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Apple's 'courage' to remove the headphone jack has created a brave new world
It was barely two years ago when we lamented the loss of the headphone jack on the iPhone. The iPhone 7 had just arrived with a gorgeous jet black color, a solid-state home button, and a dongle in place of the 3.5mm headphone jack. At the iPhone 7 introduction, Apple VP Phil Schiller talked about having the "courage" to make the change, to leave the headphone jack behind.
At the time it was kind of cringe-worthy. Rather than try to convince the audience of the benefits of wireless charging or the annoyances of wired earphones, Schiller basically told the audience that they might not understand now, but one day they will. You could hear the snickers in the auidence when he said that removing the headphone jack required the "courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us." It sounded ridiculous. All we could see was the inconvenience ahead.
But you know what? He was right.
It might have sounded like the reality distortion field on steroids, but Apple's decision to remove the headphone jack from its most popular product wasn't a flippant design whim. It was the start of a new strategy that would bring convenience, simplicity, and downright delight.
The move led to courageous sales of AirPods.
See also: Poll: Looking back now, did Apple exhibit 'courage' in removing the headphone jack from iPhones?
Related: New Moto Z Omits Analog Headphone Jack; Adds Moto Mods
Bring Back the Headphone Jack: Why USB-C Audio Still Doesn't Work
Apple on the Decline
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:37PM (1 child)
I like Bluetooth wireless headphones (not earbuds). You can walk around the house with them, even sleep with them on. I got a cheapo $18 pair that lasted about 2 years before the band cleaved in half a few months ago. Wrapped it up with some duct tape and it still works. But I'll be looking to replace it with a Bluetooth 5 [wikipedia.org] or 5.1 version for the longer range. BT 5 can transmit at 125 Kb/s at the longest range [electronicdesign.com], which should be more than good enough for radio and podcasts, especially if Opus [wikipedia.org] compression is used.
Rechargeable batteries are everywhere now and even slight improvements could greatly impact our entire civilization. If you can't easily replace a battery and it doesn't last several years, you've got a problem. Maybe in 10-20 years we'll have batteries that routinely outlast the usefulness of a device.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @08:43PM
Be aware many devices post BT2.1 (or 2.1 and 1.0 previously) do not support the older standard, so you may very well find your bluetooth headset comes with a bluetooth transmitter upgrade required as well. If it is soldered in, you may be replacing your stereo recieved, phone, etc in order to connect to them.
I ran into this problem with a bluetooth controller, keyboard, and one or two other devices over the past few years. Turns out a microusb to usb adapter plus a wireless dongle works anywhere your device has usb or otg much more often than random bluetooth host and random bluetooth peripheral work together.