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

Posted by msmash on from the in-hindsight dept.

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).

15 of 566 comments (clear)

  1. I don't. by Qbertino · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re: I don't. by fluffernutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    2. Re: I don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re: I don't. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, even my bluetooth headphones are quite an improvement from taking that live band with me on every trip.

    4. Re:I don't. by dryeo · · Score: 5, Informative

      And I'll also listen to my free FM radio that doesn't eat up my data plan or battery

      But the FM radio in the phone uses the headphone wire, plugged into the headphone jack, as an antenna.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
  2. I know this is too ideal, but ... by bobby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re: I know this is too ideal, but ... by js290 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's actually counterintuitive: "The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority" https://medium.com/incerto/the...

      --
      "Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
    2. Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... by GrumpySteen · · Score: 5, Informative

      Try again.

      The iPhone 6 had a headphone jack and was thinner than any model they've made without the 3.5mm headphone jack. Removing the jack has nothing to do with making the phone thinner.

    3. Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... by kbg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:I know this is too ideal, but ... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 5, Informative

      And yet thinner phones (2mm thinner) already existed - and kept the 3.5mm jack. Not to mention a hacker added 3.5mm jack internally to an iPhone 7. Clearly it can be done, and clearly thinner phones can be made. It was dropped because Apple was spending $3.2 billion buying one of the biggest Bluetooth headphone brands in the world - Beats.

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  3. Re:Seriously? by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Want to know why it bugs you? by DrXym · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Removing the 3.5mm jack was not necessary by Stonent1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There was a guy on youtube that lives in China that was able to source the parts, and free up enough room inside his iPhone to readd a 3.5mm jack. He used one of those lightning to 3.5mm passthrough dongles and stripped it down to the bare minimum. So if some guy in his bedroom could do it, apple could have done it.

    1. Re:Removing the 3.5mm jack was not necessary by Stonent1 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA

  6. Revable batteries... by fbobraga · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... 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)