Why wouldn’t you prefer a headphone jack in your phone? It is yet another option for headphones that worst case you don’t use. The only reason it has been removed is because it saves companies a few cents on the cost to build the product.
I've always been lambasted for this opinion, but I feel the same way about the charging cable and charger.
I do not want yet another 1 metre (if they're even that, most likely 3 foot) USB-C cable that barely reaches from the charger on the floor to the bedside table - and largely precludes actually using the phone while in bed - nor particularly the included charger. So many things need to be plugged in these days that single-output chargers are also basically e-waste.
Of course because some business genius had the idea that making the USB cable 0.9 instead of 1.8m saved them $0.06 per unit shipped, we all got lumped with those useless cables.
Now of course there will always be people for whom it's their first phone (or whatever situation), who do need those accessories. But all that requires is there to be a retail bundle with the now-accessory charger and cable. Preferably that bundle costs the same as the phone with them included does today and you get a token discount for the phone without them, although we all know it would never work that way :(
I’m in the minority on this myself, but I fully agree. Honestly, I don’t even need the discount, tell me I can make a fraction less plastic waste and I’m pretty much there. When I got a new phone a couple years ago, I just put the cable at my desk so I had a spot to plug in misc stuff, but I definitely didn’t need it.
One positive for me about the included earphones is they are great utility earphones for when I’m mixing/mastering music. They have a pretty flat and even response so it’s one of the devices I use to test my music on “regular” sound systems to make sure they sound good on all types of equipment.
That totally depends on what headphones though. Apple’s maybe, I wasn’t really too discerning last time I had some of those, but on Android it was a mess. Samsung had decent ones some years, Google’s were generally okay at best, and LOADS were just actual trash.
Color me surprised to hear that then. The few times I had used them, I couldn’t get over how uncomfortable they were for my ear (which is why I never used then much)
It's why I'm getting a Zenfone to replace my ~6 year old phone now instead of a Fairphone. It even has a far better IP rating than the fairphone despite the "horrible" water intrusion supposedly caused by 3.5mm jacks.
Fairphones lying BS about why they removed the port convinced me to never buy one of their phones, even if I didn't care about it.
Sony listened to their customers complaints and brought back the headphone jack for the 2nd generation Xperia 1.
Their phones continue to feature some of the best waterproofing (real world performance, and not just the rating they slap on it) in the entire industry.
That has never been a justifiable argument against the headphone jack, despite being an all-too-frequent one.
I really doubt this is the primary reason. I think it was multifaceted, but really the people in the business of designing phones were already using Bluetooth exclusively and felt that it was good enough. Some designs probably rushed it as a means to sell more premium headsets (Apple, Samsung), other saw it as removing an unnecessary redundant feature that was more prone to breakage and a waterproofing difficulty (Google). I think it really just came down to the personal preferences of the (affluent) people who were doing the designing, not necessarily a purposeful cash grab. It really was not great since wired headphones were way cheaper than their Bluetooth counterparts. Luckily Bluetooth has gotten much better and less expensive. I think there should be options for both.
They remove it to push people to use bluetooth, on iOS this means you wont disable it permanently and keep Apples tracking network alive. Not that nasty on Android but I suppose the same reasoning
Eh… I’m not sure it has anything to do with AirTags and the find my network. They weren’t a thing until a couple of years after the 3.5mm jack was removed. It’s probably a benefit now, but I suspect most people don’t bother turning off Bluetooth anyway.
For sure, but I don’t think the average non-technical person messes with that at all. Privacy is technically a concern with wifi and Bluetooth on because your phone basically acts as a beacon, but there are some mitigations in place to switch mac addresses and stuff fairly regularly.
I should have added, that for companies that sell Bluetooth headphones it also helps drive sales for those devices, particularly that is why Apple did it.
Yeah, Apple even bought Beats and immediately let the brand stagnate literally just so they wouldn’t have any competition in the marketing space. That kind of move basically confirms that other moves they did likely had similar rationale.
It’s possible that Apple is actually aiming towards their “portless phone” dream, and this death of the jack was just a step. But I’ll take it for the “we must employ the closest practice to profiteering as we can in the wireless audio space” aspect it appears to have.
Why wouldn’t you prefer a headphone jack in your phone?
I’ve seen some people literally say that they don’t want a phone with a useless hole in it (in fact, it was said right here on Lemmy not long ago), whereas others claim that not having a headphone jack == bigger battery. Some, like Fairphone fanboys in particular, have gone as far as claiming that removing the headphone jack reduces e-waste…
Some, like Fairphone fanboys in particular, have gone as far as claiming that removing the headphone jack reduces e-waste…
That is a terrible argument for someone to make. There is no way to argue that removing the headphone jack does anything but create more e-waste. First from all the perfectly good wired headphones that are now forced to be replaced, secondly from the fact that Bluetooth headphones all have a shelf life due to the li-ion battery after which they become e-waste. Even with the Fairphone headphones the battery becomes e-waste that wouldn’t exist with wired headphones, cables do wear out too, but replacing that part will have a smaller energy footprint to replace than a battery.
So many times I’ve forgotten my Bluetooth headphones or they’ve died and I always find some wired ones but can’t use them, or I can even go into a gas station and just buy some for $1.
Also my Sony headphones have an optional aux port to plug in, nice to use when they die because it doesn’t need battery, or if I want to plug into another device without having to pair everytime.
Oh, cassettes were just designed to go wrong altogether 😆
But while wired headphones are indeed “analog devices” they do not have any mechanical parts moving, so really if you take good care of them they can last a lifetime. (Unlike BT headphones with batteries with approximate estimations of life). 🤒🤕
I never said anything about the headphones. I was referring to the port, which can get gunked up, damaged by water, or all sorts of other stuff. in my many many years of using Bluetooth headphones of all types, I’ve never had a single thing go wrong— and because I am a responsible adult, I’m capable of recharging my batteries.
The era of annoying snags painfully pulling out wired headphones from my ears is a headache I’m very glad to have left behind long ago.
I think the point is more that in seeking to satisfy people like you, they’ve made everyone who likes the more reliable tech SOL.
Personally I love my bt headphones, but I also liked having a wired set for backup in case my battery ran out. If I had a choice between a jack and no jack on an otherwise feature-identical phone I’d choose the jack
I’m capable of keeping my batteries charged and haven’t really run into that problem. I also appreciate having my phone be water resistant and having one last thing to go wrong like getting the port get gunked up from stuff in my pocket. 
As far as reliability goes, I suggest you try some better headphones, because I’ve never had a reliability problem either. 
Credit where it's due, Bluetooth headphones have come a long way. I like the ones I have now. That said, removing the jack and micro SD slots was extremely anti consumer and they should come back.
My issue with BT isn’t quality it’s the cost and the battery. I do have a very nice pair that I enjoy on occasion but I have another set of wired headphones that I use sometimes 12 hours a day at work. BT headphones would quickly wind up in the garbage under those circumstances since batteries are wear items with limited charge cycles and once they go bad, they render the rest of the device useless.
I also don’t like having another device that needs charging or that’ll leave me ‘stranded’ because I wasn’t monitoring the charge close enough and it died.
I don’t think we should be forced to choose one or the other. Both have advantages and we should get a real choice as consumers. Currently I’m limited to low spec’ed phones if I want 3.5mm or high spec’ed with no 3.5mm (and no SD card and no replaceable battery). It’s a shitty choice all around.
Cheap knock off ear pods are getting a lot better. I can get a pair of 20 dollar ear pods that are actually better than name brand wireless ear buds I got a few years ago. When it comes to audio quality they’re better than the audio jack earbuds I have for my tablet and I don’t have ti worry about pulling the cable. Also usbc ear buds never seem to break no matter how much they’re pulled on or chewed on by the cat.
especially since consoles are starting to support them
Are they? I thought the BT lag made them not fit for gaming. That’s the reason why Sony’s Pulse 3D headset for PS5 uses wifi. I haven’t tested any of this, I’m just repeating what I read.
This is the stated reason why Microsoft uses their proprietary wireless standard for Xbox controllers (which have Bluetooth, but not for the Xbox console itself) and headsets - but I haven’t had latency issues using bluetooth headphones on my PC.
Now, I know that in a lot of cases, Bluetooth doesn’t have the bandwidth necessary to do high quality bidrectional audio - so it can’t receive and send audio (microphone) without falling back to a very low quality profile, which results in cruddy audio. Not sure if this is an issue that has been fixed though. If not, I can’t imagine anyone would want to game and participate in voice chat using that as it sounds horrible.
I connect my bose nc700 with an audio cable to my controler and it works fine. I thought PS5 doesnt support other BT headsets, but i guess i should check.
Same here. I have a charger at home and work. If I travel, I bring a charger. I’m a responsible adult who knows when to charge Bluetooth headphones. I personally don’t have a need for a 3.5mm jack.
Buuuut, I’ll fight for fucking ever to keep them on phones. I should not be the only demographic on phone construction.
Bluetooth can be convenient but also can be the opposite. On long travel days I don’t want to have to worry about battery life, and I always inevitably run into issues with cutting in and out, which I find extremely annoying
I feel you there. I had to get a new phone ASAP after breaking mine on vacation a few months ago. Didn’t even think to check the specs because I was in a pinch and completely forgot some android manufacturers started dropping them since my last phone purchase.
Some manufacturer dropped them? I think at this time you can count on the fingers the smartphone models that still have a headphone jack. I miss it so much
Same, I wouldn’t mind as much if Apple’s lightning-to-aux adapter wasn’t so flimsy and had better build quality, while at the same time preventing you from charging.
That’s what made me get bluetooth, I tried walking around with that dongle thing and I had to treat my phone as if it was made out of glass (wait, you know what I mean)
The headphone jack would be less painful of a loss if phone manufacturers started adding a second USB-C port on top of the device. That way you wouldn’t have to choose between charging your phone, listening to your game without lag and in privacy, or carry a dongle to try doing both things at the same time.
I’m all for the second USB-C, I feel like this is more likely to possibly happen compared to getting the headphone jack back, plus it would just be useful to have in general
It would be a very strange design approach to add an “backup” port. I think there are alreay gaming phones that have it? But for the normal person this seems to be odd.
I would like that we can exchange those ports without removing the display… i had two phones that had broken usb c ports. A good thing we have wireless charging.
I have corded USB type headphones. It’s not a good replacement. The dac is in the connector which makes the portion that sticks out much larger; the port isn’t designed for even mild leverage to be applied to it regularly. Go cycling with your phone in your pocket or even just sit down multiple times with your phone in your pocket while the usbc headphones are plugged in. They will either work their way loose or they will start to break the phone’s port. I’m not even covering how the USB type c spec leaves a lot of room to be interpreted differently by companies, significantly increasing the probability of headphones working for only some phones.
A good set will come with wireless charging as well. I can charge my headphones on the back of my phone if I get desperate. Even better, each earbud has its own battery, and the case has its own battery, so if I ever get the low battery warning on my case, I just charge it while still using my earbuds without any issues.
My last set of wireless headphones still work, and I used them for 10 years. I’ve never had a wired set last more than two, usually because the cable gets damaged.
Hm, that’s a good point, although I don’t play games on my phone so I haven’t experienced that.
I guess if you’re a heavy phone gamer and you have the worst bt, the latency could become a pain.
That makes me think of a guy pretending to surf on the roof of his car complaining about the traction. Like that’s not what cars are for, but the roof of a car undeniably has poor grip.
This poll kind of sucks for data gathering. You ask two different questions but there’s only one set of answers. Even the first question alone asks if we use and/or require, which should be separate.
To answer though: I use my headphone adapter whenever I travel but don’t have a regular headphone jack. A jack is not absolutely required for me to purchase a phone but the adapter is.
This. After my first Android phone I had only gotten Nexus phones. I had a Nexus 6p when the Pixel was announced, and it wasn't going to have a headphone jack. I tried multiple dongles with my Nexus 6p, and none of them both reliably worked with my headphones and fast charged my phone. My wife ordered a Pixel, I ordered a Note 9.
I've gone Note 9, then a One Plus Nord v10, and now an Asus ZenFone 9. Every time a manufacturer ditched the headphone jack (or made it only available at ludicrous price), I just switched manufacturers. I don't even use a headphone jack that often, but when I need it I want it to be there and just work.
Yes. It’s my way of voting with my wallet. I already have a few nice headphones and I’m not replacing them just because phone manufacturers are cheap and lazy.
Besides, I hate batteries. They always die at the most inconvenient time. And USB-c just for audio is way overkill.
I hate to say but the poll is biased because you asked two questions that are not the same.
I currently have a phone without a jack, so the first question is obviously no. But the second question, would I prefer it, is a yes.
So there’s a group of people who would prefer it, but it’s not a deal breaker for them in your data, but they answered a different question than the headline.
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