Samsung Kills Headphone Jack After Mocking Apple (macrumors.com)

Last week, Samsung introduced its latest smartphone, the Galaxy A8s. Not only is it the first phone of theirs with a laser-drilled hole in the display for the front-facing camera sensor, but it is also their first phone to ditch the headphone jack. Slashdot reader TheFakeTimCook shares a report from Mac Rumors that takes a closer look at the move and the hypocrisy behind it: [The A8s] is also Samsung's first smartphone without a headphone jack, much to the amusement of iPhone users, as Samsung has mocked Apple for over two years over its decision to remove the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 in 2016, a trend that has continued through to the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. While on stage unveiling the new Galaxy Note 7 in 2016, for example, Samsung executive Justin Denison made sure to point out that the device came with a headphone jack. "Want to know what else it comes with?" he asked. "An audio jack. I'm just saying," he answered, smirking as the audience laughed. And earlier this year, Samsung mocked the iPhone X's lack of a headphone jack in one of its "Ingenius" ads promoting the Galaxy S9. Samsung isn't the first tech giant to mock Apple's decision to remove the headphone jack, only to follow suit. Google poked fun at the iPhone 7's lack of headphone jack while unveiling its original Pixel smartphone in 2016, and then the Pixel 2 launched without one just a year later.

Comments

Killed is a bit of a strong word

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung is simply cutting costs on their budget line up by removing the headphone jack. Multiple accounts indicate the jack is still present on their upcoming flagship S10.

Re:Killed is a bit of a strong word

[Anonymous Coward]

They mocked Apple because they wanted people to buy their product instead of Apple's, and that was something different about them.

They also would like to sell the more expensive accessories, so they subsequently did the same thing Apple did.

And they are no longer mocking Apple, because they now have a similar product, and that is the only reason.

This makes absolute sense if you don't assume that the leaders of large corporations care about things like consistency and good-faith. They care about making money, and doing/saying whatever seems like the best way of doing that at the time. And nothing else.

Re:Killed is a bit of a strong word

[MSG]

By removing the headphone jack on their lower-end models, they may intend to make the iPhone look cheap.

Re:Killed is a bit of a strong word

[arglebargle_xiv]

Y'know, if you could mix and match features from about ten different Samsung phones, you'd get one pretty decent phone that didn't suck. Take the J-series for example, a range of phones so badly crippled they can't even update their own firmware because there's no space on the system partition, but it does have a headphone jack. Then there's the A8 without the headphone jack. And there are others, all crippled in various ways so they won't compete with each other. Drop a few thousand on various Samsung phones and pretty soon you've got the feature set for a single actually useful phone.

Re:Killed is a bit of a strong word

[guacamole]

Samsung is afraid of building an honest to god good 200-300 dollar smartphone that could compete with say the popular Moto G series because then the bubble of the 800-1000 dollar Galaxies and Notes will pop as people will realize that a cheap phone still can have a big screen, a quality build, and for most purposes it runs the same apps you need to use just fine.

Re: Killed is a bit of a strong word

[SeaFox]

Designing phones that are thin and waterproof is difficult and expensive when you have ports to the outside.

The headphone jack is a prime candidate to cut. Not that I approve of the measure.

Sony seemed to have no issues making phones for years that were IP68 rated but had headphone jacks (and didn't have a special plug or anything else on them to keep the water out).

Are these new phones we're getting now that headphone jacks have been removed a higher water-resistance rating? I haven't heard of any that are.

Re:Killed is a bit of a strong word

[Cro Magnon]

Well, for one thing, my old iPhone 6 still gets security updates.

Re:Dont care about app UI

[Anonymous Coward]

How many users of phones without notches or holes drilled though the screen are going to have to suffer with unusable screen space on their phones due to app developers and content developers having to develop for the lowest common denominator. Were pretty much getting to the point you have to assume the edges of 5-10% of a phone's screen are unusable because you dont know what kind of notch, hole, curved corner or other bullshit might be in the screen.

So much for a bezel free phone, when now that 5-10% of the screen itself is now the bezel and has to be assumed to be unusable, lest some part of your content gets cut off.

This article is terribly misrepresentative

[psperl]

Apple has removed the headphone jack from ALL of its phones. Samsung removed it from one midrange phone, and still offers dozens of models with it. This is clickbait, pure and simple.

Re:Not really a big deal anymore

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Audiophiles? A cheap pair of corded headphones is around $5 and I don't need to charge them or worry about power at all. I don't like having extra things that need charging.

I say this as someone who jumped hard onto bluetooth, but then realized the damn cord was more convenient.

Beware

[Anonymous Coward]

Some recent android devices without headphone jacks use the same antenna for both WiFi and Bluetooth, and this is a huge problem if you are streaming content over WiFi and want to listen to the audio via Bluetooth headphones. I nearly pulled the trigger on the purchase of a Huawei android tablet before I found a bunch of online reviews of people who claim the device fails at streaming standard definition content (Netflix, YouTube, etc) when using Bluetooth headphones. Don't pre-order devices and make sure to read those one star reviews.

Re:Not really a big deal anymore

[SeaFox]

I've personally been using a phone without a headphone jack for several months now and haven't missed it. I never used it on my previous phone - I went Bluetooth "everything" quite awhile ago.

Why are the people in the "Bluetooth" camp always making this out as though we have to choose one or the other? There's no reason you can't continue to ignore the headphone jack for the Bluetooth you find more convenient. Removing the headphone jack has no impact on your use, so why can't they just leave it and give the consumer more choice.

The cost of the jack is a non-issue in a device costing as much as a major appliance. We don't need to remove the jack because it is "hampering the thinness of the phone's design" -- because they don't need to be thinner. People are already complaining about phones being too thin to be structurally resilient depending on the material. The waterproofing argument is bogus, too. Handset makers are not making the phones more water-resistant after removing the jack than they were before they removed it.

What is an actual legitimate reason that it is necessary the jack be removed?

Re:Not really a big deal anymore

[hazardPPP]

A car stereo with Bluetooth costs $15. Walmart also sells Bluetooth adapters in the impulse bins at the check-out counters.

So? Lack of a headphone jack has nothing to do with annoying audiophiles...in fact it's more annoying to just us regular folk.

I have bluetooth headphones. The sound is great for my needs and they're pretty cool. But...

• - They're wireless (duh), so you need to charge them. Another piece of equipment you need a cable for and a charger and that you have to worry about plugging in at night. Annoying.

• - Bluetooth is far from a perfect technology...in the past it was horribly buggy, now it's got better but it's still not seamless. If you use just one pair of equipment (a single set of headphones with a single phone for example) it'll work OK most of the time but once you start swapping pairs around the problems multiply. Which headset do you pair to this device? Which is the default audio output? Did it automatically pair with another nearby device with which it was paired in the past and currently has its Bluetooth on? Etc. etc.

• - The communication is ultimately software-based, which means software updates can break things. For example, an update for my OS broke the ability of my computer to stream full stereo sound to my bluetooth headphones.

• - The whole pairing process is still so 1995, compare to the much more straightforward process of connecting to WiFi.

• - Declining battery life means your bluetooth headphones are going to need replacing sooner than your regular headphones most likely. Take earbuds. I can go the cheap route and pay $5-10, those will probably break within a year. But hey, they're dirt cheap who cares? Or if I choose to spend $30+ on earbuds those will probably last me 20 years. I also get to use them with a whole variety of equipment. Which pair of bluetooth headphones will last me 20 years? Which one of them will plug into my 10-15 year old sound system? Etc.

• - What happens all the time is that exactly when I need to use the headphones, the battery is empty.

• - More on the phone side: the main way I listen to music at home now is by plugging in my tablet or phone into my sound system and playing music off Spotify, Youtube, internet radio, MP3s, whatever. Hard without a 3.5 mm jack, and yeah, I like the ability of being able to charge the phone/tablet simultaneously.

• - You officially aren't allowed to use Bluetooth on an airplane.

So yeah, I have Bluetooth headphones, but more or less I always carry a pair of ordinary earbuds as backup. Don't remove my 3.5mm jack, thanks.