I too like the simplicity and standardisation of the 3.5mm headphone jack, and think it's a shame that it's fallen out of fashion in smartphones. But I think this is something that a small number of people get really disproportionately angry about. It's most obvious every time Fairphone crops up in discussion here, and all you see on HN are people furiously shitting on it over its lack of headphone jack.
> If you’re a fan of the 3.5mm jack, it’s time to vote with your wallet.
Not sure why the author thinks this hasn't been happening already, and the 3.5mm jack is simply losing the popular vote. I really just don't think that many people care about it, in the scheme of things. If removing it helps make the phone even marginally thinner, cheaper or more waterproof, I suspect most consumers will happily make that trade-off. Bluetooth headphones can also be more convenient in that you don't have to remain wired to your phone or deal with tangled cords, etc. Like the author, I also have a Samsung Galaxy S10 that still has the headphone jack but a few months ago I finally caved and bought a pair of bluetooth earphones.
> Not sure why the author thinks this hasn't been happening already, and the 3.5mm jack is simply losing the popular vote.
When you are buying smartphone, you can not selectively select the features. If you used iPhone and bought apps, you will buy iPhone even if it is missing jack or whatever.
I know that I disliked quite a lot about how phones were/are changing ... and when my phone life ends, I have to buy another one. I have no real choice when it comes to this.
Same, one generation 3.5mm was a given, next time I needed a phone I have no choice. Who asked me? I would have, if given the choice, bought a phone with wired headphones, an SD card slot, and an IR blaster like my previous phone had but none of those were options. Now the phone I have is bigger than I wanted, has worse battery life, and kills my run tracking apps once the screen has been off for 2 minutes with no option to disable that behavior (obviously spackling over the pitifully small battery by annoyingly killing anything using power)
On the plus side it has a 120 hz display that doesn't help me either.
The war has already been lost. Headphone jacks are basically only in low end phones now. They used to be in mid range devices too, but even there they are gone. You have to really compromise to get it which is a shame.
What I do wish is if somebody at least made is a USB C phone dock similar to what Apple made for 30 pin and lightning iPhones with audio out jacks. There are dongles that let you charge and do audio out but not in nice dock form.
It is truly bizarre that flagship phones are the ones that are dropping the most features.
And yet, we are approaching the day very soon where there's no point in getting the next year's flagship phone. It's not faster. It's not better. It doesn't have a better battery. The camera's not going to get any better. It's going to be the same form factor.
At some point phones will stop charging ridiculous amounts of money for 128 GB of RAM, when a terabyte of storage is approaching $50 in retail cost.
More ports SD card. I can see all of it coming back on the table. Cuz you're going to want features if you get a nice phone.
I think the flagship manufacturers' approach has always been to find the two or three things consumers will pay most for and aggressively optimise for them. So phones got thinner, cameras and screens got progressively better, for a few generations at least. Other features that got in the way and didn't add a huge amount to the phone's mass market appeal got dropped.
It will certainly be interesting to see how the manufacturers continue to find ways to differentiate themselves. Right now, unsurprisingly, all the hype seems to be focused around AI. So possibly future phones will be ruthlessly optimised for running LLM models. But if, instead, the phone manufacturers just decide to use cloud-hosted AI (or if the hype around AI dies down), then they'll need something else. The foldable form factor is the only other one that occurs to me right now.
I used to care, but eventually got good Bluetooth earbuds and haven't looked back. Credibly waterproof phones are a big selling point although there's still fine print on warranty coverage.
I think it's still the case that Bluetooth headphones cost more for the same quality, though.
My car is too old for bluetooth audio, so I have to connect either the dongle or the charger. The dongles i can buy from gas stations always break after about two months, while the gas station aux cable they connect to has lasted years. I also always run out of power on long drives.
Dongles exist which allow you to charge and play audio at the same time.
And… stop buying garbage products from gas stations? You are buying the most cheaply-built item possible from a manufacturer and merchant who have zero concern with repeat business. Pay a few bucks more once for something made by a manufacturer with a reputation and stop throwing more money down the drain.
A USB-C headphone adapter from apple is $9. I love my wired headphones. My iPhone 15 has an extremely capable headphone jack. This is such a solved problem.
This is definitely a solution, but for whatever reason using these destroys my charging port over time - and I’ve experienced this over multiple devices now. :(
> If you’re a fan of the 3.5mm jack, it’s time to vote with your wallet.
Not sure why the author thinks this hasn't been happening already, and the 3.5mm jack is simply losing the popular vote. I really just don't think that many people care about it, in the scheme of things. If removing it helps make the phone even marginally thinner, cheaper or more waterproof, I suspect most consumers will happily make that trade-off. Bluetooth headphones can also be more convenient in that you don't have to remain wired to your phone or deal with tangled cords, etc. Like the author, I also have a Samsung Galaxy S10 that still has the headphone jack but a few months ago I finally caved and bought a pair of bluetooth earphones.