'Two Years Later, I Still Miss the Headphone Port' (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader shares a column: I've been trying to figure out why the removal of the headphone port bugs me more than other ports that have been unceremoniously killed off, and I think it's because the headphone port almost always only made me happy. Using the headphone port meant listening to my favorite album, or using a free minute to catch the latest episode of a show, or passing an earbud to a friend to share some new tune. It enabled happy moments and never got in the way.

Now every time I want to use my headphones, I just find myself annoyed. Bluetooth? Whoops, forgot to charge them. Or whoops, they're trying to pair with my laptop even though my laptop is turned off and in my backpack. Dongle? Whoops, left it on my other pair of headphones at work. Or whoops, it fell off somewhere, and now I've got to go buy another one. I'll just buy a bunch of dongles, and put them on all my headphones! I'll keep extras in my bag for when I need to borrow a pair of headphones. That's just like five dongles at this point, problem solved! Oh, wait: now I want to listen to music while I fall asleep, but also charge my phone so it's not dead in the morning. That's a different, more expensive splitter dongle (many of which, I've found, are poorly made garbage).

Comments

I don't.

[Qbertino]

Because I don't buy phones that don't have one.
Genius, isn't it?

Re: I don't.

[fluffernutter]

Bluetooth headphones were made for making phone calls, not listening to music. Technically what you hear through them is not the music itself, but a compressed approximation of the music.

Re: I don't.

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have been nice for an alternative evolution came out first. USB headphones have been around for years, but not in usb-c form and not as analog over usb.

Like the beauty of the 3.5mm jack is that it doesnâ(TM)t fucking break. It rotates if itâ(TM)s an L-shape. USB? It will break off the PCB and since that is also your charging port, you just killed the phone.

Re: I don't.

[quenda]

Bluetooth headphones were made for making phone calls, not listening to music.

Back in the 1990s, yes. But welcome to the 21st century.

Technically what you hear through them is not the music itself, but a compressed approximation of the music.

You will be very sad if you every study anatomy and psychology, and learn how human senses work. Our perception is necessarily highly compressed.
Do you imagine you "hear" the sound-pressure level at every moment? Are you one of those Luddites who hated CDs because of the sampling, or born too late?
Best not to use the word "Technically" when you have zero technical comprehension.

Re: I don't.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Like the beauty of the 3.5mm jack is that it doesnâ(TM)t fucking break. It rotates if it's an L-shape. USB? It will break off the PCB and since that is also your charging port, you just killed the phone.

^^^^^THIS.

Headphone ports work perfectly well in literally billions of devices going back ~40 years or more. It's an amazing technological success that just works.

Apple's bullshit excuse of "courage" was believed only by suckers and fanbois.

Re: I don't.

[LostMyBeaver]

The 3.5mm headphone jack was one of the greatest inventions ever. There were attempts at smaller, but the 2.5mm was just too fragile.

After 50 years, the 3.5mm jack is damn near perfect. There are some potential problems with it, but nothing which is too much of a problem.

If people want to use bluetooth, they're welcome to it. But I've gone iPhoneX and then back again. A major part of this was the headphone jack.

What people often don't realize about the headphone jack is that it takes power. This is this real problem for companies these days. A small audio amplifier places a drain on the battery. It also requires space on the PCB. It's extremely difficult to design an audio amplifier with insanely good audio which fits within the real-estate constraints of a phone and also make it so there's no interference from all the surrounding radio circuits.

So... the solution is to charge us more and remove the port.

What Apple and the others seem to forget is that we like the choice. I don't like constantly losing headphones because they're not connected to the phone. Or constantly leaving my phone on the desk and being out of the building before I realize I forgot it... because the sound starts crackling. I don't like breaking expensive lightning to headphone dongles. I don't like having to constantly charge wireless headphones. I hate when my headphones run out of battery on the train.

Now.. here's the REAL PROBLEM

I don't like having to constantly pair and pair and pair and pair my damn headphones. I use my headphone with my PC to talk on Skype. I use my headphones on my phone to ... well everything. I use my headphone on my tablet to... well everything. I have one pair of headphones I simply plug or unplug. When I use bluetooth, I have to delete the device and repair it every time I switch. With proper headphones I can move the cable and click the button on the headphones to play. I don't even have to unlock the phone.

I've been hoping Apple or Google will release a phone at some point called "The old fogey phone" for people who want all the features of the latest phone but are willing to live with lesser audio to get the headphone jack.

Re: I don't.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

After 50 years, the 3.5mm jack is damn near perfect. There are some potential problems with it, but nothing which is too much of a problem.

A lot of people try to claim that "it can't be made waterproof" or that "it collects dust and lint" or some other bullshit excuse.

1) It's trivial to waterproof a 3.5mm jack and plug. I've done it dozens of times with nothing more than a little bit of RTV or silicone sealant. So that excuse is pure bullshit.

2) It collects pocket lint or dust? OH NOES!!1! But so does a USB-C port, as well as every other connector on the planet. Just use some compressed air to blow it out and it's as good as new.

But noooooooooooooo, we have to buy dongles and/or $75 bluetooth earbuds...now you have more things to lose, more batteries to wear out, more cables to break, etc etc etc.

I can buy dozens of earbuds on Amazon or eBay for $5 ~ $10 and if I lose them it's no big deal. No additional batteries to wear out, no dumbass charging station or gizmo needed.

Also, sound is better over a wire than over Bluetooth. That's a fact. Don't waste my time telling me that the fidelity over Bluetooth is better (or even equal)...I have enough decades of electronics under my belt to know you're mistaken.

Interference? Never really been a problem with wired earbuds unless you're standing next to a major source of EMI like a transformer or sparky motors.

Finally, if my wired earbud falls out, I just put it back in. If your Bluetooth earbud falls out...oh shit. Lets hope you're not in tall grass or over a grate or on a gravel parking lot or a roadway or on an escalator or jogging, etc etc etc. If it's gone, just smile and shell out another $75 for a new pair (since you can't buy them singly as far as I know).

I know this is too ideal, but ...

[bobby]

I know I'm being unrealistic, but I wish free-market economics worked the way they theorize it should: that very few people would buy a product that doesn't have a 3.5mm port, and the demand would be filled by other manufacturers (unless you're Apple-addicted, then you're at their mercy). It bugs me to no end when the market bends and adapts to the supplier.

Re:I know this is too ideal, but ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The theory you are mentioning is actually called the Rational market theory. It works when an informed public acts rationally. Not altruistically, not socially responsibly, not any highflatulating weirdly. Simply rationally.

And you apply it to iPhone market? That is the most irrational market there is.

Re:I know this is too ideal, but ...

[msauve]

Well, smartphones aren't needed, either. Like them, it is a want. What's the user advantage of a thinner phone? Easier to break? Less room for battery capacity? An excuse to build in planned obsolescence with a non-user replaceable battery?

Re:I know this is too ideal, but ...

[kbg]

So they can make the USB port waterproof but not the 3.5mm port? And the USB port has more wires and also has power, which the 3.5mm port doesn't

I don't think so.

Re: I know this is too ideal, but ...

[dinfinity]

Horseshit.

Unless you define 'good' as 'unusably thin'.

Re:Seriously?

[NFN_NLN]

USB sticks are superior in every way to a floppy disk; therefore invalid comparison.

Touch-tone phone ares superior in every way to a rotary phone; therefore invalid comparison.

Verdict: Point missed.

Want to know why it bugs you?

[DrXym]

Because removing the headphone jack was a cynical move by phone manufacturers to upsell you a pair of bluetooth headphones. There is virtually no benefit to the consumer of such a move.

Re:Want to know why it bugs you?

[OzPeter]

And even included an adapter to allow other, standard headphones to plug into the same port.

Now that's cynical /s

the "standard" requires an adapter? who is fooling who?

So when was the last time that you used a keyboard with a PS/2 connector? That was really cynical of PC manufacturers getting rid of PS/2 ports, forcing me to buy brand new USB keyboards. And don't get me started on those adapters that they forced on me when I had to use the AT style keyboard connectors with PS/2 ports.

I think it will come back, ... eventually

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Smart phone market has saturated, and the shakeout is coming. I am sure the handsets with headphones will thrive, market research will show the value and it will come back.

Same way the free checked bags will come back. Aviation kerosene prices are set to plunge in five years. It will remove all the nickel and diming from the air lines, 35$ for exit row seats, 25$ for guaranteed aisle seat...

But the 40$ late fee for credit cards will stay. The banksters are cruel jerks and they got poor people by their balls. They are not going to stop squeezing anytime soon.

Re:Seriously?

[alvinrod]

I'm not sure that it's serious so much as a troll post. Anyone who felt that strongly about a headphone port wouldn't have purchased a phone without one. Judging by the amount of shit it's already stirring up, I'd say it's a pretty successful troll at that.

Revable batteries...

[fbobraga]

... the lack of it was the first "fail" to me (it's a reason why I still keep my S5 [it shines with http://lineageos.org/ ] :P)

How long will you have a choice?

[tepples]

I don't buy phones that don't have one.

Tell that to someone who resolved not to buy phones that lack a QWERTY keyboard.