
Headphone Jacks Are the New Floppy Drives - shawndumas
http://daringfireball.net/2016/06/headphone_jacks_are_the_new_floppy_drives
======
mikeash
There's a _major_ difference between the two. Floppy drives were of seriously
limited utility by 1998 and it was only getting worse. 1.44MB was starting to
be a pretty painful limit. Software was starting to come on CDs instead of
floppies. Documents were starting to need Zip disks, USB drives, CD-Rs, or
networks.

Can you imagine using floppies today? You wouldn't be able to fit anything on
them. A single smartphone photo would already be too big. They were already
doomed, Apple just happened to be the first one to stop shipping them.

Contrast this to the ubiquitous headphone jack. It still works great. It does
exactly what we need it to. It does its job as well in 2016 as it did when it
was created in 1964.

With floppies, Apple saw the writing on the wall and moved faster than other
companies were willing to. If they kill the headphone jack, they will be
trying to _force_ a switch that otherwise wouldn't happen. Data keeps on
growing seemingly without limit, but audio hasn't changed in decades.

~~~
cstejerean
Ok, but apple didn't just get rid of the floppy disk. At a time when everyone
was getting ready to go from DVDs to either Blu-ray or HD-DVD Apple got rid of
optical disks entirely in all of their machines and everyone gave them shit
for it the same way. But in the end they were right. The battle between HD-DVD
and Blu-Ray was won by downloads and streaming, and optical disks have gone
the way of the floppy disk even though they worked perfectly fine.

Analog audio jacks are going in the same direction. Bluetooth audio works
perfectly fine, and it's how I play music on my headphones, in my car and at
home. The analog jack is a convenient fallback but it will definitely go away
at some point.

Sure, it feels like it's a bit premature, but that's how it always feels when
Apple does something like get rid of optical drives, or get rid of removable
batteries, etc. Eventually everyone follows them. Someone needs to blaze the
trail and Apple is one of the few major companies that is not afraid to do it
even if it pisses off some people along the way.

~~~
astrocat
When Apple dropped the optical drive, the internet was eating everything. The
internet is a massive, global infrastructure project that was clearly not
going to slow down. People were already downloading software, movies and
music, and loved the ease of that experience. The writing was on the wall,
they just jumped earlier.

So what's the up and coming thing that's just about to take over audio
transmission, the "internet" that ate physical disk distribution? Is it
Bluetooth?

> Bluetooth audio works perfectly fine, and it's how I play music on my
> headphones...

sample size of one. I can match that. I never use bluetooth and actively avoid
it due to it's poor quality, connection fragility, and the time it takes to
set up (repeatedly). Basically, the UX of bluetooth is terrible. The UX of a
simple, universal, cheap, dependable, quick, robust and high fidelity cable
and connector is great.

Whatever tech that will eventually replace the 3.5mm jack isn't here yet.

~~~
cstejerean
Yes, in hindsight both of the changes were inevitable. But plenty of people
still complained about it. I see the dropping of the analog headphone jack the
same way. The move to wireless is inevitable even if a few people still have
problems with it it today. The adoption of Bluetooth music streaming in
vehicles shows that Bluetooth audio can work perfectly fine. If you had
connection and quality issues at some point, I urge you to try again with
newer hardware.

------
astrocat
the analogy is baloney. floppy drives didn't get removed from hardware just
because they were "old" or "made the computer fat," ... floppy drives were
removed from computers because their entire raison d'etre was becoming more
rare - the _Floppy Disk_. It was actively being replaced by CDs because it
wasn't sufficient as a storage medium any more.

So for the analogy to make sense, 3.5mm _plugs_ would have to be dying,
actively and ubiquitously being replaced by ... whatever. Lightning? USB-C?
But they're not. The 3.5mm jack and headphones in particular are probably more
common now than ever before.

I personally would love to see the headphone jack become more useful in lots
of different ways. Square managed to make a CC reader that plugged into the
3.5mm jack. Impressive, using it as a data port for simple data. Can we do
more of that? What if a 3.5mm cable was a way for your phone to connect to
various IoT devices to pass the basic setup data like your wifi SSID and
password instead of this goofy process of broadcasting it's own wifi network
that you have to connect to. Any app can push signals out the headphone port,
and it works the same across iOS and Android. Maybe I'm an idiot and that'd
never work but the point is: 3.5mm isn't dead. It's very much alive and
kicking.

~~~
kamkha
> What if a 3.5mm cable was a way for your phone to connect to various IoT
> devices to pass the basic setup data like your wifi SSID and password
> instead of this goofy process of broadcasting it's own wifi network that you
> have to connect to.

For what it's worth, the latest Canary
([https://canary.is/](https://canary.is/)) is configured via a 3.5mm cable
connected to your phone, and the configuration process is relatively smooth
compared to the goofy ad-hoc WiFi network approach.

~~~
astrocat
Well hey, I guess I'm not crazy after all. :)

------
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I have less of an issue with the analog headphone port being gone and more
with it being replaced by a proprietary/closed format that nobody else but
Apple uses.

~~~
devy
Apple's intention is to go all wireless, audio included. The lightning
connector earbud is a stop gap between now and the future when wireless audio
is decent. John Gruber actually mentions that.

~~~
mikeash
Where? The only mention of "wireless" is a brief acknowledgement that wireless
audio sucks and Apple will ship wired headphones.

~~~
devy
"Wireless sucks" \- That's the hint. And once the 3.5mm jack is removed, you
think Apple would reintroduce it again?

~~~
mikeash
How does any of that imply that lightning earbuds are just a stopgap?

~~~
devy
The answer is only a google search away - I follow quite a few Apple news
sites. All these news tidbits in the past few months are increasingly clear
once you connect all the dots. So no, I don't have a quote for you if you
that's what you are looking for. The statement was my original idea
crystalized from all the sources.

PS: you were the one who down voted me right?

~~~
mikeash
You said that Gruber mentioned it. If this is your own conclusion based on
other materials then fine, but that's a different thing.

As for downvoting, no, I only downvote people who are blatantly awful
(insulting, sexist, whatever), and in any case HN doesn't let you downvote
replies to your own comments.

~~~
devy
Ok good to know! The "mentioned" was really referring to the "Wireless audio
currently sucks" sentiment. But it will get better.

------
blacksmith_tb
A false analogy - we weren't using floppies with multiple different kinds of
devices. If non-standard headphone connections were clearly better, we'd
already have lots of them in the wild, and you could neglect that old-
fashioned 3.5mm hole in your smartphone. But consumers aren't clamoring for
that, as they'd like to be able to use the headphones they already have with
their phones, laptops, and other audio devices.

~~~
dragonwriter
> A false analogy - we weren't using floppies with multiple different kinds of
> devices.

General purpose computers, digital cameras, electronic (musical) keyboards and
other instruments, ...

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Fair, though most of "us" weren't, honestly.

------
edtechdev
Coincidentally, the headphone jack on my Lenovo laptop just broke last week,
and it's been a huge pain. I didn't realize how much I depended on it. I wear
ear buds to listen to music during work. I have bluetooth earbuds, but they
are bulky and it's a pain to have to re-pair them, re-charge them, etc., and
bluetooth even stopped working on my laptop once until I rebooted. I have a
USB headset I usually just use for videoconferencing or recording videos, but
it's even bulkier and awkward to wear for a long time.

So I got a USB to stereo adapter for a few bucks, but I find that the audio
levels are not as smooth as with the regular headphone jack. The sound goes
from a little too loud to virtually silent with just one tick of the volume
control.

I've already been researching new laptops even though I wasn't expecting to
get a new one until later this year, all because of a simple little headphone
jack breaking. The only other alternative I guess is to use my phone for
listening to music instead.

~~~
bhandziuk
Is this a post about the merits of the 3.5 mm audio jack and the pitfalls of a
digital audio jack or vice versa? It kind of seems like you're saying
"technology sucks when it breaks and nothing works perfectly" (bluetooth
failed, USB audio is choppy, 3.5 mm jack is susceptible to breaking and there
is only the 1 on your laptop.)

------
doke01
So now audio will be controlled by a company or copyrighted/patented protocol.
This is really what they are after. If they could charge for the light
streaming from your screen, they would. I can see Apple offering a dongle to
let you plug in a normal headset and charging $30 for it. More crap to carry,
more refuse in the landfills. If Apple really cared about the environment they
would keep the audio jack in place. It's allows something with an earphone
with 3 wires to plug in that gives awesome sound quality out (usually). How
can you get more simple and elegant than that?

~~~
cmiles74
Practically no one will buy such a dongle out of belief that the audio quality
of Lightning port earbuds is so vastly superior. Such is the Apple loyalist
(once upon a time I was one of them). ;-)

~~~
mikeash
Do Apple fans actually believe that Apple earbuds are high quality? I recall
even a top Apple exec once admitted at a public event that the best thing they
could say about their earbuds was that they were the highest quality ones in
the iPhone box.

~~~
cmiles74
No, you are correct, I think it's accepted in general that earbuds are a
compromise. Still, IMHO, customers will assume the audio quality from the
lightning port is superior to the old analog jack.

~~~
mikeash
I see, and I totally agree with that. I'm sure that "better audio quality"
will be a selling point if they do this, and most people will believe it. It
might even be true, to a small extent, although the connector is clearly not
the limiting factor for Apple earbud quality.

------
frandroid
What annoys me about this is that now one won't be able to have headphones AND
a portable battery plugged in. With a macbook and USB-C you might carry a
small USB hub with you, but you won't use a USB hub on a phone so you have
have headphones and a battery. Unless the headphone battery has two genders
and lets you daisy chain...

~~~
whamlastxmas
Isn't USB-C daisy-chainable? Seems like the onus is on the portable battery to
have a USB-C port itself for this.

~~~
frandroid
In theory, all USB is daisy-chainable. The practice is where the theory
crashes.

------
protomyth
Floppies lost to USB flash for the same reasons core memory lost to hard
drives, new better, widely adopted, denser storage. No such relationship
exists between current head phones and Lightning head phones. In fact,
Lightning is not an industry standard, but analog cabling is. Lightning cables
are less durable and not repairable. Analog cables do come in varying quality
but can be repaired easily. One is patent encumbered and the other is not.

Why would I buy expensive Lightning noise cancelling headphone when I can only
use it with one manufactures equipment? It really makes zero sense.

------
Jeema101
"Should the analog headphone jack remain on our devices forever? If you think
so, you can stop reading."

Better remove our legacy analog hearing while we're at it...

------
kinofcain
It's a bit hard to have a reasonable discussion about this without knowing the
features of what it's being replaced _with_. Lightning connector, sure, but
what does that get me? Until we get an answer to that I don't really know what
to be upset about.

~~~
TillE
For the sake of argument, maybe assume the best case scenario of analog output
through a very simple Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter.

That would be annoying, but maybe not the dealbreaker it could be if Lightning
is only capable of digital output.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
My new laptop has, for no good reason other than thinness, decided to be
without an Ethernet port. To compensate it came with a USB Type C Ethernet
adapter, about the size of a zippo lighter.

In what world does it make sense to shave a millimeter off the device itself,
but then require me to be dragging half a dozen adapters around?

I'm already packing AC adapter, HDMI->VGA adapter, USB hub and this new
Ethernet adapter everywhere I go. I bet these are approachng the same volume
as the laptop itself.

~~~
whamlastxmas
A world in which less than 1% of users will ever use that ethernet dongle. If
you needed all of those ports, you bought the wrong laptop.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Well, it's a 15" Dell Precision. It's supposed to be a "mobile workstation".
If it was a Macbook Air or something, I wouldn't be complaining.

------
DominikR
I've recently switched to bluetooth in ears (Jaybird Freedom) and it
significantly improves my "user-experience" of listening to music on the go.

I don't have to carry my phone with me when I go jogging (smartwatch) and even
if I did I could put it in any pocket without having to make sure that the
cable is long enough.

Pulling the phone out and using it is also more pleasant without a cable.
Another example is me being in the kitchen and listening to music with the
phone lying around somewhere 5m away from me.

I know it is currently expensive (the Jaybird Freedom cost $200) but I believe
that the general direction Apple is taking here is the right one. Prices for
such headphones will go down and battery life will improve. (although battery
life is already sufficient for me)

Once you can get something comparable for $50 I believe most people will
switch.

~~~
mikeash
I had a similar experience for a while, until I put my $100+ Bluetooth headset
through the wash. I'll stick with cheap wired earbuds from now on, although
I'm sure not everybody is sufficiently absent minded for that to be a risk.

------
pavedwalden
I just realized that if I have lightning-port headphones plugged in I can't be
charging my iPhone at the same time. That's actually a very common use case
for me, as I always plug it in to stay charged if I'm listening at my desk or
in bed.

------
revelation
Well, duh, we replaced the floppy drive because there was a many measurable
magnitudes better in every dimension new invention.

It's hilarious how he writes this whole page and misses this crucial bit. He
must not have been born when floppy was a thing.

In the meantime, the whole consumer audio space is just so totally and utterly
solved. 16 bit, 44kHz (lossless if you must, but frankly MP3 is sufficient)
analogue audio is just the ultimate in "good enough" solutions. People
peddling 24 bit or 96kHz should be imprisoned for fraud.

~~~
Oletros
> It's hilarious how he writes this whole page and misses this crucial bit.

Oh, no, he didn't miss that, but it is a fact that goes against his reasoning

------
Oletros
Shocking, Gruber trying to defend what Apple does.

Since a headphone needs a DAC to transform the digital audio to analog there
is no reason to move that DAC from the one already present in the smartphone
to the headphone.

And the floppy analogy doesn't hold water, there is no better alternative to
the jack

------
shramp
How could the creator of markdown be so... unreasonable!? ;_;

~~~
suprjami
Read the rest of his blog, you'll be even more disappointed.

