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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

Headphone jack is a nice reliable piece of hardware. But it comes at the expense of more space for batteries or features that more people will use.

Ethernet is more reliable than WiFi. Power is more reliable than batteries. But the world doesn't want wires so Apple has to listen.

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OnePlus did a poll that got the answer 88% of customers wanted them to keep the headphone jack. Which they then got rid of anyway. Presumably the poll was hoped or expected to reinforce a decision already made.

It's very clear consumers aren't clamouring for losing the jack. There are a lot more dollars selling wireless and they have an inherent limited life thanks to battery lifespan.

The SE, with a headphone jack, is roughly the same thickness as the new XS without. They both have bluetooth for those who might like wireless.

That's not Apple or whoever listening, that's them imposing.

Of course consumers want the headphone jack. Nobody likes having any functionality taken away.

But did the poll ask them which they want: Thinner iPhone/No Headphone or Thicker iPhone/Headphone

The XS is 7.7mm thick, the SE 7.6mm. It's not a relevant question.

Were the new generation of phones thinner than the jack I'd have to concede you may have a point, but that is not what we're getting.

If the question becomes "would you like 0.2% more battery or a headphone jack?" I doubt many would vote to remove.

I doubt the difference will only be 0.2%.

My rough calculation is that you get 165 mAh for every 1 cubic cm. A headphone jack will take approximately 1 cubic centimeter inside the case.

The iPhone X battery is rated for 2716 mAh.

So if you could use 100% of that volume efficiently for increasing battery volume, I think battery capacity increases approximately 6%.

Exactly. My old iPod touch is a mere 6.1 mm thick and has a headphone jack....

You missed the option we actually got: Thicker iPhone/No headphone.

One plus kept the headphone jack on their latest model

https://www.oneplus.com/ie/6/specs

Indeed, and having got the results of the poll, the 6T will not have.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/09/oneplus-ignores-its-...

To put this in perspective, the current OnePlus 6 is 155.7x75.4x7.8mm, so adding a mere 0.1mm to the thickness increases the total volume by about 1100 mm^3. A typical headphone jack that you might find in a phone has a PCB footprint of 9x14mm, so assuming it takes up the entire thickness of the phone that's about 1000 mm^3.

That does assume near perfect efficiency for the redistributed volume. Presumably working around the physical limitations of the where the jack needs to be versus all the other components, efficiency would not be so great.

But anyway who are we kidding? It’s not about making space in the device in the end. Perhaps that’s the straw that broke the camels back, but not what set Apple off in this direction to begin with.

A) They could make it thicker. It’s not an either/or.

B) No one was calling for the elimination of the headphone jack. Every poll shows broad support for it. Apple themselves said it took ‘courage’ which is not the adjective you’d use to describe an action that the world agrees with.

Sure they could make it thicker. But they won't because I suspect over the last decade they have done market research which tells them IMHO the obvious: nobody wants a thicker phone.

Common sense suggests that if the world wanted a thicker phone then one of the hundreds of OEMs would have made one and been successful at it. But yet that has never happened.

I've consistently heard people say that they would prefer a thicker phone if it meant greater battery life, so clearly there isn't nobody who wants a thicker phone.

Buy a mophie or similar batterycase.

What I'd like is a mophie with a 3.5mm jack in that connects to a modern iphone.

It probably takes "courage" to make a phone thicker... I see myself using my phone less and less to listen to music, sometimes because I forget the dongle. Mind you, I also have bluetooth headphones but they're not very handy on business trips where I need to think about yet another cable and about actually recharging them.

I’m someone who always has the smart battery case on my iPhone, effectively doubling its size. I wouldn’t dream of leaving the house without the case attached. Apple has demonstrated that they can offer multiple models of differing dimensions and internals, but they won’t even consider this.

Recent iPhones have been getting slightly thicker though, afaik the 6+ was the thinnest.

The strange parts guy on youtube added a headphone jack to the iPhone 7. So, I think the stated reason for removing the headphone jack to make room for the battery is complete BS.

https://youtu.be/utfbE3_uAMA

Also, why are you responding to the question about limited RF spectrum? It's like you have an agenda in this thread.

> But it comes at the expense of more space for batteries or features that more people will use.

Yet Samsung did fit a 4000 mAh battery, a headphone jack, wireless charging, expendable storage, fingerprint sensor, 512Gb of storage AND a PEN in their IP68 Note 9.

Comparing the headphone jack and Ethernet port is silly. A great majority of users use the jack for headphones which are always within 1 meter of the device. Ethernet is often much further away, meaning wireless adds more value / convenience.

Not to mention that with Ethernet (and wired power) the user is tethered to a fixed place, while with wired headphones on a cell phone the user can get up and move freely, since both ends of the wire are moving together.

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