OnePlus Again Pokes Fun at Apple's Headphone Jack Removal During OnePlus 6 Announcement

[satchmo]

That presenter, nearly put me to sleep. Decent product, but the whole presentation felt like amateur hour.

 

[dilbert99]

Actually your sarcasm is EXACTLY what will happen. What use will there be for a steering wheel if the car drives itself? Of course we are far from that time yet, drivers still need to pay attention and emergencies happen. But there will come a day that driverless is so perfected it will actually be more dangerous if a human took over the wheel.

I don't think it's quite the same though for headphones. Personally I could care less, I've ditched primitive wires years ago and only use Bluetooth headphones. But at the same time don't care if headphone jacks stay on phones, as long as they don't take up valuable space and take away functionality like water resisting. Eventually they will fully go away.

And they don't take away anything...
Headphone jacks don't need to let in water.

 

[waterfta]

Wow, the people here on macrumors continue to impress me. Just when I think people aren't crazy fanboys when they actually didn't defend Steve jobs on the John Carmack article, they strike back here.

I will most likely never own a One Plus device, but unless you get all your tech news from only Apple websites, they aren't "that" niche to the degree people are acting here. For those saying "I own an IT company and if I've never heard of them..why would normal people?"....What? Either your company doesn't require you to look at the smartphone market much or you are bad at your job. This company along with Google's Nexus line were making headlines years ago for selling flagship level devices for ~$300.

Plus, ya'll a weird group to be still celebrating the removal of the headphone jack. I don't use it 90% of the time, but for the times I need it I wish I wasn't digging out that dongle just to connect something that other companies (and modders) have proved could have been kept without much issue.
As nice as AirPods are, it's quite obvious the exclusion of the headphone jack was a win win for Apple done to help push that product and reduce component costs.

 

[adnbek]

Still, Apple beats those numbers x3.

x3? More like x100

 

[DogHouseDub]

What can the 3.5mm jack do that Bluetooth can’t do ?

1. Play music for 6 hours straight. Play music for 60 hours straight.
2. Send music to your ears without introducing another lossy compression step
3. Interface with my OPPO PM-3s

 

[Bawstun]

Still one of the stupidest decisions Apple has made-along with getting rid of Magsafe.

They will add the headphone jack back in 2-3 years. If they don’t, it will eventually be the single cause of the slow decline of the company — UNLESS — major competitors also begin removing the jack. Otherwise, they are completely squeezing out their poorer customers as well as the older customers. Many can’t afford wireless earbuds, and Apple Pods, while the older generation wants nothing to do with the technology behind it.

It was a horrible decision.

 

[travelsheep]

Since using Bose Bluetooth Headphones - a once in many years investment - I came to the conclusion that a headphone jack really is obsolete.

funny... until you get your first brain tumor screen.

 

[kahkityoong]

After a very low threshold, most people don’t really care about sound quality. That’s why I find the HomePod situation funny: Apple tried to justify the price because of sound quality. HomePods are NOT high end speakers. They may be better sounding than their competition but that isn’t hard. But most people would still rather buy a crappy $35 speaker than spend 10 times more on a better but not great sounding one.

Yes history would agree with you. Convenience has trumped quality more often than not.

 

[Altis]

so what is the real benefit for removing the headphone jack? would it have hurt anything keeping it?

it wasn't stopping folks from using bluetooth headphones

There isn't really any benefit. It just inconveniences users and encourages the purchase of wireless headphones for those who don't already have them.

 

[Medinarem]

I have hundreds of audio files that are stored on my phone that I use twice a week to perform live. Some are karaokes, others are tracks that play on top of the live performance. I have them on my phone so I do not have to carry another device. Every place I go gives me a 3.5mm adapter coming directly from their mixers. Musicians and perform need a headphone jack.

Here's to all the cavemen still asking for the jack:
The jack is the only tech from the 1860s in modern day smartphones. What can the 3.5mm jack do that Bluetooth can’t do ? In fact, Bluetooth can do anything the jack does, and so much more. Let’s compare:


Can I walk away 50m with the phone while being connected to multiple speakers ? Vice versa, can I have multi phones and devices connected to a single speaker or pair of headphones ? Battery life of Bluetooth headphones average about 20-30 hours, which is good enough that you only need to charge them once a week for 2 hours.


On the other hands, wired headphones tangle, the cables fray and break. Not all plugs are gold plated, and get rusty, leading to poor sound quality over time. Plugging in the dark ? Yuck. Share music with a friend ? Dongle. And bike or ANY other sport with wired earphones ? Break a leg ! For home speakers, every connection requires a cable and 2 jacks, and that adds up for every speaker added, which is a hazard. Imagine if these speakers get rid of the jack and connect via wifi, you can move them anywhere you like, and tidying the room is so much easier.


Some would argue that smartphone can have Bluetooth and doesn’t have to remove the headphone jack. But considering that Bluetooth does everything the jack does, plus so much more, there is no point keeping the jack. It’s like having both a nokia 3310 and a 2018 smartphone, which one will be used more obviously ? Keeping the jack will only satisfy luddites who still currently own wired headphones, which will then break, and they will find that, no phones offer the jack anymore on the market. It is the inevitable future, because otherwise it would be ridiculous to ask for the jack 100 years from now. Might as well ride a horsecart while everyone else drives Tesla.


And many people accuse iPhone users blindly follow Apple and embrace Bluetooth. This can be hypocritical and applied the other way: manufacturers like Samsung have been keeping users back from enjoying the wireless future, enforcing ideas that the jack, a 1860 technology, is ok in 2018, and make a big deal out of it in their keynote. Bluetooth is updated every 1 or 2 years, with new features, higher bandwidth, better power efficiency. When is the last time an improvement came to the jack ? 1990 ?


This article has, so far, discussed the usecases of a consumer, and has yet to mention anything on professional audio and video producers. In a few words, the jack has no place in the pro-market either, because Usb-C is taking over with many more times the bandwidth and better frequency response. A professional who chooses to stick to the jack will only limit the quality and potential of his production.

 

[saudade]

So? How does that make the removal of the headphone jack any less stupid? That's the single thing I absolutely hate about my iPhone 7.

I prefer the new connector. Headphone jack was 100 years old and it was ugly

 

[Michael Goff]

I prefer the new connector. Headphone jack was 100 years old and it was ugly

Lightning is a terrible connector for headphones.

 

[Lloydbm41]

Oneplus 6 "Of course it has a notch".

One+ is almost as bad as Xiaomi in the knockoff department.

 

[spotlight07]

Wow that’s a great price on a phone. But I’m sticking with my solution of carrying two iPhones, iPhone X and iPhone 6s for my podcasts. Of course two data plans as well. Honestly, iPhone 6s was nearly a perfect phone for its time, in the same vein as iPhone 5 and the original iPhone. I have so much trouble using Face ID in bed and in the car. For those two reasons, headphone jack and Touch ID, I carry the iPhone 6s along with my iPhone X. I’m a day one early adopter type person and can’t stress enough to anyone at Apple reading this that Apple has lost the utility over time. iPhone was continuously adding utility with every phone up until a point, similar to Mac lineup, and now sliding backwards. That first iPhone was amazing with the full Safari browser. I miss that type of innovation at Apple.

 

[HarryWild]

"Inside, the OnePlus 6 sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB to 8GB RAM, and a minimum of 64GB of storage. It comes with facial recognition capabilities, which the company says uses more than 100 identifiers for security purposes, and it also features a fingerprint sensor at the back. Other features include support for dual SIM cards, fast charging, rain resistance..."

Apple management may be force into offering an additional GB of RAM so that the regular size iPhone comes 3GB instead of 2GB and the XL gets 4GB instead of 3GB! It been alway 1/2 of want Andriod has in the past so I expecting that Apple will go with the 6GB as the measure and not the 8GB. For the rest of the new OnePlus technology; Apple will just wait and see how it does and how popular it is before stepping in with their take of it! LOL!

 

[GuruZac]

Apple may not have been leading in design post iPhone 6, but they have clearly taken the lead. Expected, but the fact all others are using a notch design is rather humorous. Still, nobody has caught up to Face ID tech as sophisticated as Apple’s.
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"Inside, the OnePlus 6 sports a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, 6GB to 8GB RAM, and a minimum of 64GB of storage. It comes with facial recognition capabilities, which the company says uses more than 100 identifiers for security purposes, and it also features a fingerprint sensor at the back. Other features include support for dual SIM cards, fast charging, rain resistance..."

Apple management may be force into offering an additional GB of RAM so that the regular size iPhone comes 3GB instead of 2GB and the XL gets 4GB instead of 3GB! It been alway 1/2 of want Andriod has in the past so I expecting that Apple will go with the 6GB as the measure and not the 8GB. For the rest of the new OnePlus technology; Apple will just wait and see how it does and how popular it is before stepping in with their take of it! LOL!

You do realize Apple can get away with half the RAM because iOS is infinitely more optimized than Android? I don’t have a single issue with heavy multi-app usage on my iPad Pro 10.5 with a measly 4GB of RAM, which is a much more powerful device than any Android phone currently available. 3GB and 4GB is more than plenty for the iPhone X and X Plus phones coming.

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

The transition period started with the bundled headphone jack adapter, when it will not be included in the phone box than the transition is over

 

[LordVic]

You do realize Apple can get away with half the RAM because iOS is infinitely more optimized than Android? I don’t have a single issue with heavy multi-app usage on my iPad Pro 10.5 with a measly 4GB of RAM, which is a much more powerful device than any Android phone currently available. 3GB and 4GB is more than plenty for the iPhone X and X Plus phones coming.

this "optimization" isn't exactly what you think it is. Apple's keeps the lower memory usage capable by clever tricks of the OS. this isn't exactly optimization as it is clever trickery.

iOS does not keep applications loaded in memory for long periods of time. Applications that we switch away from, will shut down after a few minutes of inactivity removing themselves from ram and saving their state. after a few minutes of this, returning to the application requires reloading it into memory. Thankfully the more recent Ax CPU's are pretty fast, plus Apple provides an animation using screenshot of last known state to simulate the program switch while this occurs.

however, in longer term, Apple's lack of memory has had negative affects on the lengevity of some of their older devices. Especially on more recent versions of the OS. iOS runs quite terribly on a 1gb of RAM iOS device. While the competition was putting in 3-4gb of ram that is still perfectly usable today, that 1gb RAM on the iOS device will make the device feels sluggish in many situations.

Take iOS11 on the original iPad Air with 1gb of ram. load times while task switching is insane in many applications. Applications that use larger memory pools further compound this issue (Slack takes 20-40 seconds to resume, safari 5-10, only capable of having 2-3 tabs before they start reloading etc)

Often times putting in more memory than truly necessary today, means that tomorrow, when requirements inevitably go up (and they always do), you have enough memory then.

I've been a system builder my entire life. The ONE rule is that you never build a system today with just barely enough specs for today and call it "good enough". You build past today and plan for tomorrow. if you build a system, any system, whether it's a windows desktop, macOS laptop, android phone, iPhone, you never build to provide only enough resources for today. doing so is a recipe for frustration tomorrow.

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

Apple pokes fun at others too...
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Apple takes care of itself. Apple makes great products that unfortunately do not play well with other brands which is a major shame.

Your argument is so flawed and not appropriate.
Think transition period. I think that Apple has forgotten what it means and doesn't care.

The transition period started with the bundled headphone jack adapter, when it will not be included in the phone box than the transition is over

 

[Hushpuppy!]

cool joke, bro...Apple revenues every 5 days exceeds One Plus' annual global revenues.

You beat me to it.

 

[Cloudkicker]

I prefer the new connector. Headphone jack was 100 years old and it was ugly

Nice to know you think the MacBook, MacBook Pro, iPad, iPad Pro & iMac... including $5000 iMac Pro, are all ugly. lol

 

[Radon87000]

so what is the real benefit for removing the headphone jack? would it have hurt anything keeping it?

it wasn't stopping folks from using bluetooth headphones

Only to increase sales of the AirPods. That damn adapter annoyed me enough into buying a pair. It's the reason why they don't remove it on iPads and Macs. No one listens to music on those so removing it won't force people to get AirPods.

 

[Tech198]

I admire the on going statement that OnePlus adheres to all the time..

Perhaps he's trying to tell us something.

 

[swagi]

People here seem to forget this thing called "options" and believe that if Apple doesn't dictate to them exactly how to operate their lives, something is missing.

Having a headphone jack doesn't preclude users from going 100% wireless. not having a headphone jack ins exclusionary and prevents those who need/want wired from easily using wired.

None of us who use wired primarily are claiming that Apple should remove wireless access to give us a headphone jack. However, those who love wireless are literally claiming that because they love wireless, we shouldn't have the headphone jack.

it's a perfect example of certian users trying to dictate that their own needs must be the needs of everyone else

Correct me if I‘m wrong but AFAIR the Lightning to 3.5 is right in the box. I don‘t get why people are upset with plugging something into a cable adapter while they are perfectly fine with plugging the same cable into a Jack.

 

[pika2000]

They will add the headphone jack back in 2-3 years. If they don’t, it will eventually be the single cause of the slow decline of the company — UNLESS — major competitors also begin removing the jack. Otherwise, they are completely squeezing out their poorer customers as well as the older customers. Many can’t afford wireless earbuds, and Apple Pods, while the older generation wants nothing to do with the technology behind it.

It was a horrible decision.

1. Google, Motorola, HTC, Sony, and even Xiaomi have ditched the headphone jack on their flagships. Bonus trivia, Motorola did it before Apple did.
2. Can't afford? Funny. When Apple released the AirPods, people are bragging how they can find much cheaper solutions like $20 bluetooth earbuds. Plus, unlike other companies, Apple still include a set of earbud in the box with iPhones. Even Google don't do that.