Well that sucks. Apple's policy of not including commonly needed adapters is a general point of criticism with this company, though. (and a very valid one.) IMO it's not an issue that stems specifically from the headphone jack removal.
I felt the same way about the adapter my phone came with, until I wanted to use the headphones on my desk at work and realized I couldn't do that because I left the adapter with the headphones in my car.
The problem with the headphone jack adapter is that it is mutually exclusive with input for the power cable.
Where this is particularly frustrating is when you are on a particularly long conference call and your phone starts to run out of charge. This happened regularly enough for me ditch the iphone.
I'm sure there yet another dongle you can buy to address this shortcoming though.
Yes you can get a dual charging/headphone adapter for $2.65.
I really don't understand people who change entire platforms over such small amounts of money. I know for me personally my investment in apps and content is significantly more than just $2.65.
It's not about the additional cost of a few extra dollars.
It's a matter of practicality and convenience.
I don't want to have to worry about remembering the phone, the charger, the earbuds AND a dongle. In my opinion it's simply one concern too many for basic functionality. Functionality we used to have.
100% agree. Relatedly, too, if they're so cheap... include one with the phone.
But yeah, we used to have the convenience of both (bluetooth and wired), now we pay more $ for less functionality and increased inconvenience. Holding on to my SE for the foreseeable.
> And you can permanently attach it to your headphones.
I can't permanently attach it to everything I might otherwise plug into my headphone jack, including things that I use occasionally but neither own nor have exclusive control over.
Sure, if I have one set of headphones, and use nothing else with the jack, the “you can permanently attach it” mitigation is, actually, something of a mitigation.
Also, Apple's adapter seems (from reports, including reviews at Apple's site) to either not support inline controls and headset mics consistently and/or to require plugging the adapter into the phone before the headset for some to work. And that's not even going to some cut-price, third-party charge+adaptor device.
we'll get wireless charging at some point (though probably only if it doesn't interfere with 'thinness') and then we'll only have a couple hundred millions devices with that problem....
While I mourn the practicality of the embedded jack on my iPhone 8, I've had quite a few headphones in a row whose jack ended up failing due to the way my phone is placed inside my pocket, and a repair was impossible, so that was quite an unexpected improvement to have the adapter possibly fail and be replaced at a very small cost instead of a full headset† going bust.
† five actually (100-300€ price range), two of which the cord is replaceable (which I did) but how long will that specific cord be available?
You can cut off the jack and solder a new one. You also don't need specific cord, buy a new cord and add the jack. For non replaceable cords you can open up the headphones unsolder the old cord and solder a new one. Or you can cut the cable somewhere high and patch another cable.
If you can't do these things your self there is probably some cheap electronic repair shop nearby. Most likely cheaper than shipping new brand cable or replacement parts.
On side note plastic in one of my shure 840 joints broke and I managed to fix it by modeling and 3d printing it. They're working fine now. The only official way to fix that was to buy original head assembly and ship it, but that's almost as expensive as getting a new pair.
Repair is possible, just sometimes you need to be a bit creative.
> Repair is possible, just sometimes you need to be a bit creative.
Indeed, and I attempted to do so myself since I know how to handle a soldering iron... yet some of them were in-ear, one was over ear but cracking its case was a one way destructive operation; some had those hair-thin copper wires downright coated with an insulating material that makes soldering a pain, if at all possible. I swear it's made on purpose to thwart attempts at repairs.
I bet I have broken more jacks in a couple of years than during the 20 years before that. Crazy.
Anyway that doesn't change the fact that before that I never thought about having a small, cheap jack-to-jack part in between the headphones and the playing device, as using the adapter was the first time I happened to do something similar, but that's not a property of the adapter itself; or rather, DAC, really, and I find it nice that there are alternative DACs available, at which point if I always have a DAC at hand, well it's less of a problem to not have a jack embedded), but really, I'd rather still have the jack, or having the removal of the jack coincide with the replacement of Lightning with USB-C (together with the USB-C situation not being such a bloody mess) and have some new universal standard emerge across all devices.
> I've had quite a few headphones in a row whose jack ended up failing due to the way my phone is placed inside my pocket, and a repair was impossible ...
Why don't you change the way you put it in your pocket?
I've experienced a similar problem. I wear my headphones for about 1.5 - 2 hours per day while walking and I've found that I have to purchase a new adapter about every 45 days. I'm surprised that for the approximately $10 they charge for the adapter that they can't come up with a more durable design.
My iPhone came with an adapter, though. I continue using the same headphones as I did with my old phone.