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What is a headphone jack?

Haven't missed it in years. It's not needed.

Ancient tech that my parents used.
 
Just because something is old does not mean it is "antiquated")

Multiple Apple executives stated the 3.5 mm Jack is antiquated, and I totally agree with them. I’m actually more proud of the fact that Apple made the decision early on to remove the Jack and move/push technology forward to wireless. That’s where the future is, I understand those who really appreciate the 3.5 mm Jack and its uses for wired applications, but it takes a larger entity like Apple to make the decision when they did with the iPhone 7 to delete it, and now with the iPad having it removed, it goes to show you that they believe the future is wireless.

I gather it’s a sensitive subject for Many and it always will be, but if that makes Apple less appreciated by others because they remove the 3.5 mm Jack and they took a stand to do something that they believe in with the future of wireless, then I totally support that. So I stand by my post, that it is antiquated and very dated, and wireless will only continue to grow moving forward.
 
The ignorance of removing a jack for the sake of making the phone thinner is amazing. Blue tooth earphones are years away from matching the quality if a good wired set. Anyone that tells you differently is used to mediocre sound.
 
The ignorance of removing a jack for the sake of making the phone thinner is amazing.

Except, this is not true. It Wasn’t Apples goal to make the iPhone thinner. If you followed anything regarding the removal of the 3.5 mm Jack, Dan Riccio stated by removing the 3.5 mm Jack, it allowed for internal space for camera/processor advancements, battery growth and meet the IP7 water resistance. Apples belief, was that the 3.5 mm Jack was consuming space that the phone could be utilizing in other areas that needed progression, aside from pushing the future of wireless.

Here’s a link that you can read more about what was discussed by Apple, and a direct quote regarding from Schiller himself:

https://9to5mac.com/2016/09/07/apple-headphone-jack-removal/amp/

The idea that there’s some ulterior motive behind this move, or that it will usher in some new form of content management, it simply isn’t true,” he says. “We are removing the audio jack because we have developed a better way to deliver audio. It has nothing to do with content management or DRM — that’s pure, paranoid conspiracy theory”
 
And then throw them in the trash and buy another pair every couple years when the batteries wear out. High expenditures and environmental waste for low-quality earbud sound. Or you could buy an extremely high pair of wired headphones and spend less in the long run. Apple's In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic, for instance, sound vastly better than the Airpods, cost about half as much and will last longer. (Apparently they've discontinued them, though. I ought to buy a spare pair.)
You realize you can take them to Apple for a battery replacement, right? If you throw them in the trash, that’s your own irresponsibility considering you could take them to any Apple Store or Best Buy for recycling when you’re ready to replace them.
A high-end pair of wired headphones has a completely different purpose than AirPods. If you prefer a different set of wireless earbuds, fine, but don’t pretend having a wired set is every bit as convenient when you’re on the go.
 
You realize you can take them to Apple for a battery replacement, right?
"Battery replacement" consists of Apple selling you a new pair, sans charger, for only slightly less money than the whole set costs at retail. The batteries are not replaceable.

A high-end pair of wired headphones has a completely different purpose than AirPods.

And previous phones could use both.
 
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Well, I'm using an iPhone 3G right now, and I do use the headphone jack a lot because of the tinny speakers. If I had a newer phone I would still want one, because I have a nice set of headphones that I'm not quite ready to get rid of...

For anyone who is wondering about my 3G, I was on a 5S until recently, but it's dying. On the 3G pending a new phone purchase.
 
"Battery replacement" consists of Apple selling you a new pair, sans charger, for only slightly less money than the whole set costs at retail. The batteries are not replaceable.

As another member alluded, that’s incorrect. They (Apple Genius) can/are trained to replace the battery. However, from the cases I’m familiar with, they just replace the unit as a whole, it’s quicker and more efficient. Most who have failing batteries in the AirPods, likely are near the end of the lifespan for the lithium ion battery.
 
Apple's lightning Earpods are **** audio quality. They're fine for podcasts but not any music where sound quality matters. As far as I know nobody makes quality headphones with Lightning plugs. From what I've read, Lightning does not output analog audio which means you have to incur the unnecessary cost of building a DAC and amp into the headphones.

The Lightning Earpods actually have a DAC/amp built in: https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...arpods-lightning-to-35mm-adapter-for-iphone-7 Thats a dumb solution-putting more stuff into earphones that frequently break and are thrown away. (And it's contrary to Apple's supposed environmentalism.) It would be difficult for audiophile headphone companies to replicate as they are often very small companies. Perhaps that is one of Apple's goals, to force people to buy their Beats brand headphones.

If you want the functionality that previous phones had, you have to carry a dongle on you 24/7. Carrying that thing separately in your pocket will inevitably result in losing it. Carrying it attached to the phone looks ridiculous and will break it.

Keeping the dongle attached to the headphones means you can only use the phone with that one pair. Get multiple dongles for each device, and you still can't use the phone to share something over a friend's headphones or stereo system.

The solution is simple-keep the DAC and amp in the phone so they are always there, just like every cellphone ever up until these last few iPhones and the Android copycats.

The only good alternative to the 3.5mm is if everybody standardizes on USB-C for phones, headphones and other audio products, and the iPhone gets a USB-C jack that outputs analog audio as well as digital.
Here's my take. Apples lightning vs 3.5 in jack earpods sound pretty much equivalent and are okay if your expectations are in the right place. If you want audiophile quality sound, you have to examine your option.

The dongle is not an issue in this household. Spouse attaches it to the foot long cord already there. No issue whatsoever. The dongle is not an issue across the various headphones with a headphone adapter. Apple has not forced us to buy beats and we have several wired and b/t headsets in the house. I in fact just got airpods, which apple didn't force me to purchase.

I have the earpods and original charger cables that came with every iphone, there is no unnecessary environmental waste. My take is the DAC in the headphones is less waste than the headphone jack. But YMMV.

As far as USB-C, it's not really ready for prime-time on the iphone, in my opinion.
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For some it's not an issue, for others it can be. Nothing really largely one way or another as it's more related to personal use.

It has an effect of needing to either carry lightning headphones or ones with and adapter with you, or carry at least and adapter or have multiple ones in different places where you might have headphones. Sure, not a huge problem really, but certainly not as simple as things were or are with a device that has an actual headphone jack -- basically more inconvenience because of a change that didn't bring much of a benefit.

It also certainly affects being able to charge the phone and use headphones at the same time.
Is that an opinion the removal of the headphone jack had not much of benefit? I can't say from apples' perspective if that is true or not (unless one believes the conspiracy is to sell more apple wireless products). From a user perspective I'm not sure of the benefit.

From my perspective, I would rather have the option. It's clearly not a benefit not to have it, but at the same time it's not a hinderance.

All depends on the personal use case.
 
It might have taken courage to do it, but if that's essentially what gets used as the sole reason that could be communicated, that shows that there really isn't much to it beyond just doing it for the sake of it basically (otherwise there would be something else communicated as the reason for it all).

That’s a good point. Removing the lightning port would also take courage....
 
"Battery replacement" consists of Apple selling you a new pair, sans charger, for only slightly less money than the whole set costs at retail. The batteries are not replaceable.



And previous phones could use both.
Even if that were true, they’d recycle your old ones. That takes care of the environmental concern you supposedly had.

Current phones can use both too.
 
The ignorance of removing a jack for the sake of making the phone thinner is amazing. Blue tooth earphones are years away from matching the quality if a good wired set. Anyone that tells you differently is used to mediocre sound.
Spoiler alert: you can still use wired headsets.
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That’s a good point. Removing the lightning port would also take courage....
I bet that was Apple’s plan if they had figured out AirPower, but physics allowed consumers to have lightning port for a little longer.
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Well, I'm using an iPhone 3G right now, and I do use the headphone jack a lot because of the tinny speakers. If I had a newer phone I would still want one, because I have a nice set of headphones that I'm not quite ready to get rid of...

For anyone who is wondering about my 3G, I was on a 5S until recently, but it's dying. On the 3G pending a new phone purchase.
Another spoiler alert: you can still use your wired headphones with the latest iPhones. Just get the lightning to 3.5mm adapter.
 
Spoiler alert: you can still use wired headsets.
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I bet that was Apple’s plan if they had figured out AirPower, but physics allowed consumers to have lightning port for a little longer.
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Another spoiler alert: you can still use your wired headphones with the latest iPhones. Just get the lightning to 3.5mm adapter.
I'm aware, but I don't want to crumple it up and stuff it my pocket. Also afraid it would get lost/go through the wash. Plus, the fact that it is not included by default is stupid.
 
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Spoiler alert: you can still use wired headsets.
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I bet that was Apple’s plan if they had figured out AirPower, but physics allowed consumers to have lightning port for a little longer.
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Another spoiler alert: you can still use your wired headphones with the latest iPhones. Just get the lightning to 3.5mm adapter.
What about charging and using headphones at the same time (let's say while on the go or with a device that doesn't support wireless charging like iPhone 7)?
 
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I’m using AirPods but I believe it was too early to remove the jack. A lot of headphones still uses 3.5 jack. Just go to a tech shop, 70-80% of the models are with this jack! Especially cheap and high-end! From middle range you can find AirPods, Beats and so on. It’s not an “ancient” technology like someone said here. It’s stupid to compare it with the “wheel”..
 
I’m using AirPods but I believe it was too early to remove the jack. A lot of headphones still uses 3.5 jack. Just go to a tech shop, 70-80% of the models are with this jack! Especially cheap and high-end! From middle range you can find AirPods, Beats and so on. It’s not an “ancient” technology like someone said here. It’s stupid to compare it with the “wheel”..
The underlying point there really is whether or not something is "ancient" that in and by itself doesn't necessarily mean something about it one way or another.
 
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This is so old.

wireless certainly has it pros, but audiophiles aside, wired headphones has its place because of its unbeatable value. furthermore, you dont have to remember to charge it or worry that your battery run out.

removing the 3.5mm has certainly made it much more inconvenient for people not making the jump. you can argue that there are workarounds like dongles, and people are already carrying all sorts of accessories around, so its fine. No it's not, they are forced to carry them around; not because they want to, but because they have to. this is not justification for you to force more accessories on them because it is also highly likely that they dont want to carry those around too. personally, i do not want to spend some hundred dollars on airpods that has a shorter lifespan (at least the batteries) than wired earphones.

can wired users live with this, yeah for sure, but it is highly unsympathetic to say they should live with it or they should make the jump to wireless. The fact that apple kickstarted this whole thing (and of course other reasons) have certainly diminished their brand in my eyes; they used to design for users, but right now, it seems like they are somewhat pushing technology for the sake of it. butterfly keyboard is another example.

this may not sit well with people in this forum, but i almost made the jump to android. the only reason i stayed with apple was because my teleco was giving huge discounts for iphone. oh and my next laptop wont be apple if the butterfly keyboard stays; my gf already switched.
 
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Would have already switched back to Android phones if they weren't Android phones. People just want to simply use a pair of wired headphones. Not everybody wants bluetooth headphones.
 
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My iPhone 4 has a decent amount of space for music, supports my wired headphones, and I don't really have a need for any phone apps. So no, I don't see any need to upgrade. And I would probably have stuck to my 3G if Apple hadn't started iMessages...
 
When I bought an 8+ I had a few instances where I went to play music but the adapter was on my other earphones. I’ve removed all my iTunes music now and saved about 10GB. I only use earphones now when making long calls as I don’t like holding the phone next to my head. That’s one of the reasons I haven’t gone to Bluetooth too.
 
I'm aware, but I don't want to crumple it up and stuff it my pocket. Also afraid it would get lost/go through the wash. Plus, the fact that it is not included by default is stupid.
You don’t want things to crumple, yet you still use wired earphones. Sure...
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Would have already switched back to Android phones if they weren't Android phones. People just want to simply use a pair of wired headphones. Not everybody wants bluetooth headphones.
Most Android flagships already ditched the headphone jack. Motorola did it before Apple. And it’s worse on the Android side since they don’t have any standardization on the USB-C headsets, resulting incompatibilities between certain headsets with certain devices. Yeah, that is more desirable....
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What about charging and using headphones at the same time (let's say while on the go or with a device that doesn't support wireless charging like iPhone 7)?
Good, finally a solid argument. This is imo THE only reason to argue against the removal of the headphone jack. Although wireless charging helps, sometimes it’s not possible/convenient, and I agree those double dongles (with headphone and lightning for charging) is a bit silly. Of course, the counter argument is how often people would do that, and looking at how most people seem to live with iPhone 7 and up just fine, seems like it’s not really an issue for most. But I agree this is a solid argument.

Luckily, there are more and more power banks with built in Qi pad on them, so you can just put the phone on the power bank to charge it, at least for iPhone 8 onward.
 
You don’t want things to crumple, yet you still use wired earphones. Sure...
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Most Android flagships already ditched the headphone jack. Motorola did it before Apple. And it’s worse on the Android side since they don’t have any standardization on the USB-C headsets, resulting incompatibilities between certain headsets with certain devices. Yeah, that is more desirable....
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Good, finally a solid argument. This is imo THE only reason to argue against the removal of the headphone jack. Although wireless charging helps, sometimes it’s not possible/convenient, and I agree those double dongles (with headphone and lightning for charging) is a bit silly. Of course, the counter argument is how often people would do that, and looking at how most people seem to live with iPhone 7 and up just fine, seems like it’s not really an issue for most. But I agree this is a solid argument.

Luckily, there are more and more power banks with built in Qi pad on them, so you can just put the phone on the power bank to charge it, at least for iPhone 8 onward.
No one can forget over-ear headphones in their pockets. If you can you need to go to the ER.
 
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