Comments on: The 3.5mm Jack: Unwanted Change in the Face of Unanimous Opposition?

By: Steve Heinrich

Steve Heinrich — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 19:55:00 +0000

I think an analogy for the manufacturers excuses is “We removed your driveway so you have a bigger lawn, but now please park on the street”. Sure it’s possible to park on the street, but sometimes it can take some effort/searching to find a spot *cough Bluetooth cough dongles cough*. Isn’t it just easier to park in a dedicated spot right by the house (3.5mm jack)? It makes no sense to me.

Sadly, this is the way things are going and we’re all going to look like crazed lunatics for complaining about it in 3 to 5 years time.

By: Straximus

Straximus — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 06:18:00 +0000

I wouldn’t be congratulating Xiaomi considering their flagship Mi 6 has no headphone jack, and they’ve been vocal defenders of the practice – on the side of “it takes up too much space”. I’d replace them in that sentence with OnePlus.

By: Craig Carroll

Craig Carroll — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 16:13:24 +0000

Removing the headphone jack was never courageous it was silly. Like Steve said there a lot of devices that are IP67 with the headphone jack. In my experience all I wanted to do was charge my phone whilst playing music. The iphone 8+ cured that with wireless charging but the iphone 7+ was a nightmare and consisted of me trying up to £60 of third party cables that enabled this, I tried 2 types of BT to headphone adaptors (£40) on my Bose QC25 to convert them to bluetooth, purchased a pair of airpods at £150 and then finally a pair of plantronic backbeat pro 2 at £180. I then lost my airpods and subsequently purchased 2 backup bluetooth headphones (cheaper) at £30 each. Overall I’ve spent £500+ just to find the perfect solution and just because there was no headphone jack. It may sounds extreme but I just wanted something that works where my QC25 worked fine on a wire but I could never charge them. I wasn’t interested in paying for the QC35 albeit it might have been cheaper. What happens next when they remove the lightning port next thinking we can do everything without wires……

By: Kraken

Kraken — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 13:20:00 +0000

Removing the headphone jack made a ton of sense for Apple. They had just acquired Beats, which meant that they now had a line of premium headphones with huge profit margins. Removing the headphone jack not only saved them ~$26 per phone, it was also an excuse to sell new $200+ headphones and/or expensive adapters. The only downside was the potential for lost sales, and that didn’t happen. The iPhone 7 added nothing compared to the iPhone 6 to even remotely make up for the removal of the headphone jack, and yet it broke sales records. Apple fanboys will buy anything that’s shiny and has an Apple logo.

Meanwhile Android OEMs want to be Apple. Everyone in the industry wants those kind of profit margins. So they copy everything Apple does even if it’s a bad idea. They too save $26 per phone and probably make a few bucks on adapters, but the question remains, are Android users dumb enough to buy an inferior phone for more money just because it’s shiny and new? Or alternately, are Android users so smart that they realize that a flagship from 4 years ago is just fine and they really don’t need to buy the new shiny at all, regardless of headphone jack?

By: extremo777

extremo777 — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 00:42:15 +0000

Everything is just a method for making the user pay more for useless adapters. The only way to show the companies our opinion about that is to punish them by not buying those products. Alas, Apple fans make that process really difficult, since they are the first one that accept those kind of drastic changes without a doubt.

By: Death89

Death89 — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 20:00:32 +0000

As ever Steve, spot on the money. I’ve just bought a Vodafone Smart Platinum 7 and you know what?

All my old headphones sound even better than before with the ‘Hi-Res’ audio as advertised, even my £9 Sony emergency set sound great.

If I can’t buy a new phone with a 3.5mm jack then I simply won’t. My iPod Shuffle has even been through the washing machine and is fine. Not even labelled as water resistant…