What annoys me the most is that the industry collectively decided that 3.5mm jacks are obselete, removing the option of using wired headphones, for no(?) good reason. We could at least agree that wired and wireless each have their own pros and cons, but no, we're shoehorned into wireless because corporate decided it. Here, you must use <NEW TECH> simply because we said so! It's just the peak of trend following bullshittery and represents a lot of what is wrong with capitalist society.

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vladms 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

There is an adapter 3.5mm jack to USB-C which works great, so from my perspective there is no option removed.

I keep the adapter with my wired headphones (which I bought many years ago), and I did not encounter any issue (falling, heavy, etc.), it's just a slightly longer wire and a couple of euros spent to buy it.

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crote 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> removing the option of using wired headphones

I am personally a fan of wired headphones with USB-C connectors. I am only ever going to use it with my phone, laptop, or desktop anyways - and all of they have at least one USB-C port.

In theory it could also be the best option for audio quality: if you move the DAC all the way to the headphone itself you minimize the length of the analog chain, which should also reduce the possibility for it to pick up any kind of noise or interference. Additionally, the DAC can be perfectly tuned to compensate for any imperfections in the headset itself, which should result in a better audio output than a random 3.5mm headphone paired with a random external DAC.

The obvious downsides are that you lose any kind of influence on the audio signal itself by forcing you to use a specific DAC, that the integrated DAC is yet another component which can break and be basically impossible to replace, and that a 3.5mm plug is far less likely to break than a USB-C one.

On the absolutely high end you probably want headphone and DAC separate, but for a Teams call or some casual on-the-go Spotify a fully integrated mid-tier headset / headphone seems to be the better option to me.

	▲	loloquwowndueo 8 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Got recommendations for good USB-C wired headphones? I don’t find wireless (AirPods) all that convenient, so when they inevitably die of battery illness I’d like a pair that won’t suffer the same fate.
	▲	vladvasiliu 38 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> that the integrated DAC is yet another component which can break and be basically impossible to replace Meh. If you want your headphones to last for ages, you could go just a bit higher end and get a pair with a replaceable cable. Then you can just swap the cable with the integrated DAC, regular 3.5 mm jack, or whatever. I used to have a lightning cable for my Shure IEMs, worked great until the cable developed the usual problems around the connector, just like your regular analog cables. I then bought a BT adapter for the same headphones and never looked back. I've had them for 15-16 years now, still work as good as new. The BT dongle is something like 6 years old, and the battery still holds a good charge. My adapter is a bit of a pain nowadays since it's the last thing I have that uses micro-USB for charging. I hear Shure has released newer adapters with USB C and no wires at all. But that's too expensive to replace something that still just works.

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alpaca128 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Here, you must use <NEW TECH> simply because we said so!

Because the integrated battery adds an expiration date to a device that could otherwise last decades if maintained properly.

Same as Apple tightly coupling the iMac screen with the Mac's software support cycle even though nothing would stop them from just adding, say, a USB-C port that can act as video input.

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mcdeltat an hour ago | parent | next [-]

With the trend of computing devices getting more baseline capable but the functionality/usability not improving at the same rate, I do wonder what the endgame will look like. Will we have a reversion to more efficient, durable designs? Or will we end up with absurdly large computing power in every device to counteract the horrible software rot? Phones with 100+ CPUs? Smart fridges with 1TB RAM? (The latter is kinda scary, imagine rewriting all software in Python - we could easily piss away 1000x hardware performance for no functionality gained.)

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raw_anon_1111 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Macs overall are only 10% of Apple’s revenue and with 70-80% of those being laptops and the other 20% being split among Mac Mini’s, iMacs and Mac Studios, what does you think are the chances of Apple spending time optimizing iMac sells?

	▲	alpaca128 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Macs overall are only 10% of Apple’s revenue "Only" $43 billion in revenue is more than 95% of corporations achieved. Apple is pretending to be eco-friendly and using that as excuse to ship fewer chargers, for example. If they can optimize the same Mac's packaging to use paper that's folded in all kinds of fancy ways, they can add a tiny bit of functionality to an existing port. You can't tell me Apple isn't able to care about small details, because they absolutely do when they want and not only when it's about revenue.

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numpad0 23 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It was the solution to the "analog loophole" "problem". The idea of the "loophole" is that the hole must be plugged shut to eliminate piracy.

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shalmanese 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What's interesting is that Apple was the one responsible for removing the jack from their phones but they've stubbornly kept them on all their computers.

The only port in common between a 2015 Intel Macbook Pro and a 2026 Macbook Neo is the 3.5mm headphone jack. But also, the only port in common between a 2015 Intel Macbook Pro and a 1991 Powerbook 100 is the 3.5mm headphone jack.

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Gigachad an hour ago | parent [-]

Because the MacBook isn’t particularly short on space. The MacBook neo appears to have massive blank space blocks where the speakers are.

The 3.5mm jack is fine, there isn’t any need to replace it on the MacBook where you can afford to have both. On the iPhone it makes more sense to use the usb c for audio.

	▲	shalmanese 34 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That hasn't stopped them from periodic stalinist redesigns in an attempt to purge other ports from their machines. But the audio jack always survives.