Hard disagree, you might not use them, but they are critical in many settings.
Credit card reader, comfortable headsets, hooking up to other systems, audio without batteries, etc. There are a good number of people who still use headphones! (Including most people in South Asia…)
Bluetooth security risk surface, exposes your phone to more attacks.
Most/all phones have a single usb-c port. Charging and using headphones difficult
Usb-c port placement is awkwardly on bottom of phone while must headphone jacks are on top of the phone. Plugging in your headphones on the bottom of the phone with a dongle is awkward.
The entire process of using a usb-c dongle or using Bluetooth headphones makes the entire system more complicated. KISS (keep it simple). The more complexity there is that can go wrong, the worse the experience. If I’m taking a important conference call, I want my audio to just work.
Bluetooth audio is delayed compare to wired
Bluetooth Microphone standard is quite poor, the sound quality when talking on a group calls is bad compared to wired.
Not directly related: the whole point of removing the headphone jack was to sell airpods. First apple, then android, and even fair phone. Each time the jack is removed to push sales of the branded Bluetooth ear buds. It’s a user hostile move.
The excuse may be to save money, Space, water rating, but the reason is increased sales.
I personally still use a pixel 5A which had a headphone jack only because it’s the B tier phone for markets where people are less likely to also buy the airpods.
I just outlined my use case, very concisely I thought. It may not be your use case. But please don’t dismiss my use case because you don’t use it yourself. Its only polite.
Oh, you mean USB headphones? TBH, way overly complex compared to analog with (albeit negligible) audio quality loss, which still works with legacy tech going back decades. It’s like arguing a bicycle is obsolete because motorcycles exist.
You did, because you’re assuming that you can only choose one or the other. Even though it’s been demonstrated that the headphone jack does not require much space, can even be added to phones that don’t have it (check out Strange Parts on yt) and does not have any drawbacks.
Dude. The only difference between a normal headphone with a 3.5mm jack and a “usb” headphone is that the latter needs to have its own dac/amp. Guess what? YOUR PHONE ALREADY HAS THAT. Usb headphones are more complex, more expensive and not guaranteed to work indefinitely.
The only problem I have ever had with headphones are pad/eartip degradation and cable issues. It’s rare for the driver to fail.
That’s in stark contrast to battery powered headphones, given thart batteries will 100% fail given a few years and they’re (in most cases) not user replaceable.
Ok, then you’re talking only about usb headphones.
If you have a dongle and it breaks, good luck fixing the cable. God forbid the dac is integrated to the headphone itself. Also, if the dac fails you’re also sol. So yeah, I wouldn’t call having a more expensive set up that’s also more likely to fail and doesn’t have any added benefits a good alternative.
There are headphones that use the USB port. Headphone jacks are kinda dead tech at this point.
Hard disagree, you might not use them, but they are critical in many settings.
Credit card reader, comfortable headsets, hooking up to other systems, audio without batteries, etc. There are a good number of people who still use headphones! (Including most people in South Asia…)
Credit card reader hooked into headphone jack is a dead tech too now that the rest of the world have moved on from mag stripe to chip and pin.
The rest of the world isn’t America.
These are both solved via USB headsets tho?
Downsides of usb-c headphones:
Bluetooth security risk surface, exposes your phone to more attacks.
Most/all phones have a single usb-c port. Charging and using headphones difficult
Usb-c port placement is awkwardly on bottom of phone while must headphone jacks are on top of the phone. Plugging in your headphones on the bottom of the phone with a dongle is awkward.
The entire process of using a usb-c dongle or using Bluetooth headphones makes the entire system more complicated. KISS (keep it simple). The more complexity there is that can go wrong, the worse the experience. If I’m taking a important conference call, I want my audio to just work.
Bluetooth audio is delayed compare to wired
Bluetooth Microphone standard is quite poor, the sound quality when talking on a group calls is bad compared to wired.
Not directly related: the whole point of removing the headphone jack was to sell airpods. First apple, then android, and even fair phone. Each time the jack is removed to push sales of the branded Bluetooth ear buds. It’s a user hostile move.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/apple-airpods-success
The excuse may be to save money, Space, water rating, but the reason is increased sales.
I personally still use a pixel 5A which had a headphone jack only because it’s the B tier phone for markets where people are less likely to also buy the airpods.
If you buy this phone, you’re exclusively buying it for sustainability, so you’re already accepting an inferior product.
There’s no reason to cling to headphone jacks as if those are somehow a worthwhile technology.
I just outlined my use case, very concisely I thought. It may not be your use case. But please don’t dismiss my use case because you don’t use it yourself. Its only polite.
For dead tech they sure do sell a shit ton of dongles
You can still buy DVD players, which means people still buy DVD players, but that doesn’t make it not dead tech
But how many though?
Idk hopefully not many. I’m not enthused by dead tech.
Audio quality loss and latency are built into Bluetooth. Its only advantage is not having a wire.
I’m not talking about Bluetooth at all tho
Oh, you mean USB headphones? TBH, way overly complex compared to analog with (albeit negligible) audio quality loss, which still works with legacy tech going back decades. It’s like arguing a bicycle is obsolete because motorcycles exist.
If bicycles and motorcycles competed for the exact same role, with an opportunity cost allowing only one, how would bicycles not be obsolete?
What a dumb analogy.
I didn’t choose the analogy.
You did, because you’re assuming that you can only choose one or the other. Even though it’s been demonstrated that the headphone jack does not require much space, can even be added to phones that don’t have it (check out Strange Parts on yt) and does not have any drawbacks.
That opportunity cost is not a thing.
If you can add it to a phone that doesn’t have it already, I’m not sure what the problem is, in your view.
Dude. The only difference between a normal headphone with a 3.5mm jack and a “usb” headphone is that the latter needs to have its own dac/amp. Guess what? YOUR PHONE ALREADY HAS THAT. Usb headphones are more complex, more expensive and not guaranteed to work indefinitely.
Removing the jack makes 0 sense.
In my experience, 0 headphones are guaranteed to work indefinitely, and I’ve been using headphones jacks since like '87
The only problem I have ever had with headphones are pad/eartip degradation and cable issues. It’s rare for the driver to fail.
That’s in stark contrast to battery powered headphones, given thart batteries will 100% fail given a few years and they’re (in most cases) not user replaceable.
At the bottom of your phone (probably? Idk like iPhones and shit), you have a USB-C (or some letter) port. There are headphones that plug in there.
They are no more battery powered than your phone.
Kind of shocked this isn’t well known, as this is a tech forum.
Ok, then you’re talking only about usb headphones.
If you have a dongle and it breaks, good luck fixing the cable. God forbid the dac is integrated to the headphone itself. Also, if the dac fails you’re also sol. So yeah, I wouldn’t call having a more expensive set up that’s also more likely to fail and doesn’t have any added benefits a good alternative.
This is all also true about traditional headphones jacks, which have failed quite often for me over the decades
My favorite headphones of all time failed in this way, and requires I have the jack in exactly the right spot/depth