
Killing the 3.5mm Jack: How Simple Is Changing into Needlessly Complicated - lost_name
http://www.xda-developers.com/killing-the-port-how-simple-is-changing-into-needlessly-complicated/
======
kdamken
I'm always blown away out how little cell phone manufacturers seem to listen
to customer feedback. I don't care about my phone being paper thin. I'd guess
most people don't either.

Often I'm sitting at work with my headphones plugged into my computer to
listen to music. I'll then see a little video or something has been sent to me
by a friend on my phone. I unplug the headphones from my macbook, plug them
into my phone, watch the video, then plug my headphones back into my macbook.
Simple.

Can you imagine what an annoying hassle it would be to have to pair and unpair
the same bluetooth headphones between two devices like that? I'd be paranoid
it's not connected to the right device and suddenly I'm blasting music to the
people in my office. Not even including the fact that I now have another thing
I need to worry about charging.

I like my apple earbuds. They sound nice, let me control the volume and
playback, and _don 't need to be charged_.

Also, all my nice headphones are 3.5mm. I don't want to have to get new ones,
and I don't want to have to carry around a stupid lightning adaptor for them.

~~~
CJefferson
The problem is that explicit customer feedback doesn't line up with reality.

Many companies have tried making slightly thicker phones with bigger batteries
(which many people claim is what they want), no-one buys them. Companies make
thinner phones, lots of them get sold.

These companies (mostly) aren't idiots, they do huge amounts of measurements
on what people say they want to buy, and what they actually buy.

~~~
fefifofu
Same thing with the airline industry. People often say they'd pay more for
extra few inches of leg room, but when they shop online, it's the cheapest
price that wins.

~~~
WildUtah
Flyers routinely pay more for direct flights. International travelers often
pay much more to avoid transiting unpleasant countries like the USA with its
awful security procedures. Lots of people want to pay more for more width and
recline in seats on long haul flights; no US carrier offers those but W class
on foreign carriers is often their most profitable space.

But few want to pay more for leg room. It's just not much of a benefit
compared to the five things I mentioned (and several others like comfortable
lounges at hubs -- but not apparently decent food). The airlines want to sell
leg room because it's very easy to adjust.

~~~
edanm
Do you have a source about international travelers avoiding the US? That
sounds odd to me.

Not that it's on the way to many other countries...

~~~
cesarb
I've read about it before, at
[https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Avoiding_travel_through_the_U...](https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Avoiding_travel_through_the_United_States)

Basically, the problem seems to be that the USA does not have "sterile
transit"; if your plane stops there in the way to somewhere else, you have to
disembark and go through customs, and you need an expensive visa.

~~~
emp_zealoth
It's not the money but the abuse they can dish out at you. Even if you get a
visa (which is a pain in the neck and a total time sink on it's own), customs
can just tell you "You know what? Go f yourself." After you've landed...

------
cm2187
I'd be OK with killing the audio jack if it was replaced with a common and
better standard. But right now, my laptop will have a 3.5mm jack, the iphone 7
will have a lightening port, and any other device will likely use a USB based
port. I just have zero appetite to walk around with 3 different earphones or
to have to carry multiple dongles in my pocket.

I am not going to follow manufacturers on this until they have a solution that
is convenient. And that's just to remain at par with 3.5mm in term of
convenience. Now what do I get for having to replace my headset? Am I really
going to notice the difference in quality when I am travelling? Really? It
looks to me that it is rather another pathetic attempt to lock people into
their hardware, with only Apple approved earphones being compatible with the
iphone, etc...

~~~
massysett
> it was replaced with a common and better standard.

Bluetooth.

Wireless. Allows play/pause button, forward and rewind button. Even transmits
song titles to your car stereo. Exists on all PCs, Macs, iOS phones, Android
phones, late-model cars, and even some home stereos.

A few people will shout loudly about this jack being gone. Everyone else will
get a cheap Bluetooth, wonder why they futzed with a cord this long, remember
to charge it every now and then, and otherwise not think about it much.

~~~
coldpie
Wireless sucks. Connections drop, interference hampers it, it's far more
costly, there's a significant delay, you're required to charge the device, it
uses more battery to operate the radio.

~~~
pigeons
Also there are privacy issues/tracking of hardware addresses.

------
mmastrac
I'm going to be the one to argue here that this is a good thing. The barrel
jack has had a long good run, yes. There will definitely be a period of
painful transition, yes. In the long run, this will be good.

The barrel jack is a hack and has a tonne of downsides. We hacked stereo into
a mono plug. We then hacked a mic into the stereo plug. Hotplug detection is a
patented minefield mess. It's a big plug that tends to collect cruft and makes
it difficult to waterproof devices.

Eventually we'll have USB-C DACs that are cheap and small enough to keep
connected to the ends of your headphones. For people that don't care about
audio quality, a $5 Chinese-branded adapter from Amazon will be
indistinguishable in a few years.

~~~
rplst8
Honestly, I don't know why people complain about stuff like this.

Please expand upon the tonne of downsides, because in practice, none of the
issues you have mentioned have ever impacted my use of the jack.

Keeping a small cable sized DAC attached to my headphones (once they finally
exist) is not my concern. The concern is getting manufacturers to agree to a
standard. So instead of one DAC, I'll need more than that, or some set of
adapters for whatever that plug ends up being.

~~~
phil21
Why do you need a DAC? Only "high end" headsets should have those.

The rest I imagine will simply be replacing the barrel connector with a USB
connector and using USB-C's analog audio output over the proper conductors.

Not sure why this is that large of an issue - the only problems here I can see
are of course the transitioning of the physical connector type which is truly
painful - and I suppose vendors could choose to disable analog audio support
on devices in favor of more lock-in.

~~~
c0nducktr
> Why do you need a DAC?

To convert the digital signal coming from the device to an analog signal that
my headphones can understand?

~~~
colejohnson66
What's to stop Apple from setting a few pins on the Lightning port for analog
audio? Or is the port exclusively digital?

~~~
rplst8
I believe the Lightning port itself is digital signal and power only. There
may be cables that have a small lump in them somewhere that provides an inline
DAC to output to analog audio. This would be an example of a propreitary
adapter though, and is not desireable.

------
Unklejoe
I see a lot of comments that say something along the lines of "Apple knows
best about what its customers want. The fact that we would prefer to keep the
headphone jack doesn't matter because we don't necessarily represent the
average customer."

However, I think that's giving them too much credit.

It's not that Apple "knows what the people actually want", it's that Apple
knows how far it can "push" the customers to extract the most amount of money
possible. It is a business afterall. Also, they want to lock people into
proprietary protocols. The headphone jack isn’t proprietary. Apple probably
hates the fact that you can plug a pair of Sony headphones into an iPhone.

They know that they have a large enough market share to be able to “drive”
things they way they want. As for the other manufacturers ditching the jack as
well, they are just following Apple.

If Moto was the only company doing this, no one would care. The people who
want the jack would simply buy another phone. However, in the case of the
iPhone, the barriers of simply switching to another phone are much larger.
It's unlikely that someone who wishes they had the headphone jack is going to
switch to Android just because of that. They will probably just end up biting
the bullet and buying whatever adapter is required by Apple.

------
20tibbygt06
My car stereo has a 3.5mm jack. My TV has a 3.5mm jack. My speaker system has
a 3.5mm jack. The new chromecast has the version with a 3.5mm jack.

I just don't understand where manufactures are going with this. I recently got
a small Bluetooth speaker and have problems pairing from time to time, but not
when I have a 3.5mm jack. I just connect the cable and it works. Don't even
get me started with battery drain.

This is really annoying. It all reminds me of when I was searching for my
first cellphone and most phone didn't have the jack. In the end my first
cellphone (Samsung Omnia) didn't have a 3.5mm jack and it was really annoying
having to buy an adapter in order to listen to music.

~~~
waterphone
In my experience, Bluetooth is just the worst. It's consistently unreliable
for me. Every Bluetooth device I've ever had has been a constant headache of
pairing issues and random disconnects and reconnects, sometimes getting into a
loop of that every few minutes.

I don't know if that's a universal problem for everyone, but my negative
experiences with it have been enough to turn me off wanting to buy anything
Bluetooth and favor other solutions instead. I use a Logitech mouse with a
little USB antenna instead of Bluetooth, which is consistently reliable and
_never_ has an issue, and normal headphones with a 3.5mm plug or non-Bluetooth
wireless headphones which have no connectivity issues.

~~~
Turing_Machine
I've also had bad luck with Bluetooth phone stuff.

On the other hand, my Bluetooth Mac keyboard seems rock-solid (other than
dying when the battery goes dead, of course). I don't recall it ever losing
its pairing.

On the third hand, a Bluetooth iPad keyboard (not Apple-made) we had at a
place I used to work was total crap. You could figure on having to go through
the pairing process at least once a day.

~~~
waterphone
I haven't used an Apple Bluetooth keyboard but did use an Apple Bluetooth
mouse some years ago that had endless loss of connection issues.

Other non-Apple Bluetooth keyboards also have this issue, where I'll be typing
and it randomly loses connection mid-word, then sometimes comes back after a
few seconds and other times just decides it's not going to turn back on
without manually turning it off and on and fiddling with Bluetooth settings on
the computer before it finally returns, or not.

------
rplst8
I would be remiss if I didn't point out a huge error in this article...

> USB-powered headphones will (in theory) run a lot like Bluetooth headphones
> which have their own DAC/AMP. Your phone passes the raw data through to the
> headphones and it does the required converting. This can be a great thing.
> Instead of relying on a poorly-calibrated DAC in the particular phone that
> you are using, you can instead move that component to a piece of hardware
> you can control. So if 24-bit uncompressed audio is your thing you can have
> it with any audio source. While this increases the cost of the headphones it
> will also produce better quality audio if you are willing to put some money
> into it, which is a win in my book.

In this scenario laid out by the author, audio from your music is passed on to
a BT device untouched. This is most certainly NOT the case.

Regardless of the format of the source audio, uncompressed (WAV,AUF), lossless
compressed (ALAC, FLAC, SHN), or lossy (MP3, AAC, etc.), the data is
transcoded and repackaged into the Bluetooth stream. What this means is that
lossless audio becomes lossy, and lossy audio gets even more lossy.

The author's assertion that if "24-bit uncompressed audio is your thing you
can have it..." is pure B.S. You will be at the mercy of whatever link is
between your source device (phone) and your listening device (headset/speaker)
and what ever hacking of the audio signal it does.

~~~
Unklejoe
I thought there was a way to pass an MP3 stream directly over Bluetooth
without modifying (transcoding) it? I could be wrong.

~~~
niftich
This is theoretically possible. However, every discussion I could find
indicates that it's most likely not implemented, as it'd require bypassing the
final mixer -- and then you wouldn't get the control blips and phone rings
over the A2DP link.

[1] [http://forum.powerampapp.com/index.php?/topic/7586-bit-
perfe...](http://forum.powerampapp.com/index.php?/topic/7586-bit-perfect-
streaming-should-be-possible-with-bluetooth-is-it/) [2]
[https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,104654.0.html](https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,104654.0.html)
[3] [http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/26410/how-do-i-
de...](http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/26410/how-do-i-determine-
which-a2dp-codecs-my-phone-supports-is-currently-using) [4]
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6654180](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6654180)
[5] [http://www.cnet.com/news/can-aptx-give-you-better-sound-
over...](http://www.cnet.com/news/can-aptx-give-you-better-sound-over-
bluetooth/) [6] [http://stereos.about.com/od/Wireless/fl/What-You-Might-
Not-K...](http://stereos.about.com/od/Wireless/fl/What-You-Might-Not-Know-
About-Bluetooth.htm)

------
waimbes
I agree with some of the stuff in here but...

> So while Apple will be successfully pushing its customers towards its
> Lightning port powered headphones on an established (Apple) standard with
> readily available products, Android OEM’s that choose follow Lenovo fight a
> largely uphill battle and an empty ecosystem.

This is nothing short of ridiculous. iPhone users have a bit more spending
power, but android still represents a huge majority of smartphone users. There
is just no chance whatsoever that headphone manufacturers don't target
android. We might see a very brief lag while android sort of "switches over,"
but in the meantime everyone else can just use 3.5mm like they always have.

~~~
kevincox
That's if they all switched at the same time. Unfortunately right now only one
manufacturer is willing to make the change.

------
cwyers
I use the 3.5mm jack to send audio out to my car stereo (which is up to date
enough to have a 3.5mm input but not up to date enough to have Bluetooth
input), and it's a pain in the rear, and I go through five or six cables a
year. I'm not sure 3.5mm audio is the hill we all need to die on in the war
against the march of technology.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I use the 3.5mm jack to send audio out to my car stereo (which is up to date
> enough to have a 3.5mm input but not up to date enough to have Bluetooth
> input), and it's a pain in the rear, and I go through five or six cables a
> year.

Dude, what are you doing? I've been using one cable for several years for
exactly that purpose, and it was a nothing-special cable I got, IIRC, at a
drug store. I go through _phones_ more often than I go through 3.5mm cables.

~~~
mschuster91
Probably either parent himself or his/her s/o is a "car tidyness" fetishist,
and nothing will kill a cheap cable faster than winding and unwinding it every
day.

------
arielweisberg
As a borderline audiophile I have mixed feelings mostly tending towards
solution in search of a problem.

The DACs in Apple products have a very good reputation going all the way back
to the early iPods and supposedly they kept getting better. When I travel I
bring an Objective 2 headphone amp and AKG Q701 or Beyderdynamic DT-880 600ohm
and use my iPhone 6+ as a music player and DAC. I can't tell the difference
between that and the Objective 2 + ODAC I have at home.

In terms of pieces of the audio chain I think DAC is one of the least
important in my anecdatal experience. At least if you have a decent one like
any Apple device. Onboard audio from a PC/laptop motherboard is generally
awful and even dedicated sound cards are full of noise and whine. I am very
glad to have HDMI audio these days. A USB sound card trivially fixes the issue
though.

So yeah it's nice for high end DACs to become more common, but is it that
useful over the convenience of a solid built in DAC? I don't think so. That
said I suspect the market will respond with adapters and cases that resurrect
the 3.5 inch jack without a huge fuss and still pass through other
functionality like syncing and charging.

For myself and most of Hacker News with above average incomes this is going to
be a minor speed bump in terms of cost and a larger inconvenience in terms of
more kit to lug around and swap between devices.

~~~
Declanomous
>The DACs in Apple products have a very good reputation going all the way back
to the early iPods

I do not think this is the case at all. I recall the early iPods being blasted
for their sound quality. One of the huge "wins" for the Microsoft Zune over
the iPod was the audio quality. Everyone I know who owned a Zune was an
audiophile.

I have no idea what the sound quality on current iPods/iPhones/iWhatevers is
like. Maybe the DAC on the old iPod was held back by the codecs that Apple
chose to use at the time. I know Apple created ALAC, and improved the quality
of the lossy codecs at some point. Regardless, the audio quality of the oldest
iPods was poorly regarded in general.

~~~
bonaldi
I think you're misremembering or are thinking of the later models when you
think of "oldest". The first iPods used Wolfson DACs and were hugely well
regarded. Apple changed this for the 3rd gen iPod, which was a duffer in
nearly all respects (not just audio). Things started to get better again from
4G on.

~~~
Declanomous
I'm definitely not misremembering anything. The original (1-3rd gen) iPods
sounded horrible. Maybe the amp was to blame, instead of the DAC, but they
sounded bad. If you look back at the discussions regarding portable music
players from the time, the Creative ZEN series always comes out ahead of the
iPod in objective and subjective testing.

I was slightly late to the MP3 player game myself, but after listening to
several different MP3 players I ended up with a Dell DJ because it just
sounded better than the competition. That's just my personal, non-audiophile
opinion, of course.

I'm not knocking the iPod. It was a better device than the competition in a
lot of ways. It just didn't have audiophile quality sound.

~~~
bonaldi
The audiophiles disagree on this one, I'm afraid. The iPod absolutely did have
audiophile quality sound. Then it compromised on this when they were going for
growth (and using cheaper parts). It returned to form by the time of the later
iPod Classics.

It's difficult to find cites from that far back, but the types over at head-fi
appear to broadly agree [http://www.head-fi.org/t/580987/has-ipod-changed-
their-sound...](http://www.head-fi.org/t/580987/has-ipod-changed-their-sound-
chips-cards-from-generation-to-generation)

~~~
Unklejoe
Maybe audiophile quality sound when driving the high impedance input of an
amplifier, but certainly not when driving headphones directly, IMO.

The best portable music players I've listened to (in terms of headphone
driving capabilities) were the portable CD players from back in the day.

My experience from way back in the early iPod days was that it simply did not
have the power to drive my headphones hard enough to provide good sounding
bass, where as my old CD player (which could play MP3s on a CD), sounded much
better.

I always thought it was a result of some law which limited the power of
headphone ports to prevent hearing loss in kids, but this could be all BS.

------
uudecode
Older computers are getting more valuable ever day.

~~~
rplst8
I think this more and more every year. The amount of technologic obsolescenced
is growing with each passing day - and some of it, for no good reason. Getting
rid of analog jacks that go directly before analog devices (like headphones)
is just stupid. Putting DACs and amplifier circuitry inside of cables and
headphones for the purpose of listening to high quality audio is just stupid.

------
niftich
So when the 3.5mm jack is killed, we'll get two USB-C/Lightning ports on our
phones, right?

~~~
detaro
Sounds expensive to manufacture. You sure customers won't buy a $39.95 adapter
cable instead? (/s)

------
coroutines
I am thinking..:

\- Intel is working on adding analog audio over some unused pins on USB 3.1
(sfaik)

\- Even if USB gets analog audio we will probably see the DAC+amp in computers
and phones go away so they have more room for a battery

\- With USB 3.1 headphones there would be a DAC+amp in/on the headphones

\- With a DAC+amp on the headphones we could select to use the host computers'
DAC+amp or the headphones' DAC+amp. Choice between quality or battery life?

\- DRM sucks dicks - but there will always be a way to get between the DAC and
the speaker for recording. Let's just limit consumer choice, amirite?

\- Phones and laptops are all going USB, but there aren't nearly enough ports
- I thought we killed fucking docks in the 90s. They're BACK?!?!

\- USB and keyboard-cases became so expensive when tablets became popular...
docks for more ports and audio will similarly be $100 and above.

\- We might see the DAC+amp become another accessory to interchange between
the digital audio source and the speakers. Another $100 device for
enthusiasts.

\- Lightning seems way better than USB type-c (physically better), but no way
am I buying it just to be in the Apple crowd.

\- Cash grab or DRM blitz? or both?

~~~
notatoad
>Intel is working on adding analog audio over some unused pins on USB 3.1.

This was some bad reporting by one of the tech blogs last week - Intel was
talking this up at IDF in _2014_ and the author of this article didn't fact
check it (and admitted his mistake on the Reddit discussion of this article).
Audio adapter mode has been part of the usb type-c connector spec since its
conception. Passing analog audio out over a couple pins is part of the spec,
and not in any way experimental or undefined.

~~~
coroutines
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly - it should already be
supported by the spec, but was misreported on by this other tech blog?

------
Animats
If the phone industry is going to go that way, they should go for no
connectors at all, wireless charging, and a hermetically sealed unit. Less to
go wrong. The battery doesn't need to be replaceable, just better. Use lithium
iron phosphate batteries. Those are good for > 2000 charge cycles, instead of
the 500 or so for ordinary lithium-ion. You take only a 14% hit in capacity
for this.

Headphones should be Bluetooth. With WiFi and GSM, who needs a a cable?

There's no reason screens should crack before their user does. Check out the
Caterpillar B15 phone. You can drop it, pound on it with a hammer, and run
over it with a car without damaging it.[1][2]

You shouldn't have to fix a phone.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPku-
xItv8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVPku-xItv8) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xaq3pduPv4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xaq3pduPv4)

------
mwexler
We already see folks like Bose making wireless (BT) noise-canceling in-ear
headphones with no audio cable capability (QC30,
[http://www.cnet.com/products/bose-
quietcontrol-30/](http://www.cnet.com/products/bose-quietcontrol-30/)).

The new Bose on-ear noise canceling wireless headphones QC35
([https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/featured/qc35.html](https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/featured/qc35.html))
do include the cable... but for how long?

The original post tries to shy away from BT and wireless, but that may wind up
being where things head, for better or worse.

~~~
nwah1
BT5 is coming out with 4 times the bandwidth and 2 times the range. This may
be enough to compete even in the audiophile market.

Nobody wants to be chained to a cable while wearing headphones.

~~~
plorkyeran
Even if they solve the quality problem, I would much rather have a cable than
have to charge my headphones.

~~~
wallacoloo
This seems like a moot point to me though. In one scenario, you have a 3.5mm
cable from headphone to phone. In the other scenario you have a USB charging
cable going from headphone to phone (which you can keep connected 24/7 if you
really don't want to worry about draining it). So if the quality problem is
solved, what's the difference?

------
dredmorbius
Here's why I want physical ports.

If I can plug in my earphones _and microphone_ , I can _unplug_ them.

And unplugged, they're dead.

No non-wired alternative offers that simple, visually-confirmable affordance.

And if you want to kill something on the device, kill the onboard mic.

~~~
vincentkriek
Wait - you want phone manufacturers to not put a mic on a phone by default? So
you'd have to use a BT/plug in headset to call?

~~~
dredmorbius
Yes.

As an option.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11841817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11841817)

------
curiousgal
To me, most of the arguments against this move sound as if they have their
backs against the wall. Well, you don't, you are not forced to buy it and
_that_ will send the message that it's a stupid move. But if we keep moaning
about it and purchase the device, it'll be a sign of acceptance.

This leads me to another rant, take a look at the iPhone 6s or the Galaxy S7
Active, does a user really need a more powerful device? Especially since the
use cases are 75% browsing the web and watching videos.

------
sverige
If Apple goes this direction, I'm going to be unhappy. The only (literally,
only) reason I got an iPhone 6+ was because Google / Android decided they are
my mommy and automatically turned down the volume after a short while when I
listened to music in my truck. I listen using a 3.5 mm jack since the USB
connector on the radio broke from too many cycles of plugging and unplugging.

So maybe a few Android phones will retain the 3.5 mm plug and I could use
those when this iPhone craps out (battery is already showing its age by
cycling faster), but then I'm stuck having to root the phone and do some xda-
developer shit to try to overcome the nanny turning down the volume. Obviously
that wasn't worth the effort to me, since I bought my first-ever Apple product
to get away from that kind of stupidity.

------
howfun
Simple fix. Will not be buying such phone.

------
Hondor
Whenever I see these negative responses to eliminating legacy technology, I
think "would you prefer to wind the clock back and add any obsolete things?"
Is there any now-gone port that phones/computers should reinstate or is this
the very first one that ever appeared in history and our current situation is
the final state of perfection?

The inconvenience and cost of changing over is usually less than the extra
value gained from the progress in the long term. The difficulty is persuading
people choosing to initiate the changeover. It'll only happen with industry
leading phone makers forcing it on us. After a couple of years we'll all
settle down into the new way and people will stop complaining because
everything will be easier.

~~~
jayd16
The counter point to this is that not every step is a step forward. I'd be far
more willing to accept this kind of change if it wasn't so obviously going to
split the market into iOS, Android, and every thing else type headphones.

~~~
Hondor
If Apple goes to USB-C then it'll do the opposite of split the market. Of
course it'll be a massive step back if it spawns lightning versions of
headphones on top of 3.5mm and USB-C. But that's not a sure thing. What is a
sure thing is the current suboptimal state of having two kinds of plug when
only one is really needed.

------
kevincox
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I actually like this. I'm a huge
fan at reducing the number of different ports on our devices, and if we can
make them the same across phones and computers even better.

So this means that I can plug in one USB3 hub and my monitor, speakers,
microphone, and external storage are now connected to my computer. That sounds
awesome. We are back to docking stations without the propitiatory connectors.

However I think that a transition period would be nice. Then again, is anyone
going to transition if they aren't forced to?

------
nerevarthelame
If you want to kill the 3.5mm jack, then the solution is to invest in making
Bluetooth headphones less obnoxious to use. Temporarily forcing the world to
bungle with USB-C and Lightning adapters, device-specific headphones, and\or
poorly developed Bluetooth headphones (which all have relatively short battery
lives, obnoxious pairing procedures, etc.) is insane. I wish manufacturers
would instead invest in making Bluetooth headphones so nice and functional
that people don't want a 3.5mm jack, and then you can kill it mercifully.

------
alkonaut
Wouldn't the simple solution be to just replace the 3.5mm analog jack with a
1.5mm analog jack? As long as I have proper analog out I don't mind using an
adapter for my old headphones.

------
pizza
One thing I've noticed nowadays is that 'AUX cord' is common nomenclature
whereas there used to be a time when people would just look at me funny when I
said it.

------
kristianp
On a side-note, the DragonFly that is mentioned in a picture is $149 retail!
[1]

Anyone have a recommendation for a reasonable quality USB DAC/Amp that isn't
audiophile price?

Also "AMP" isn't an acronym.

[1] [http://www.audioquest.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/12/AQ_PB_U...](http://www.audioquest.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/12/AQ_PB_US-Retail_15-12-01.pdf)

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martin-adams
Whatever the proposed change is I do hope the following happens:

\- It is industry standard \- I can use an adapter to put my exiting
headphones into it and still use those headphones on legacy devices \- I can
use headphones and charge my device at the same time (i.e. not sharing the
same port) \- It is sturdy. The Micro USB is too flimsy for me to use for
headphones and stuff in my pocket in it's current form.

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princeb
if you are the audiophile kind, then you may already have an portable dac/amp
that you use with your phone, or have attached to your pc through spdif/usb
that then goes into your headphones, bypassing the onboard dac/amp.

what will happen is that some headphone manufacturers will start selling
headphones with internal dac/amps. there are plenty of pc-oriented headphones
that have that, and the gaming oriented ones even have onboard audio
processing for surround emulation, like dolby atmos or dolby headphones kind
of technology.

but what will also happen is that most performance headphone manufacturers
will continue making whatever they were making before because a lot of audio
equipment out there still rely on the (1/4") phone connectors, and don't need
to have dac/amps built into the headphones because the equipment should have
their own already.

if consumers don't care, they'll just continue using the earphones that comes
with the iphone, which will likely work out of the box, or they may buy
something else off the rack (like beats which will almost surely make
headphones that are compatible with the new iphone) that comes with better
speakers.

if consumers do care, then they'll get to put whatever dac/amp they love in
between their iphone and their headphones.

but there are some consumers that care enough about good headphones but not
enough about good dac/amps (because honestly most smartphone dacs are already
pretty good on their own), who will have an existing pair of headphones they
like very much but will need to fork out a little bit more for a dac/amp they
don't have. hopefully with apple forcing this arrangement, dac/amps become
less of a hobby purchase and we'll see some mass market $10 portable dac/amps
hit the stores.

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gwbas1c
There's a lot of good that can come from a 100% digital connection between
headphones and the player, although I think it's too early to just drop the
3.5mm jack.

For example, a set of headphones could equalize itself around flaws in its
drivers to have a more accurate playback.

Perhaps this kind of thing should be test-marketed first? Maybe keep the 3.5mm
jack around until there's some kind of adoption?

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Wildgoose
I've just bought one of the new iPhone SE models specifically because it still
has a 3.5mm jack as well as 20% better battery life than the large iPhone 6
models it shares its internals with.

Ever larger and thinner simply does not make sense. The whole point of a
mobile phone is that they are robust, portable and practicable and both the
above trends are acting against those purposes.

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shivsta
I don't want to need to charge up the battery in my headphones to use them.
Dealing with a wire is much more simple and reliable than using Bluetooth,
especially when you encounter pairing issues between different devices.
Hopefully at least the BT pairing process will improve sometime soon (it
hasn't gotten any easier in the past several years).

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Osiris
If it's about thinness, why not just go with 2.5mm? Maybe there's a more
technical reason like VGA. I recall reading a primary reason to get rid of the
VGA connector had to do with it being an analog signal and the extra
electronics required to convert the digital to analog, while a digital
connection like HDMI and DisplayPort was simpler.

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nradov
I know switching jack standards is always a hassle, but at least USB is at
least a little less prone to foreign object contamination. I tried to watch a
movie during a recent flight only to discover that there was a dog treat crumb
stuck down in the bottom of my cell phone's 3.5mm audio port so I couldn't
insert the headphone plug.

~~~
HelloNurse
Mini-USB, Micro-USB and USB-C sockets are all more than large enough to be
filled by sand, lint, crumbs, etc.

~~~
nradov
Sure but in my experience because the ports are shallower its easier to see
debris and clean them out just by blowing.

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analog31
As an amusing aside, the big daddy of the 3.5mm jack has been in use for
electric guitars (and other amplified musical instruments) for at least 70
years. It's only been within the last decade that the "quarter inch" has been
supplanted for connecting speakers, probably due to EU safety regulations.

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dogma1138
The lightning cable is compatible with USB, since it's other data paths are
hdmi and a few others I don't think that apple headphones would use something
proprietary just connect to the phone via the usb path if so dumb adapters can
be used to convert them to usb type c easily and cheaply.

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ungzd
Today I see less and less people outside listening music either using phone or
dedicated player. Maybe that's the reason: companies found out that too few
people use headphones?

~~~
Freak_NL
From what I have observed (in the Netherlands) a pair of headphones is pretty
much standard issue for smombies and commuters. I don't see any signs of that
lessening. Where are you from?

~~~
ungzd
Russia. Seems that it's a local trend. 3 years ago lots of people on public
transit listened to music and used headphones, now it's extremelly rare. I
don't know what's happened.

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gcb0
remember that both nokia and apple already tried that.

nokia with custom headset pop ports. and apple with pins changes on the 3,5mm
plug that resulted in the plagged state of incompatibility screwing users to
this day.

thanks apple greed when one 3.5mm headset mic and buttons don't work on one
device.

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mattkrea
I imagine the author still has a CD drive and likely a 1.44 floppy drive as
well. And maybe RCA cables instead of HDMI.

I get that this is going to be rough at first (not for me) but does the author
expect tech to stay the same forever?

~~~
khedoros
Of course technology will change. Every once in a while, companies need a way
to sell us slightly different versions of the things we already own.

3.5mm is reliable, ubiquitous, and cheap. I'll switch to the thing that adds a
4th item to that list.

~~~
mattkrea
I'm willing to sacrifice it to cram more into valuable space in the phone
(which is why this is being done anyway).

~~~
khedoros
I'm not, currently. But then, the mobile phone market has a tendency to go in
the opposite direction than I'd like, and I end up dragged along, of course.

~~~
therealidiot
I always felt like this. I stopped playing this game and I don't miss it.

