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Comment by cm2187 | Hacker News Reader

I'd be OK with killing the audio jack if it was replaced with a common and better standard. But right now, my laptop will have a 3.5mm jack, the iphone 7 will have a lightening port, and any other device will likely use a USB based port. I just have zero appetite to walk around with 3 different earphones or to have to carry multiple dongles in my pocket.

I am not going to follow manufacturers on this until they have a solution that is convenient. And that's just to remain at par with 3.5mm in term of convenience. Now what do I get for having to replace my headset? Am I really going to notice the difference in quality when I am travelling? Really? It looks to me that it is rather another pathetic attempt to lock people into their hardware, with only Apple approved earphones being compatible with the iphone, etc...

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> it was replaced with a common and better standard.

Bluetooth.

Wireless. Allows play/pause button, forward and rewind button. Even transmits song titles to your car stereo. Exists on all PCs, Macs, iOS phones, Android phones, late-model cars, and even some home stereos.

A few people will shout loudly about this jack being gone. Everyone else will get a cheap Bluetooth, wonder why they futzed with a cord this long, remember to charge it every now and then, and otherwise not think about it much.

> remember to charge it every now and then, and otherwise not think about it much

And that, folks, is why the 3.5mm jack is still the gold standard.

...right up until they want to use their headphones with their Mac, iPhone, and iPad, and remember what a huge pain in the ass it is to pair and un-pair bluetooth devices.

Bluetooth has some compelling use cases. This isn't one of them.

Is this a bluetooth problem or shitty product problem?

Eg. my car has no problem being the 'headphone' for several different devices.

That's an excellent solution for anyone who doesn't mind carrying a car around with them.

Just park it outside as usual and let it play the music for the entire neighborhood...

Wireless sucks. Connections drop, interference hampers it, it's far more costly, there's a significant delay, you're required to charge the device, it uses more battery to operate the radio.

Also there are privacy issues/tracking of hardware addresses.

Anecdotal for sure, but I've been using Bluetooth headphones with my phone for couple of years now. Wouldn't go back. The connection almost never drop and there's no interference. There's no delay because the phone syncs all audio with the bluetooth headphones. I don't see noticable drop in iPhone's battery either. The only annoying thing I've noticed is that sometimes my headphones have run out of battery, but it's not a big deal for me at least.

And then I have to babysit even more batteries. I like my headphone, I can forget them in my pocket when I don't need them. I have already too many batteries to care for.

and it works splendidly until someone with a bluetooth enabled device like a smart tv comes along.

once that ... thing is nearby it will try to pair with any and all devices in the vicinity, making everything pretty much unusable.

i was really happy with my bluetooth headset until i moved into an apartment in a bigger city. suddenly my devices no longer pair with the headset because other devices, not owned by me, are quicker with their autodiscovery and forced 'add' behaviour.

>Bluetooth.

-more expensive, again bluetooth stack is the size of IPv4 stack

-lossy audio, or again more expensive headphones full of patented crap

->100ms latency

That is so true, its the same situation whip makers were in when car were becoming popular. Wireless is so much better especially for portables.

If I go hi-fi route I am sure theres tons of options available anyway. Lots of headphone amps do accept digital input already and headphone amplifier circuitry generally sucks, nexus and iphone being not too bad in this department.

Another thing is, makers should make digital port extra sturdy. MicroUSB and lighting is pretty good at that already IMO.

> It looks to me that it is rather another pathetic attempt to lock people into their hardware, with only Apple approved earphones being compatible with the iphone, etc...

It reminds me of a much more agressive attempt apple made way back with the ipod's headphone jack being slightly deeper (if I remember correctly) effectively making many headphones not function correctly.

Maybe back then that was more branding than control - seeing those white earbuds told everyone you owned a ipod and not one of the other brands.

Actually it was just a way to have the jack be thinner -- the usual place a lot of trouble with Apple starts.

Why did apple never put a lightning port on their Mac computers?

One more reason to get rid of the 3.5mm jack: To annoy people like Square who avoid paying the Apple tax to connect to an iOS device

The original square reader was a 3.5mm jack to save on cost, prevent an external power soirxe, and ensure compatibility with devices that were (at the time) not Bluetooth enabled. Now that you can put power off of the phone's charge port, Bluetooth peripherals are becoming increasingly more popular. It's a way better way to interface with the phone and applications.

One huge problem with wireless is that pairing and re-pairing sucks. If I want to use my wired headphones with a different device - be it an iPhone, iPad, computer, etc, all I need to do is plug in the cable. I'd really hate to have to press and hold a button on the device until a light starts blinking, then go into the Bluetooth settings on the device I want to connect it to, then pair it, like you have to do with many Bluetooth headphones and speakers today.

I'm sure that a set of Apple Bluetooth headphones connected to an Apple device could shortcut some of this, but it would still likely be a PITA on anything without an Apple logo. But maybe that's the point?

I agree, and I hope someone in the Google Nexus group recognizes the lunacy of removing such a widely accepted port. Maybe Samsung will keep the phone jack, at least; they've been pretty stubborn about keeping a microSD memory slot as well.

The microSD slot is actually why I use a Samsung tablet to watch movies. That and the 16/9 screen.

aple is testing how gullible the market is for this type of things for years.

I can plug my asus devices direct to a vga or hdmi projector. for apple I need a external plug. then the same for network. then the same for SD cards, I need a special shorter one. then for 3.5mm phone jacks, for apple I ned one with COMM in the MIC pin and vice versa. etc.

the market was always gullible to all that and they know it. so they will continue with the trend until the money flow stops.

How are you attributing gullibility to market demand? Maybe Apple dropped the VGA port because their customers didn't need them anymore, and HDMI is prevalent almost everywhere now, so that's suitable. Also, I have an HDMI port on my MacBook, so I don't need an external plug. On the smaller ones, sure, but maybe those users rarely, if ever, connect? I'm not a huge fan of needing a dongle to do this stuff, but for the infrequency with which I need to do it, I don't mind having the dongle if the trade off is a lighter machine the rest of the time. Maybe that makes me gullible.

> I can plug my asus devices direct to a vga or hdmi projector. for apple I need a external plug.

Because DisplayPort is a much better and more versatile standard than HDMI. I have no idea why projectors are switching to the shitty foosball TV standard instead of it.

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