Let's have a conversation about the headphone jack

It all started with the iPhone 7.

And then every company afterwards thought it was the trendy thing to do to get rid of the headphone jack and gradually but surely, one by one, each company started developing their next flagships without the beloved jack.

There are some that argue that the age of the headphone jack is gone and that bluetooth is the future. Audio enthusiasts, however, are quick to point out that a wired DAC connection provides a better sound experience than through bluetooth. Whichever side you fall on though, it's pretty safe to say and agree upon one thing: the removal of the headphone jack was a pretty big change in the smartphone industry as a whole. Some OEMs (thinking of OnePlus here) include a USB-C to 3.5mm dongle in the box, which may or may not suffice depending on the individual, but regardless. Removal of the headphone jack to make phones have a slimmer build are a thing and it seems there's no going back (or is there?).

The tl;dr: how do you feel about the removal of the headphone jack in modern-day smartphones? Does it bother you or not? Kinda curious on thoughts here. :o

It feels really really weird for me. It's become one of those things that you can't live without. I stopped using iPhone when the 7 came out only because I refused to upgrade from the jack to the USB plug.

I hope the headphone jack sticks around for much longer. Guess I'll have to get used to bluetooth if Android decides to pull that stunt as well.

to me, a headphone jack is absolutely essential. but if i get the opportunity to buy wireless headphones then maybe i could jump to the wireless bandwagon

Meganium said:

It feels really really weird for me. It's become one of those things that you can't live without. I stopped using iPhone when the 7 came out only because I refused to upgrade from the jack to the USB plug.

I hope the headphone jack sticks around for much longer. Guess I'll have to get used to bluetooth if Android decides to pull that stunt as well.

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Currently, only Samsung and LG are the only two Android OEMs that still produce devices with headphone jacks. There might be more, but those two are the ones that stick out to me.

Of course, there's really no telling how long that jack is going to last on Samsung's phones.

Most definitely. I have the Note 8 and I chose that one over the iPhone X (when they were both coming out) around the time I was upgrading. The jack was the reason the Note 8 won me over the iPhone, I just didn't want to struggle between connecting my earbuds and charging my phone when I'm low.

It miiiiiiight be a while for me to jump into the bluetooth fad. Heck, I still use an aux cord for my car to play music on my phone lmao.

i have to have an audio jack, most earbuds or headphones dont last as long as I would need them to, so if they die i like having that backup just in case. Or like the one time i had my bluetooth earbuds werent working and busy getting them fixed, i was using my regular earbuds that required an audio jack.

colours said:

Currently, only Samsung and LG are the only two Android OEMs that still produce devices with headphone jacks. There might be more, but those two are the ones that stick out to me.

Of course, there's really no telling how long that jack is going to last on Samsung's phones.

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Isnt motorola one of them?

all it really is is companies trying to squeeze more money out of the everyday person

there's no reason to not have a headphone jack for electronic devices and require people to buy a separate device in order to do something like plug headphones/earbuds in other than to try and increase your profits

For one thing, I absolutely hate the trend over the past few years of tech companies phasing out 'ubiquitous' connector formats (some of which have been around for decades), in favor of subject-to-interference-and-battery-life-limitations "wireless" connectivity and much more expensive (thanks to cartel-mandated royalties) "advanced" new connector formats.

By the same token, if the 3.5mm headphone jack is "obsolete", then so is North America's three-prong 120 volt hot-neutral-grounded receptacle format that is nearly ubiquitous (and replaced the non-grounded two-prong receptacle format in new construction since the mid-1960s, though many older houses still have two-prong outlets even today) these days. While we're at it, I'm also dismayed that some TV makers are making sets without tuners at all (meaning they have to have a cable or satellite box, or streaming device with an HDMI connection just to watch anything on it), which effectively means the 75 ohm coax "F-connector" used for antenna inputs is obsolete as well (despite the impending rollout of ATSC 3.0, and the fact that cable and satellite-based television, phone, and Internet modems use those same connectors for the input signals from the service provider as well).

By the time I got a phone that had no headphone jack, I had already ditched my wired earbuds for a really cheap pair of bluetooth headphones and even with bad connectivity and poor sound quality, there was just no going back for me. (So when I had to replace my Macbook a few months later and got a free pair of Beats or whatever, there was definitely no going back because the connectivity issues were gone.)

I'm not an audiophile by any sense of the word and already used cheap $10 earbuds anyway, so loss of sound quality is a total nonissue for me. The only issue I have with Bluetooth headphones is that I can't play rhythm games on my phone with them because there's audio lag. I don't notice this in any other context, though, so it's really not that big a deal. And even if it was, I keep my USB-C to audio jack adapter in my headphone case with the audio wire for them, so I could just switch to that if I needed to.

So yeah, I don't miss the audio jack at all. I didn't use it when I still had it and I wouldn't use it now.

Seriously, though, wireless headphones are the best. Any little mishaps are far outweighed by never ever having accidentally tangling my hand up in my headphone cords and yanking them out of my ears and that is absolutely sublime.

My iphone came with a headphone jack in the form of a headphone adapter so the missing port on the phone isn't a problem. Headphone adapters can be purchased separately and some of them have a port for the charger, making it possible to listen to sound and charge at the same time again.

FlameChrome said:

Isnt motorola one of them?

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I don't keep up with Motorola's products, but it's possible. :P

Anyway, personally... I find it hard to say that I care all that much about the headphone jack? Like, I care about my sound quality because I listen to music quite a bit, but at the same time I feel like I've personally never noticed that much of a difference with bluetooth headphones vs wired headphones. Maybe I'm just not that much of an audiophile to hear the differences in sound clarity/quality, etc.

My own phone has a headphone jack, and I still have wired headphones for convenience sake, but I wouldn't be opposed to getting a phone without a headphone jack in the future. I feel like that's just the future of the smartphone industry these days. :s

I love that both pairs of wireless headphones I own have fallback cables so it's not an issue for me in the least. I got Bluetooth headphones while still having a jack on my phone, so switching to a phone that didn't have one was not an issue for me in the least. While it seems inconvenient that you have to charge them all the time, it's not really as bad as it seems. I can go two or even three weeks before having to charge mine again, and it only takes maybe 45 minutes to charge them full. I also haven't had audio latency issues with them until recently, but it seems it's a result of the phone itself, not the headphones, and it's usually resolved itself within a minute or so and is pretty much seamless.

Those grubby hands man.

My only issue is that earbuds and headphones last about 6 to 7 hours, wireless i mean. So every once in awhile i have to switch to my wired earbuds because the wireless has died.

?Alice, why did you opt for a 6S rather than a 7??

You know why.

Alyssandra said:

?Alice, why did you opt for a 6S rather than a 7??

You know why.

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I sell phones and you'd be surprised how many people use this as the deciding factor between what phone to get. My coworker had a guy that was replacing an LG G5 with a bad battery and was upgrading to a P20. He never asked about if the phone had a headphone jack, but A LOT of people always mention about listening to music while charging the phone. To that I say that the situation where I'm doing that exact thing is so rare, I usually listen to music either around the house or when I'm on the go, that is, not using a charger.

Not to mention that he was going to have a much better battery life anyway so it shouldn't be a problem for him.

Ganondorf said:

I sell phones and you'd be surprised how many people use this as the deciding factor between what phone to get. My coworker had a guy that was replacing an LG G5 with a bad battery and was upgrading to a P20. He never asked about if the phone had a headphone jack, but A LOT of people always mention about listening to music while charging the phone. To that I say that the situation where I'm doing that exact thing is so rare, I usually listen to music either around the house or when I'm on the go, that is, not using a charger.

Not to mention that he was going to have a much better battery life anyway so it shouldn't be a problem for him.

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its not just all about phone life, it also deals with earbud/headphone battery also.

FlameChrome said:

its not just all about phone life, it also deals with earbud/headphone battery also.

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It's not really that battery life that I'm referring to. Since his phone will have a better battery, he can use the USB-C adapter and use his current earbuds/headphones unless he decides to jump up to wireless, and he won't encounter the charging/listening situation very often.

Ganondorf said:

It's not really that battery life that I'm referring to. Since his phone will have a better battery, he can use the USB-C adapter and use his current earbuds/headphones unless he decides to jump up to wireless, and he won't encounter the charging/listening situation very often.

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even if wireless, earbuds and headphones dont last very long. That person has the chance of needing to switch to wired earbuds/headphones

FlameChrome said:

earbuds and headphones dont last very long.

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My earbuds are two years old and my headphones are almost seven years old. They work flawlessly. ?\_(ツ)_/?