The most frustrating part is when Apple dropped the jack we laughed at the "courage" bit, Apple's given reasons where already seen as bullshit, Samsung had their finger pointing moment.

And it just went on, Apple weathered the critics, the other makers also dropped it, and at some point there was just nowhere to go for anyone still wanted a 3.5 jack with a decent phone.

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simpaticoder 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I agree the loss of the 3.5mm jack is a short-sighted and poor decision. There is at least one mitigation, which is the ability to recover the jack through a USB-C DAC. Apple sells them for USD10. I have several, in the car and in my backpack.

It's not a good solution though. In particular I find the USB-C port gets worn out pretty quickly. Its also easy to lose the dongle and of course it's more complicated to setup. (I'm not sure how to articulate the "it's more complicated" part. Adding the dongle elevates the action of "plug in headphones" from something you can do without attention to something that requires attention, and I don't like that.)

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ricardobeat 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The jacks are a physical impediment for slim phones. An adapter costs $3 if you still want it. It’s not a bad trade.

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makeitdouble an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I see the point for ultra slim phones. Except the only phones that are slim enough to have their thickest point thinner than that have only started to come up recently.

Imagine the same argument for USB-C: at some point phones will be too slim to allow for that port, should every maker start dropping it right now ? That would be nonsense.

On adapters, it's no panacea: you still want the USB port available. Split adapters exist, but most of them only allow for charging, and the charging rate is also usually miserable.

You could say people who appreciated that should just eat it and feel in their bones how much the world doesn't care about them, that would be fair. Now staying sour about it is also one's prerogative.

PS: The biggest part for me is every other devices I own still having a pretty good jack. Laptops still have it, game consoles, VR headsets, TVs, high fidelity portable players, cars etc. So keeping around a very good headphone pair is still an enjoyable thing, except for the damn phones. Even in XL sizes. They're the only one needing a dongle, and regardless of the price that sucks.

	▲	dweekly 28 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		On slimness: wouldn't an alternative implementation be to "do the Magic Mouse" and put the USB C port on the back of the phone instead of the edge? Alternatively I could imagine MagSafe alignment / charging magnets plus an NFC like inductive communication (or contact pads) to allow for a range of "snap on" peripherals for phone backs that could be implemented on devices thinner than a USB C port.

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amarshall 27 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Maybe, but Apple doesn’t make them thinner anyway so the argument is invalid. iPhone 6S with headphone jack: 7.1mm thick. iPhone 17 is 7.95mm thick.

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p0w3n3d 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

3$ adapter will have low quality DAC

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wat10000 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

They’re just responding to the market. The vast majority of people don’t care about this. Personally, I’d rather have two minutes more battery life than a headphone jack.

It’s annoying to have non-mainstream preferences in an area where economies of scale mean every product needs to have mass market appeal. But you might as well complain about the tide coming in.