the iPods themselves came with crap earbuds that left many users hard of hearing or deaf as a result of the volumes necessary to hear the music over the surrounding sounds.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

I love my old MBP because it does everything I need; in the last 24 hours I've used the USB ports, magsafe power, SD card reader, HDMI and headphone jack. Sadly it's behind the times, so I've "upgraded" to a 2018 MBP.

The damn thing needs dongles for everything except headphones, and I'd guess Apple will find the "courage" to force everyone to buy crappy bluetooth ones soon. It got dinged a couple of weeks in because the stupid USB-C power cable got caught on someone's coat and pulled it off the desk (thankfully only cosmetic damage); now I treat it with kid gloves, and keep it in it's bag with it's army of dongles unless I need the extra processing power. I'm typing this on my old machine.

I'm in the market for a new phone; Samsung just made top of my list to check out. My next laptop won't be a mac unless they solve the ports problem; you don't pay a premium for an inferior product twice.

Re:forethought

[fluffernutter]

People 'see they were right' because the technology they move to proliferates. Meaning, they move too soon to be in the best interest of the customers, who are forced to use a dongle until technology catches up. In this case they have done one worse and eliminated a technology that there is a partial replacement for but whether a person decides to use a lighting port headphone or dongle and not be able to charge their phone at that time or shell out for or five times more for a bluetooth headphone which is more expensive to break or lose, the customer is definitely losing here. People who wanted to use bluetooth headphones always could.

Re:forethought

[fluffernutter]

So it's wrong to want the best sound quality you can get out of your phone when you can't be around a full sound system?

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? None of my computers have one, if I need an optical disc drive for any reason, I've got a couple USB drives that I can plug in when I need to. In practice, it's only rarely plugged in as there are better ways of getting files on and off of computers these days.

This is sort of like floppy drives, I've got a USB floppy drive kicking around here somewhere, but I haven't plugged that in any time recently. I think it's probably been a number of years, but it's USB, so I keep it just in case.

Re:forethought

[vux984]

"Apple has a history of dropping old well established standards about 2 to 3 years before people can see they were right."

No. Apple has a history of dropping standards people are actively using, often before the new stuff has matured enough to even be usable.

everyone thought these moves were crazy at the time"

Almost everyone still had devices that that used those ports and had to buy adapters or all new devices. I had $500 serial US Robotics modems, and $300 ADB barcode scanners, for example. That all had to be replaced or adapted. (And adapting them was a PITA because Apple has always been extremely stingy with USB ports too.)

The PC carried these legacy ports for years before getting dropped, the result was that a lot of us had computers with a floppy drive that never got used. This was a much better situation to be in, than not having a floppy drive and needing one - a situation a lot of people found themselves in.

Apple wasn't right. They were irritating. Everyone could have told you USB was better than ADB and parallel ports, or that USB flash drives and networking would kill floppies, and on the PC side everyone was switching to USB as fast as they could. You didn't have have much foresight to see the writing on the wall for the legacy ports.

But it was greatly fucking appreciated by PC users that you didn't have to throw out all your peripherals and buy new ones, because old ones were generally supported until most people were finished using them.

I have a $100,000 lathe at a site, still using ISA controller boards with Windows 98. The computer died last year, and I had no trouble buying a replacement.

Meanwhile Apple frequently won't support interfaces from peripherals from 2 years ago. I recall having the original imac from 1999 and Power Mac 7600 from 1998 in the same office and having no way to get files from one to the other. No floppy on the imac, no writeable CD support on either, and no usb on the powermac. I could network them, but since that office didn't otherwise have or need a LAN and the computers weren't sitting next to eachother... Fuck you very much apple.

by requiring that any device plugged in met some higher level of service expectation they could write software that took advantage of that requirement sooner than their competition who had to have legacy support. I give you the WYSIWYG revolution as exhibit A.

That argument really doesn't have a comparable example for any of the other ports you mentioned.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay - A Phone with a built in DVD drive - now I can install an OS without Google....

Wait ... will it really run OS/2?

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't heard the LG V20?

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lisa had a parallel port.

Re:forethought

[green1]

I really really wish that some manufacturer would bring back HDMI support. Almost all phones used to have it through MHL just a couple of years ago, but as they transition to USB C they've all decided to drop support for HDMI (and it's a simple choice, not a requirement as USB-C easily supports HDMI output)

To all those who say "just cast to the TV", Some of us prefer a solution that is cheap, simple, and actually works with ALL apps, ALL TVs, ALL the time. I find casting works with some TVs, some apps, some of the time, hardly a replacement. Not to mention the latency issues that absolutely kill it as a possibility for many applications.

Re:forethought

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Apple has a history of dropping old well established standards about 2 to 3 years before people can see they were right. It's actually a bit uncanny how good they have been done guessing correctly.

a few example:
floppy drives

I feel they were way too early with dropping floppy support. The iMac in 1998 was the first one to ship without a floppy. They did not ship with a CD Writer, and USB flash drives had yet to be invented. Apple said they were obsolete because Internet, yet online "cloud storage" wasn't really a thing, and even "emailing files to yourself" was difficult because most email providers at the time had ridiculously small mailbox sizes. Plus although high speed residential internet was growing in popularity, it was by no means widespread.

On the positive side, between USB floppy drives, and replacements for the abomination of the "hockey puck mouse", helped to drive the market for USB peripherals, which helped support on the PC side.

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Cock sucks cocks and you are assisting, there is nothing wrong about sucking cocks and having n1ggers rape you.

Re:forethought

[green1]

My 4 year old phone had:
- HDMI output (MHL)
- IR transmitter
- User replaceable battery
- a wider screen than anything available on a smartphone today.
- a headphone jack
- SD card slot
- a textured back that looked gorgeous, and meant no case was needed because the phone wasn't so slippery it would fly out of your hand every time you tried to hold it.

Now the SD card slot and headphone jack are still available on some phones these days (though only a small handful), but basically all of the others are simply impossible to get now.

So I'm supposed to "upgrade" to what exactly? the only advantage the newer devices have is a small amount of speed. None of the new phones have any features that that one didn't have, there hasn't been a new feature added in at least 4 years. The only thing they do is increase the speed slightly while removing actual features and capabilities.

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get it, do you? Tim Cock enjoys butt sex and rape. You ifags need to relax and take it up your stupid buttholes, there is no alternative.

Re:forethought

[Bing Tsher E]

And I am certain there were parallel port cards for the Apple 2.

Re:forethought

[Bing Tsher E]

I would bet decent money you can run OS/2 through some form of emulator. DOSBOX runs well on Android, and probably bochs could be ported.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anybody buy an LG? I'm on my 5th LG V10 because they keep dying. And this one is probably going to get replaced with another one because T-Mobile isn't willing to replace it with something that isn't going to just die after 6 months.

It's a great phone, if you don't mind having to have the insurance on it and don't mind having to go in repeatedly to get the thing replaced though.

Re:forethought

[dgatwood]

Apple has a history of dropping old well established standards about 2 to 3 years before people can see they were right.

Well, we're almost at the three year mark now, and the majority of the industry is still saying that it was stupid, which probably is a good indication that you're wrong.

The reason you're wrong is that the way Apple did this is ridiculously un-Apple-like. Normally, when they drop something:

• There is a higher quality replacement readily available. Bluetooth sucks when used with multiple devices, and it is fiddly even when used with only one, so FAIL.
• They quickly drop it across their entire line, and the replacement is available across their entire line. I can't get a Mac with a Lightning port, so again, FAIL.

Quite frankly, the way Apple has done this actually encourages people to switch to Android, and that will continue to be true even if all the Android makers follow suit and drop the headphone jack. Why? Because I can use the same USB-C headphones with my Mac and my Android phone. They've actually made the Android-Mac experience better than the iPhone-Mac experience!

No, Apple screwed up badly. Maybe only a small percentage of users care—and obviously that's true, or else they'd be out of business right now—but for the users who do care, Apple needs to drop Lightning for USB-C sooner rather than later. Our iPhone 6s devices are starting to look seriously dated.

by requiring that any device plugged in met some higher level of service expectation they could write software that took advantage of that requirement sooner than their competition who had to have legacy support. I give you the WYSIWYG revolution as exhibit A.

That's complete and utter crap. We had WYSIWYG on the Apple IIgs, and it printed to the ImageWriter II just fine, complete with WYSIWYG, and that printer was still supported up through... what, Mac OS 9? (And if you really want to be horrified, there's a third-party macOS driver available for the ImageWriter II that *still* works, AFAIK.)

And there has always been support for a wide range of other non-Postscript printers. Brother uses PCL for some of their laser printers, Canon and HP do their own thing for their inkjets, etc. So at what point did Apple drop support for non-Postscript printers?

ASCII-only printers, sure, but those were only ever really directly supported in any meaningful way on the Apple II series, and nobody was even still building daisy-wheel printers by the time the Apple II line fully went away in 1993. (The last ones were designed in the mid to late 1980s.) Also, I can still print to one from a MacBook Pro today with the right adapters. Nobody would do so, though, because they stopped making those printers for a good reason. Apple didn't ever really drop support; WYSIWYG software never supported them in the first place, and non-WYSIWYG software still does.

Also, the very first Apple products that actually shipped with built-in ports used serial ports. Parallel ports were only available as an add-on card. So talking about Apple dropping that (back in what, the early 1980s?) is kind of a stretch, because it was never a core part of their product line.

And AFAIK, nobody thought that dropping ADB was a bad idea. They grumbled at having to replace their devices, but moving to an industry standard was generally seen as a good thing. Also, you could buy cheap adapters to use your existing ADB devices if you really wanted to.

Finally, with the exception of the floppy drive, none of those other ports/features were used while mobile. And Apple continued to provide the internal hardware needed for third parties (VST) to provide floppy drives inside their laptops until well after USB flash drives were firmly entrenched as a replacement. That makes this the first port designed for mobile use that Apple has ever dropped without a broadly available replacement th

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Betting big on USB was correct though. USB came out in 1996, and when the iMac came out in 1998 they were one of the first.

So you are correct there wasnâ(TM)t a mature USB peripheral market for a couple more years. Dongles were used for awhile in the handful of computers that dropped old ports in the first year or two. You should also note the pain of users who bought new computers. The ones that kept those old ports nosedived in quality/compatibility(e.g. serial/parallel ports running at weird voltage for logic, parallel ports only supporting a small of modes(EPP, SPP, ECP, etc) rendering them randomly incompatible(at least this quickened the death or parallel).

Android phones already have a weird matrix of quality/compatibility with headphones(e.g. OMTP vs AHJ vs regular 3-part)

Re:forethought

[dgatwood]

The Lisa could have a parallel port card installed. It did not come with one (unless they had an option for getting the card preinstalled or something).

Re:forethought

[dryeo]

Bochs is probably the only possibility as OS/2 used x86 features that aren't in most emulators. Be interesting to test.

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Youâ(TM)ve got a headphone jack, now what will you replace that shitty OS with?

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, Amazing! iPod earphones left many people deaf. A completely true fact!

Re:forethought

[Greyfox]

It's not a "small" amount of speed -- the S8 is the first android phone I've used that felt really responsive. Everything prior to that always felt a little sluggish. Unfortunately between its weight and its smooth polish, it's also the first android phone I've used that has really felt like it wanted to take a dive every time I pick it up. That works well for Samsung, I suppose, if you're having to replace your phone due to shattered screens every year (Or every few months.) It feels like kind of a shame to put that beautiful hardware in a clunky case, but I may end up having to.

Re:forethought

[tsa]

I have similar feelings about my current MacBook Pro. It's 7 years old and better than anything Apple has to offer today.

Re:forethought

[green1]

Thing is, speed is expected. We all know that devices get more powerful and faster every year. I can't congratulate a company for doing that because it's pretty much the baseline expectation.

On the other hand, there's no expectation that every year hardware features should vanish and that the phones should be able to do less with every release. Companies often lament that they have trouble differentiating themselves from their competitors, but then they make sure to do their best to make sure all phones have exactly the same features, and as close as possible to the same look. If you want to differentiate yourself, add a feature nobody else has, and then advertise it. I'll give some suggestions:
- user replaceable battery
- a back made of any material other than glass or polished metal (plastic can look fabulous if you texture it right, or go premium and do leather, or put a texture on your metal, or ANYTHING that allows someone to actually hold your phone!
- HDMI output (over USB-C is fine if you're concerned about space)
- IR transmitter
- an actual large screen instead of one that's just marketed that way (today's 6+ inch displays are actually smaller than the previous 5.7" displays because they're all super tall and narrow, fewer square inches, smaller full screen videos (with black bars on the side!)
- some new feature we haven't seen yet. Innovation was all the rage as recently as about 3 or 4 years ago, manufacturers would try new things and add new features. Stop trying to make your phone as boring a slab as possible, and start coming up with new and innovative things.

Re:forethought

[tsa]

On offer.

I still don't understand why a site with "News for Nerds" doesn't provide an Edit button and Unicode support.

Re:forethought

[The Grim Reefer]

I know there are a lot of audiophiles who have good things to say about the Apple products.

Do they use a green marker on the edge of their iPhone too? Or tape Brilliant Pebbles to the headphone jack? What about the Blackbody? Just curious.

Re:forethought

[The Grim Reefer]

If you valued high quality audio you would not be listening to music on a smartphone.

Or earbuds. Over the ear headphones are the only way to go if you care about portable high quality audio.

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

Android.

Re:forethought

[nasch]

On the other hand, there's no expectation that every year hardware features should vanish and that the phones should be able to do less with every release.

It's really weird. Seems likely to be one of two things: not enough customers care about those features, or there aren't enough competitors in the market and they're colluding, either explicitly or implicitly, to remove features (thus reducing costs) but not drop prices accordingly. I say that since the flagship phones are - if I'm not mistaken - more expensive in real dollars than they have been in the recent past, which is weird for electronics.

(plastic can look fabulous if you texture it right, or go premium and do leather, or put a texture on your metal, or ANYTHING that allows someone to actually hold your phone!

Ceramic! Someone made a video of trying to scratch the ceramic case of a phone and failing, using everything up to and including a power drill. I don't know how slippery it is though.

How about an FM receiver? Didn't someone put one of those in a phone recently?

Re:forethought

[nasch]

I think HDMI started disappearing well before USB-C got popular.

Re:forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

If by Apple computers you mean the Mac well, yes, they DID have a parallel port... It just happened to be a somewhat intelligent parallel port called SCSI. Printers and modems were attached to RS422 serial ports. Keyboard and mouse used the "Apple Desktop Bus"

Re:forethought

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Lordy. I'm getting pilloried in the comments here. Look, I never said anything about Apple earbuds being good; they're obviously crap. I was talking about the DAC and the pre-amp, which, when paired with a good set of headphones, sounds rather decent. Not as decent as a proper high-end setup, of course. But surprisingly good for a sub-$1000 device that you carry around in your pocket.

I'm too lazy to look up any references, but at least two audiophile magazines (I think Stereo Review was one) have done blind comparisons of Apple products with a variety of outboard DAC's. Both of them commented on how much better Apple performed than they would have expected. Don't trust the audiophile magazines? That's OK, I don't trust them entirely either, because they are so clearly biased towards their high-end advertising clients (including out-and-out charlatans like Monster)... but the thing is, Apple doesn't advertise in these kinds of magazines. Unless Apple slipped them an outright bribe, their opinion about these products ought to be pretty objective.

The fact is, anyway, that if you are a manufacturer who is willing to spend $75-100 on a good audio chip, you can get something very decent-sounding, especially these days. Which brings me back to the topic of the article. One of the many, many problems with losing the headphone jack is that the phone manufacturer no longer has to provide these things. You're now at the mercy of whatever device sits at the other end of your lightning cable. Or you can use that stupid lightning-to-1/8" dongle (I've already lost mine). The dongle contains both DAC and preamp, and I somehow doubt that it does a good job, due to both cost issues and miniaturization issues.

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

We're almost at the three year mark since what? The headphone jack was removed less than 18 months ago.

Re: forethought

[dgatwood]

Ah. My bad. Off-by-one.

Re:forethought

[Dog-Cow]

Pretty much no one was using USB-anything before the first iMac made USB popular with accessory manufacturers. I wasn't an Apple user at the time, but I do have a working memory -- Apple made USB popular. Sure, it would have replaced many other protocols and port eventually, but it happened when it did because of Apple.

Re:forethought

[thegarbz]

Your examples are good because:

Parallel port - Dropped by Apple both after USB printers were popular on the market and USB>Parallel port adaptors* were easy to buy.
RS-232 - Something that became useless for Apple users long before it was dropped as a standard. Outside of labs, servers, and consoles this was an antique when apple dropped it and no one complained.
Printers - Apple has always had a captured market with printer drivers and Postscript support was baked into software people used to author content on Apples even before this was dropped.
Floppy Drives - Dropped long after they ceased to be relevant. The only thing they were useful for at the time on the PC was BIOS updates which Apple didn't need a floppy drive to do. No one was sad to see that go.
ADB - A closed Apple standard. No one cared.

No my friend. Apple definitely did not have a history of dropping standards years before everyone could see they were right. Apple had a history of dropping standards after people were already scratching their heads as to why the damn legacy things still exist.

Re: forethought

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are one of those who would buy gold plated cables and vacum tubes and stuff....

Re: forethought

[Brockmire]

You may want to google that shit. There seems to be a lot of hardware mods and use of external DACS. They see the capacity as convenience, not quality.

Re:forethought

[mjwx]

[ sarcasm ] And HDMI? Yeah, that's a useless, antiquated standard. Don't bother with that anymore. [ /sarcasm ]

I'd wap HDMI for VGA but your point stands. I bought a 2017 laptop that still had one because there's no benefit to removing it (plus it means I can have two screens on my laptop). Just because it's old does not mean it's useless, likewise, just because it's new does not mean it's better.

Re:forethought

[mjwx]

Apple wasn't right. They were irritating.

This.

USB was created by a large consortium of companies as a replacement for a myriad of ports, long before Apple picked it up. It was just an accident that they used it first. Even though it's largely supplanted a large number of ports, most motherboards you buy still have a LPT, PS2 and RS232 port or at least the provision of one. I remember for years having to use a very unreliable USB to serial connector for switches and routers for years in the early 00's.

People also forget the mistakes Apple made, supporting Firewire over USB, ZIP disks, the "puck" mouse and not embracing the right click. I'm certain the removal of the headphone jack will be remembered in the same light.

Re: forethought

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

You may want to google that shit. There seems to be a lot of hardware mods and use of external DACS. They see the capacity as convenience, not quality.

Well, sure, I could carry around an external DAC to use with my phone (actually I already own one-- the Apogee ONE-- which I use with my Mac for music recording/playback, and which can be connected to my iPhone if I want to do that). Or I could void my warranty by implementing some kind of DIY hardware mod. The point is, I don't want to do either! I have enough trouble not losing my phone as it is, I don't want to carry around a bunch of extra stuff!

Re: forethought

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Sorry for the double post-- I hit "submit" too early. I did in fact google this shit, about three years ago when Apple was still making iPods and I wanted to buy one for my daughter. Yes, there were some folks on the forums who preferred to use outboard DACs and the like-- but there were a lot more who were simply interested in getting the best product for off-the-shelf use. That's how I ended up buying a slightly used 5th gen iPod, instead of the then-current 6th gen. It was widely believed that the 5th gen sounded better.

Re:forethought

[vux984]

"Pretty much no one was using USB-anything before the first iMac made USB popular with accessory manufacturers".

for fucks sake, usb 1.0 had just landed in 1996; and it was pretty flakey for the first few years. Existing versions of Windows 95 "Windows 95 "A") didn't even support it, and nobody was going to buy a whole new computer just for a USB port; so you need to expect that its going to take an upgrade cycle of 2-3 years before it really takes off.

Apple committing to it 1999 was pretty much right when it was going to take off anyway.

USB 1.0 was flakey, and it wasn't much good until USB until 1.1 was released midway through 1998, by which time Windows 95 "B" had arrived with USB support, and Windows 98 has USB support built in.

To give Apple credit for the success of USB by releasing a PC in 1999 that exclusively supported it is just stupid.

USB1.1 was just arriving, but really it wasn't much use for anything but printers, scanners, and modems at that point. And modems were mostly built in or on PCI cards. So the first wave of USB devices was mostly printers and multi-function all-in-ones. USB2.0 arrived in 2000 and opened the speed up enough for other applications.

Digital cameras, mp3 players, external hard drives, chargers... those markets themselves were all in their infancy; and they all went with USB, of course they did, and they would have done so whether the imac had ever existed or not.

USB would have been popular with or without Apple. And I don't even think Apple really sped it along much; perhaps we can credit apple for getting us into USB keyboards and mice a bit faster; and for creating a sudden unnessary market for USB floppy drives and USB to ADB adapters. But that's about it.

Re:forethought

[sl3xd]

that ambient microwave radiation degrades the signal, etc..

That ranks up there with audiophile HDMI cables giving a clearer picture, or saying webpages are getting corrupted because you're using WiFi.

Bluetooth has issues, but microwaves aren't among them. Jamming Bluetooth isn't easy; it's a modern spread spectrum signal designed to handle interference. Until the signal is effectively jammed (no audio at all), other microwave sources don't affect Bluetooth.

Re:forethought

[VeryFluffyBunny]

If you've ever turned on a microwave oven in the next room while you're listening to music via Bluetooth, you'll know that the interference is no audiophile thing. It stutters and pretty much stops working. The emissions from a microwave in the next room aren't all that strong. In practical terms, the more WiFi routers and Bluetooth devices you have running nearby, the higher the ambient radiation and the greater the packet loss (this is why the range of WiFi is much shorter in high density housing, like apartment buildings because everyone's routers are closer together). In moderate conditions, it simply shortens the effective range of WiFi and Bluetooth, with stronger radiation it stops working for things like streaming media altogether.

Re:forethought

[VeryFluffyBunny]

BTW, I teach online and during webinars students often complain of dropouts, weak signals, etc.. When they buy a cheap LAN cable and plug it into their laptops, in almost all cases, the problems go away.

Re:forethought

[sl3xd]

My office building alone has 300-400 people within 30m of me, and over 1300 within 100m. All are using WiFi, and all actively using Bluetooth headsets (They stuck engineering smack in the middle of a multi-floor call center. Somebody has to fill the parts of the building where there are no windows...). A simple Bluetooth scan shows hundreds (maybe thousands) of devices.

All of those people eat luch, so the company supplies about 40 microwaves, all of which get heavy use.

I’ve never been able to get Bluetooth to disconnect from less than 10 meters, nor have there been audio artifacts.

I’m not discounting any of the things you’ve said, but I’ve not found interference in the 2.4 GHz ISM band to be a serious problem.

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up and die, yuppie!
 
By the way, have a great KKK. KKK, kkk kkk kkk, kkk kkk, kkk kkk, kkk kkk, kkk kkaaaayyyyy

Shit News

[Anonymous Coward]

fail

Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Ayano]

Some people forget, that not everyone has a cushy job. This targets the market where bluetooth headphones/ear-buds are expensive to replace.

Ear buds on a jack are 15-20 bones compared to 40-70 for a decent bluetooth headphones. There's also the matter of bluetooth interference for audiophiles where a line-jack will be preferred (pending environment).

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

The market of people who can afford to buy a flagship phone ($500+ more than a basic model), but not an extra 25 bucks for bluetooth headphones?

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[pubwvj]

Bluetooth headphones are down to $13 a pair for decent sound. At that price anyone who can afford a smartphone can afford bluetooth headphones.

When Apple first nixed the jack I was a bit dubious but then I realized I hadn't been using thee jack for a while because my jack had died, or rather gotten very unreliable, so I had gotten bluetooth headphones. At this point all the headphones in our family are bluetooth. The cords and jacks were the major fail points so not having those two weaknesses has been nice.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent $1000 on my Sennheiser IE800S Headphones. Why would I want to spend $25 on some shitty bluetooth headphones?

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

And for $50 you can get headphones that have incredible sound and don't suffer from the lag that bluetooth introduces.

For $13 you can get corded headphones that still sound quite good, even if not as good as the $50 ones and far, far better than any of that bluetooth crap.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[ColdWetDog]

You could always part with about $10 and get a ... Dongle.

Glad to be of service.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[halivar]

"Some people forget, that not everyone has a cushy job" neatly excludes your $1000 headphones. You have jumped into a discussion about the paucity of budget bluetooth headphones with irrelevant dick-strokery.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're not part of the market that the OP describes.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[fluffernutter]

I'm not sure where you are finding them for $13 a pair, I stop by electronic departments all the time and I've not seen a comfortable looking model (that I can wear at night) for less than $80. At that price I'm not willing to buy it and risk losing or breaking it. $10 wired headphones on the other hand work for me, and since I wear them when I'm sleeping they tend to break all the time.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't match his $13 pair, but I went with a Wirecutter recommendation and bought the $27 Aukey Latitude EP-B40 which sound just as good as the stock iPhone earbuds or other cheap earbuds I've purchased.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[wernercd]

So... pay for a worse experience? More "attachments" to carry? break? How many $10 dongles will get purchased over the years? Nothing like paying a premium to be treated to a shitty second hand experience that's worse than what was there before.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can’t afford the headphone, they aren’t getting the phone either...  this is going to be a $800 phone.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Greyfox]

If you can't afford bluetooth headphones, you probably can't afford a $1000 phone either.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true, buy my Sennheisers were like $60 when I bought them years back and are better than the sound sources I have. My Sure ear buds were like $200 and again better than my sound sources. Granted $200 is a bit of money, but for the old style over the ear style headphones, $60 is something that most people can afford if they're willing to put a dollar or two away from time to time. And they've lasted me many years.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Huge market? Many can afford a $500 laptop, but not a $40 mouse to go with it.
They spent their money already and the expensive mouse is not essential.
Same here.

In the early 90s you also had families able to own a VCR but not eating out in restaurants frequently.
There are people who can afford a dishwasher but won't bother changing their 30-year-old cutlery.
Some people buy $100 shoes and not $29 shoes, but buy the $1 bag of chips and not the $1.50 bag of chips.
Some people have a car but never bought a suit and tie.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[AmiMoJo]

I have Bluetooth headphones but they are annoying for travel. Yet another battery to charge, different connector to my phone (USB micro vs. C), can't use them on some airlines that don't allow any wireless stuff and even when allowed the 2.4ghz spectrum is often saturated inside the plane... And Bluetooth drains your phone battery much faster too.

I put up with then because I use the headphone socket for a Pluggy Lock to hold a strap, so I don't drop the phone.

To me removing the headphone jack is just another example of being 0.001mm thinner but giving up 1000mAh of battery and an SD card slot and waterproofing to do it. It's silly not to have one.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Ayano]

Many in the working class bracket have it subsidized by their phone plan. Everyone wants the newest thingy, and in addition, phone companies want to lock in a 2 year contract.

There's also a slew of low cost android phones also sold by samsung that have a jack which is a market apple ignored. Apple is focused on the top of the market, but Samsung is targeting both high and low. The Iphone-C was a disaster, but Samsung has success on both top and bottom of the wealth brackets.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[thewolfkin]

The market of people who can afford to buy a flagship phone ($500+ more than a basic model), but not an extra 25 bucks for bluetooth headphones?

no one spends $500 on a phone. They get contracts and pay $0 down. Lotta people can afford the upfront costs of a contract and can't afford expensive bluetooth headphones not when they have so many wired headphones that are easier to use and cheaper for little to no disadvantage.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Apple is focused on retards that spend money on shit they don't need. That is not top of the market. That's the bottom of the barrel.

They can get fucked but I'm still not buying an ISIS phone.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[pubwvj]

Amazon, of course. In fact since I looked a couple of weeks ago and found the $13 pair (over the ear) I see they now have a _LOT_ of even less expensive ones. See:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s...

Slightly more for over the ear:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s...

Pricing seems to fluctuate as I saw some of these for $13 a couple of weeks ago.

For sleeping I got these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...

which initially I didn't like due to a charging problem but that resolved through full discharge and recharge cycles and now they're doing well for me. My bed partner snores and these help block her noise.

For while I'm working I use these as they have very good noise canceling both active and passive:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod...

I work in a noisy environment (farm and on-farm butcher shop) so these help to protect my hearing while also letting me listen to podcasts and music while I work.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you name one $10 Dongle with decent DAC in it? DAC chip alone that the high end phone used to include would be more costly than that!

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you never use any decent headphone then. You can't even get a decent wired headphone for $13. The cheapest wireless headphone that I could call decent costs more than $100. Not to mention you constantly have to re-change them.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[pubwvj]

Early bluetooth headphones had more problems with this but the new standards have vastly improved it and are available at reasonable prices that you can afford if you can already afford a smartphone. It's about choices and priorities. Skip the phones without jacks if it offends you.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really a $1k phone, it's more like a $41.67 a month phone. Plus, what kind of moron spends that kind of money on a phone? Apart from people that insist on having an Apple phone up the ass, $600 or $25 a month is all a high end phone should cost.

It's one of the reasons why people wind up with financial problems, they pay over time, which hides how much they're really spending.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[schnell]

no one spends $500 on a phone. They get contracts and pay $0 down. Lotta people can afford the upfront costs of a contract and can't afford expensive bluetooth headphones

This is part of "the cost of being poor." I'm not making a cruel joke, this is an established economic effect. And I'm saying this as someone who spent my first year post-college (1995-1996) as a VISTA Volunteer getting a $15K annual stipend. So I understand and have been there. BUT:

1.) Lots of people do in fact spend $500 or even $1000 on a smartphone. If you can do this and pay it off within your first credit card cycle, you are in the long run saving $200-$400 over the next two years.

2.) If you were like me as a college graduate with a reasonable expectation of more remunerative future employment, saving money in the short term was not great economically but somewhat reasonable in shifting short term expenses into the long term when you could pay them off more easily. But if you don't have better long term income expectations, it's a terrible deal. The "cost of being poor" is the excess that you pay (in making small instead of volume purchases or paying with interest-bearing debt) versus taking the upfront hit - as long as it is below the pace of inflation - and saving money in the long term. If you are renting furniture, buying consumer goods on long-term credit, paying month-to-month rents, cashing payday loans or IRS checks, etc. you are costing yourself money you can't afford. If your income will eventually rise, that may be okay, but otherwise you are hurting yourself terribly and extending a cycle of credit dependency and bankruptcy risk.

3.) I am not defending Apple or anyone else's decision to do away with the headphone jack. But to be frank the choice is really not between a proprietary jack and Bluetooth; just buy a $20-$30 adapter and keep using your existing headphones.

4.) There is a genuine argument to be made that if you can't buy a $500 phone upfront, then you shouldn't be buying a $500 phone. (I am guilty - when I was 22 and living off Ramen noodles, I still paid $12.99/month for my CompuServe account and bought plenty of CDs that I didn't need either.) But I'm just saying - without any moral judgment - that if your problem is you can't buy a $500 phone then the cost of accessories should probably be a far downstream concern.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[mrwireless]

I use apps that turn off my wifi when the phone is not connected to my home and work cell towers. But that privacy effort is negated if I am suddenly expected to send out another wireless signal just to listen to music. This is why Apple's claim to champion privacy seemed a little two-faced to me when they went in this direction.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[fluffernutter]

I won't order headphones off of Amazon. Too much hassle if I don't like them.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[pubwvj]

That's what I love about the reviews. I find that by reading the reviews I can learn more about the product than if I handled it in the store.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[pubwvj]

You just changed the topic. The topic under discussion was Bluetooth and price. You've changed it to quality and your opinion. Stick with the subject on hand. If you want to discuss the quality of bluetooth or be snobbish that is another thread you could start.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[sad_]

the samsung high end phones, like this S9 will be, are also too expensive for most people.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[fluffernutter]

Yes but unfortunately reviewers often don't seem to consider the same things important that I do. For example, I want a headphone that I *cannot feel* when I put it in my ear and lie on my side to go to sleep. A reviewer may say 'they are comfortable' but no one is going to say exactly 'how' comfortable. Also, my ears are a different size and shape than anyone else's so there is no telling whether they will fall out or not unless I get a sport pair that go around the back of the ear, but again I may be able to feel those. Anything I order from Amazon seems to take over a week to get and it's just too much time if I have to return and re-order.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going into a store and putting earphones in your ears and then pretending to lay and sleep, it makes me glad that I refuse to put a set of random publicly handled earphones into my ears.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[fluffernutter]

I can usually tell by holding them and looking at them. Also I make sure the store takes returns if I am not happy with the product.

Re:Not everyone can afford bluetooth headphones

[tlhIngan]

Also I make sure the store takes returns if I am not happy with the product.

Lots of stores don't take headphones, earbuds and other things back anymore as a hygiene thing, so if your store does, good for you.

The only reason to go to the store is to try them before buying them, because after they're bought, unless they're still sealed, most will refuse.

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps it would be best if you go rape yourself.

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[Anonymous Coward]

You first. Perhaps you don't understand the context

Why not a middle ground?

[trabby]

We already have TRRS 2.5mm connectors why not start using those on phones? 1mm saved right there and the adaptors are cheap as. Not as space saving as no connector at all but a reasonable compromise.

Re:Why not a middle ground?

[ColdWetDog]

If you're going to do that, just use the supplied Lighting to 3 mm adapter.

Re:Why not a middle ground?

[RightwingNutjob]

Because adapters are stupid and clunky in general, and the lighning adapter on my wife's iphone in particular doesn't work properly half the time.

Now I ask you, why the hell would I need to waste my time going to the store and spending money on a replacement, which may or may not actually fix the issue, when I can buy a phone with a headphone jack and not have to worry about that particular nuisance?

Re:Why not a middle ground?

[trabby]

What I meant was use a 2.5mm connector and people get their own 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor cheaply.

2.5mm has no patents/royalties to worry about and is commonly used for corded headsets and analogue video adaptors

There is no 3mm connector.

https://www.google.com.au/sear...

One way or another phone manufacturers are obsessed with making phones thinner, hence the compromise idea.

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[Betty Crocker]

Enough with the racism already.

Would someone PLEASE tell me when S(c)amsung is going to make the batteries replaceable again? My son broke his Galaxy phone twice by placing it in his back pocket and sitting down. They removed the plastic cover and replaced it with a glass one. First time, we thought it was a fluke. Second time, we got it fixed, sold the phone on ebay, and bought him an older HTC instead.

Again Apple shuns the xxx market

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of adult toys have headphone jacks to receive audio input ... especially the most expensive units which rely on very nice analog knobs and quality niche electronics that Apple would/could never put into their offerings.

They've locked their platform out of a whole ton of cool ecosystems by dropping the jack.

t. us

Web 1.0 rebuttal: but, mp3 players exist.

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[ColdWetDog]

Approximately never. That ship has sailed, the horse is out of the barn, the milk is all over the floor.

Embrace the USB cable. 5V forever!

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Approximately never. That ship has sailed, the horse is out of the barn, the milk is all over the floor.

Embrace the USB cable. 5V forever!

Sometimes people realize their mistakes and choose to correct them. Your parents for example probably regretted having bred you. I'm sure they haven't had any more kids since for fear of replicating their mistake.

Re:You Know Jackoff ColdWetDog?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.

high bandwidth headphones?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're a fucking idiot, SCSI got replaced because it was superseded with something that had more utility. the 3.5mm jack got replaced because Apple could charge an extra $5/ headphone. Nothing about the 3.5mm jack is obsolete.

Let your wallet do the talking

[CptLoRes]

I'm on the S7 and normally only upgrade when I fell there is a real reason to do so (S3 was my previous one). If the S9 has a jack, then I will make it a point to get one outside of my normal update interval. It's the only meaningful way to show a company that having a jack is a feature that really matters.

Also not everyone wants to watch batteries

[rsilvergun]

My mono Bluetooth headset gets about 6 hours (claims 7). Most stereo ones I've seen are 4 or 5. I don't mind plugging my phone into a power brick but I've yet to see a headset that looks wearable plugged into one.

Re:Also not everyone wants to watch batteries

[sl3xd]

Just out of curiosity, are those headsets over-the-ear cans, or something smaller like earbuds?

Many of the over-the-ear cans are indistinguishable from normal wired cans when charging.

That's why...

[fyngyrz]

Mac Pros, same thing. The trashcan is... well, trash.

But I could get a good 12/24 core Mac Pro with proper slots and storage facilities and so on on EBay. So that's what I did.

Still waiting to see if all that hot air about "we made a mistake" with the trashcan design is going to turn into anything worthwhile.

Wallet is all queued up

[fyngyrz]

It's also a form of self-defense in case they blow the audio (it's not just "headphone") jack off with the s10; after all, Samsung often does follow Apple into the valley of stupid: ridiculous and inconvenient levels of thin, non-replaceable batteries, flat icons, dropped IR, etc.

I'm planning the same move: s7 to s9 if there's a proper jack and there isn't some kind of other major screwup.

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like some kind of shill turd burglar

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[Anonymous Coward]

just remember; rape is the new nigg(a/er)

New Pixel 2 XL owner

[Pop69]

Got one today. Came with a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter and a USB-C to ordinary USB adapter for connecting sticks in the box. Not seeing what the problem is here ?

Re:New Pixel 2 XL owner

[antdude]

Adapters are annoying. Why have extras to carry around?

"Convinced" of bluetooth???

[brunes69]

It has nothing to do with being "convinced". There are tons of situations where bluetooth headphones are simply a non-option - for one, on many airplanes worldwide, Bluetooth headphones are still banned and likely will be for years and years. Secondly, if you're on an 7 or 8 hour flight and want to listen to continuous music, good luck doing that on your bluetooth earbuds.

USB-C and Lightning earphones don't make this much easier because these situations usually cause you to want your phone to be plugged in, which means silly hubs/dongles if you want to change your phone and listen to music at once.

Furthermore, if you happen to decide to want to use the in-flight entertainment - GOOD LUCK if you don't have wired headphones with a 1/8 jack! So what now - looks like you need to bring more dongles!

I swear the people who cooked up these ideas have seemingly never flown on a plane in their lives.

Re:"Convinced" of bluetooth???

[Anubis350]

My BT over ear headphones (cheap-midrange MPOWs that work pretty well and are rather comfy) also have an analog mode, just like a most of the most expensive over the ear headphones, which is basically a jack that a provided 1/8"1/8" mini jack cable can plug into and drive them just like normal cans. Used them on my last flight for just that! That said, a lot of airlines are removing in flight entertainment from the seats and just providing in flight streaming from a on-plane server to the wifi (the streaming and entertainment are free, connecting to the wider internet costs money)

Re:"Convinced" of bluetooth???

[thegarbz]

for one, on many airplanes worldwide, Bluetooth headphones are still banned and likely will be for years and years.

As someone who flies about every 3 weeks and loops the globe several times a year at various countries I have *NEVER* been told I can't use my Bluetooth headphones. Not in America, not anywhere else. I have once been asked to take them off only to pay attention to the safety video. The brand I have are sold at every airport in the world, even the shit ones. They are sold as the perfect device to make your flight quieter and when the noise cancelling is on, so is the bluetooth. Mind you they do have a headphone cable attachment, but I've never once used it.

Now what I have heard plenty of airlines all around the world say:
"Please engage flight-mode on your device. If you wish to use the in-flight entertainment system, or the internet you will need to manually turn on WiFi on your device."

So no, no one gives a shit if you use bluetooth headphones, or bluetooth mice, or bluetooth styluses. And why would they? The energy emission is so frigging low that it barely makes it from your pocket to your head.

Re: "Convinced" of bluetooth???

[brunes69]

Well you obviously never fly on smaller regional carriers inside or outside the US.

If your plane is not certified for on board wifi, it's not certified for Bluetooth. Full stop. Many regional airlines will ask you to remove your Bluetooth headphones.

Re: "Convinced" of bluetooth???

[swillden]

Well you obviously never fly on smaller regional carriers inside or outside the US.

If your plane is not certified for on board wifi, it's not certified for Bluetooth. Full stop. Many regional airlines will ask you to remove your Bluetooth headphones.

I fly on regionals. And I haven't been asked to turn off bluetooth devices since 2013, when the FAA rules changed.

It's somewhat common to be asked to remove headphones of any type during the safety briefing, but that's it.

Re: "Convinced" of bluetooth???

[thegarbz]

Well you obviously never fly on smaller regional carriers inside or outside the US.

Well you clearly have no idea. My work takes me from anything from a Luxurious business class Emirates intercontinental, to shitty economy class Delta / United international flights, through low cost carriers in the USA and Europe at crappy airports, all the way down to those shitty flights that even the cheap airlines outsource to local contract agencies on loud and nasty propeller planes.

I've flown aircrafts of every size and every brand on every continent except Antarctica and have worn bluetooth headphones on all but 1 flight for the past 8 years and that's only because of a warranty claim that Bose didn't turn around in time.

it's not certified for Bluetooth. Full stop.

You use the word certified like it means something. It means absolutely nothing. Your initial comment discussed not certification but rather an airline banning something. And in the absence of a written procedure shown to the passenger, or a verbal instruction from the crew, bluetooth headphones aren't "banned" on any flight I have been on.

Many regional airlines will ask you to remove your Bluetooth headphones.

It goes without saying but I'm quoting this for good measure anyway, but : Nope.

Brave, courageous, wild! I'm impressed

[AbRASiON]

Honestly, I'm a Samsung fan but good god are they copying sheep. I'm very very surprised they didn't do what everyone else is and pull it, because it's the new cool thing!!!! (groan)

I am still extremely disappointed about the mandatory curved displays on all models, quite disappointed about the lack of a home button.

Sadly, no sale. Curved displays can't have protectors put on them properly, they break easier, they look bad.
No.

Still, good move on the headphone jack.

for all of you

[Anonymous Coward]

who believe adaptors are a pain: you're wrong

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[ZipK]

Sometimes people realize their mistakes and choose to correct them.

This is true. A few years ago, some brand management brainiac at Post thought it would be a good idea to hop on the added-protein bandwagon, and added isolated soy protein to the hundred-year-old Grape Nuts cereal formula. Having compromised Grape Nuts' basic value proposition and the interests of the die-hards who stick with this niche product, Post rebuffed complaints for a year before fixing their mistake ("Now without soy!"). Idiots.

Read more here and here.

Dex Pad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope this iteration supports greater than 1080p. I used the Dex dock a while back with a Note 9(?) and did some basic stuffing around - email, browsing blah all fine even with a few windows open. Log into a virtual desktop and I had everything else I could want - except support for my 4k screen. Oh well.

It's not a legacy connector

[Anonymous Coward]

It was and is for 30-something years, the only way to connect your headphones. All non-wireless headphones worldwide have this connector or it's bigger sibling. It's the only connector for headphones we know. Dropping it is stupid.

Re:You Know Jackoff Bill Clinton?

[dmesg0]

Type-C USB cable is up to 20V. Many smartphones usually support 9V and 12V

Jack replaced by useless plastic, not speaker

[KWTm]

[the headphone jack] takes up more space that could be dedicated to battery or another function.

Yes, that space is sooooo valuable that when Apple removed the headphone jack, they filled the space with a piece of molded plastic.

That's incredibly misleading. Sure, it's a piece of molded plastic. What you fail to mention is that it is a functional piece of molded plastic - part of the speaker.

But that's not what the quoted article says. They said: "teardown [of the new iPhone] reveals what's in place of the headphone jack that Apple removed. In short: nothing complicated. Just some plastic. No speaker, and no electronics."

Re:Jack replaced by useless plastic, not speaker

[MightyYar]

Yeah, I read it. You, for reasons that I don't understand, omitted the important parts:

Yep — in the place where the headphone jack used to be, there's a piece of molded plastic. "No fancy electronics here, just some well-designed acoustics and molded plastic," iFixit writes.

and

Apple told The Verge that the plastic is a "barometric vent" — the new iPhone is water-resistant, which messed with the device's built-in barometer.

So the article is not self-consistent. It doesn't really matter what it is, it appears to be functional both from iFixit's description and Apple's.

Can we have our removable battery back PLEASE?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please?!

Samsung TVs have horrifying privacy policies, what

[Anonymous Coward]

about their phones?

3.5mm Sound Quality?

[GrahamJ]

I find it humorous how many people apparently want the jack for high end headphones. Phone DAC/amps suck! If you don’t have your own external DAC/amp you don’t get to complain about sound quality.