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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, Disagree) by aiwarrior on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:35AM (16 children)
If you really want to have a jack buy a bluetooth-to-jack dongle and you can have a poor man;s version of bluetooth headphones.
Honestly though, a phone is a mobile thing and after buying bluetooth headphones i never cared for wired headphones anymore.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:41AM (7 children)
My phone sits on my desk all day charge cable in one end (if needed) and aux cable in the other for my headphones. Okay, sure, I could buy an iPod or something to carry around with me for music and books (but not movies) but given that I already have a computer with a screen and lots of storage in my pocket why would I?
I don't miss the days of the old iPod. Great days mind. I have moved on. It will take a lot of courage for me to ditch my wonderful aux headphones.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aiwarrior on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:59AM (4 children)
I have the exact same use case and I do not need the 3.5mm Jack. Furthermore if your interest is in the audio quality I think the DACs of phones are not spectacular when compared with the digital transmission in the BT.
In the end in a free world you get your way and I get mine, but it may be that your experience starts to be more expensive or limited.
Cheers
(Score: 4, Touché) by Alfred on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:49PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Tuesday April 09 2019, @02:52PM (2 children)
More or less. It depends on your audio equipment not on generic, for the masses equipment. So if you have good audio equipment you do not limit it to your generic smartphone, and you can actually extract more value per buck from it.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:34PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:52PM
Not more or less. There's a DAC in your ear if you have a wireless earbud. It's not the highest quality but that doesn't really matter because it's in an earbud, with all the limits of that enclosed space, and your ear probably can't tell the difference between hifi and AM radio.
Not because there's not a real difference - there is! Huge! But when you're out in traffic with earbuds in (not over-ears!) the environment's noise floor is above the DAC's low quality, unless the DAC's response curve is radically poor (ie. mis-specced).
tldr: there IS a shit DAC post-BT, and your use cases probably can't tell shit from gold in that component.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @12:12PM (1 child)
From what I have seen from people who have these unwired plugs it is best to have several sets and charge them in rotation. One set for home. Office. Travelling. Swap as need be to charge or if a bud is lost.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:50PM
> it is best to have several sets and charge them in rotation
I can't imagine this had anything to do with the Beats owner and AirPods manufacturer's "courageous" decision...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:56AM (1 child)
For listening to music? sure.
However, Bluetooth doesn't allow me to put my phone in a pocket or bag when it's freezing/raining, while taking a call on a headset and have decent quality audio and microphone.
Maybe this is changing, but the BT profiles allowing for high-quality audio did not support microphone, and the BT profiles for microphone had terrible audio quality both for listening and for microphone. See:
https://www.howtogeek.com/354321/why-bluetooth-headsets-are-terrible-on-windows-pcs/ [howtogeek.com]
So if you want to use your phone as a ipod, sure BT is fine other than needing to charge (and replace in the long run) the batteries of yet another piece of equipment.
For actually making calls, BT sucks unless you live in a place where it's always warm and sunny.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:52PM
Airpods. Seriously. I went through half a dozen wireless BT earbuds before I gave in and tried them. Due to my job I'm on the phone all the damn time. The audio quality of the airpods is better than the average earbuds (won't compete with my Shures, but compared to the default buds with most phones, they are a step up) and the mic quality is great. I hate how stupid they look, but I can't find anything that beats them for listening and making calls.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:09AM
I've been using BT headphones for almost a decade. I tried several but settled on the LG HBS line back when the HBS700 came out. When upgrading or installing systems I could put my phone on a filing cabinet and travel 25 - 30 feet and still have music taking my mind off of what I was doing. Nothing to get caught as I was running wires or crawling under desks. They were a life saver.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bussdriver on Tuesday April 09 2019, @01:48PM
You had and can still have BOTH allowing the user the FREEDOM to CHOOSE and having to pay $$$ is not freedom but they sure would love the suckers to believe it is.
Furthermore, "poor man" is a slander. Aside from it not being relevant, somebody who has such a new smart phone is not poor in the first place, you're doing your part in promoting the envy economy where fashion matters (it never matters but that is an uphill battle I won't go into.)
I never will fall for the marketing of screwing myself like that... being a gullible sucker should be more undesirable than in being in fashion...
I do not want complex WASTEFUL devices where I have to recharge them constantly, they are designed to be a subscription. If corded devices required as more effort they would be bashed heavily for that but because they are simple and reliable (and in the past, worked better too) all the problems of the newer technology are conveniently ignored by the early adopters who are emotionally biased; then try to spread that onto the mainstream while the bugs are worked out. Even refined and accepted, doesn't mean that it is best. What happens is that there is momentum to brand loyalty and if habituation can result you can boil a lot of frogs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:05PM
Replacing one $1 cable that sits in a hole with a $20 fragile, electronic, non-water-resistant device that requires constant charging, changing of the batteries every few years, syncing and resyncing whenever you move them between devices, broadcasts over the air and thus becomes susceptible to security flaws, and also has to be carried around separately - uncoupled to anything physical.
Great solution.
Bluetooth etc. have their places. They are certainly very useful technologies. Nobody's staying "Hey, those who wish to live entirely by Bluetooth shouldn't be able to!". It's great.
But for many use cases, such things are beaten by a $1 cable that we've had for... what? 40 years?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @03:34PM
keep the spending without thinking sheeple mr loyal customer
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:06PM
I think it is good as well. It has caused several people I know to summon the courage to drop iPhone for new purchases and move to Android.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:33PM
My car doesn't have bluetooth. My home theater doesn't have bluetooth. The speakers in my closet don't have bluetooth. EVERYTHING has a jack.
Also, most bluetooth headphones SUCK. The battery life is awful, and only gets worse as you use them. I read an article recently that most of the initial wave of Airpods are currently being thrown out because the battery life is down to an hour or two for many users. These things aren't that old. I've got headphones that are more than 10 years old that are still in use every single day. A bluetooth headset won't even last half as long.
I do have one bluetooth adapter. I despise it, and usually just plug in anyway, because the signal quality is garbage and constantly dropping out.
Frankly, if a phone doesn't have a headphone jack, I'm not going to buy it. I don't see that changing any time soon.