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Comment by jacknews | Hacker News Reader

I don't think I've ever used my phone headphone jack (still 3.5mm), but I will absolutely never buy a laptop without 3.5mm.

The article is spot on, no-one is served by this change, except manufacturers.

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At this point I'd take a MacBook with a lightning jack, because now I have to carry a separate pair of headphones for my iPhone and my Macbook. I'd prefer 3.5mm everywhere, but if you are going to drop it, make it consistent across product lines.

I'm stuck in the two pair camp as well and I cannot for the life of me understand why Apple makes a 3.5mm to lightning adapter but won't make a lightning to 3.5mm adapter. I have a great pair of headphones that use the lightning cable but I travel a lot and my MacBook along with every airplane uses 3.5mm so I can only use them with my phone. It's maddening.

Except people who don’t use headphones now don’t have to carry a heavier, bigger, power hungry power ADC everywhere they go.

An ADC weighs a fraction of a gram, costs next to nothing in volume, and consumes microamperes at most when not being used.

In fact, it may even be integrated on the SoC, meaning it's still present but with nothing to do. Would need to have a look at some teardown photos to be sure.

How does the microphone on the phone work then?

I'm assuming he really meant 'DAC' rather than 'ADC', referring specifically to the part that drives the headphone jack as opposed to the built-in earpiece transducer. Some people use the terms interchangeably for whatever reason, even though it's not technically correct.

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