Hacker News Reader

Comment by agumonkey | Hacker News Reader

what kind of excuse ? i'm curious

Anything that justifies it. You still see people claim that losing the headphone jack on the iPhone was "worth it" so it could be waterproof without port covers despite the fact phones with both already existed before it. So expect a lot of claims about how people NEED their laptop to be 1 cm thick, that by not having a removable battery it can have more battery, etc.

I still look to the Galaxy S5 Active[1] for a phone that puts to the lie the claims that smart devices need to entirely lose ports and functionality in order to be water resistant. Tidily enough it had all 3 of the so-called 'must go' features and was still water resistant.

1. MicroSD card

1. Headphone Jack

1. Removable battery

If it was possible in 2014 and the days of Micro USB, it's possible today.

[1] https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s5_active-6356.php

"Water resistant" is a meaningless, vague term, of course. The question is how resistant. That phone was IP67 rated.

Current iPhones are IP68 rated, which is markedly superior.

'Superior' is meaningless, vague judgement of course. The questions are how resistant does it need to be, and how resistant can it be?

Does anyone care that iPhone is IP68 instead of IP67?

Does anything stop you drom making a phone with a headphone jack and microSD card that will survive submersion to the depth of 2 miles?

The S9+ is IP68, it has MicroSD, USB type-C and headphone jack (unfortunately no user-replaceable battery).

IP67 is as "waterproof" / "immersion proof" as IP68. Both must withstand 1 meter immersion depth up to 30 minutes. The only advantage as far as I can tell is up to the manufaturer "The test depth and duration is expected to be greater than the requirements for IPx7": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code

Ummm, you chose one of the standards that compared to the tier below it is only differentiated by manufacturers' own specifications.

On the 3.5mm jack front I spent the 80s, 90s and 00s living with crackly ass headphone jacks on stuff. I’m glad they have died finally.

My MacBook battery is replaceable. I don’t want removable as I don’t ever swap batteries.

These aren’t losses. They are whimpers from people who are living through rose tinted glasses.

Yeah. Bluetooth sound quality is perfect. Never ever drops out, has static, never sounds compressed either and you certainly don't have to consider what codecs and versions both devices support to get the best listening experience.

Is your MacBook battery easily replaceable or is glued in making it a danger to be removed by an amateur at home? And even if you never swap batteries how does having it removable effect you really?

Bluetooth sounds fine, but it can introduce latency that you wouldn’t experience with a direct connection. Which is fine for listening to music and even video calls are ok, but a minor proportion of the population working on music production will experience that latency. On a smartphone that’s a pretty rare use case, so it’s fine.

Batteries: I extended the life of my 2010 MacBook by swapping the battery and it was very easy. Apple is going to come out with kits for amateurs to do part changes themselves for the iPhone, where that part change will be harder (broken screen swap) than swapping out a MB battery.

> Bluetooth sounds fine

Bluetooth is absolutely atrocious, every 2-way call over bluetooth is sampled down to absolute garbage because the meager bandwidth is halved and the codec in prehistoric

https://habr.com/en/post/456182/

Sounds amazing when I make calls with my airpods so I don't think that statement holds.

Latency is extremely noticeable with some headphones for videos/games. My Bose QC buds are just completely useless for them. Other pairs I have are better but the Bose are music/call only headphones. Thanks for reminding me of that extra problem.

2010 MBP were far more repairable than the modern stuff. After that Apple started gluing down the batteries which required prying to remove.

Can’t say I’ve ever had those problems. It just works here.

I’ve got a 14” MBP. It has pull tags and is easy to replace. I’d still take it in apple store to get it replaced.

And I've never had crackly ass headphone jacks. Just works here.

Pull tabs are only slightly better. If the tabs break you're just back to prying off adhesive and the tabs do break if you're not careful.

And what are you going to do in 7 years when you're trying to get it working as a laptop for your kid or something and Apple tells you they no longer service that model as it's "vintage"?

My kids have current, supported Apple computers.

I've also replaced several batteries in Apple products, even without pull tabs and it's not difficult.

Regarding replacements, my mother's 6s just got a second new battery last month and it's still supported after 7 years.

Apple's vintage clock starts when they stop selling something. They sold the 6s until 2018. They rarely sell MBPs for more than a year so usually in 7 years they're done.

I'm glad you're currently well to do and can afford all new shit for your kids. Some people can't and sometimes a repair is the only option. Is it worth making repair considerably harder for a few extra mm of thinness and less than a hundred grams of weight? I'd argue no. Compare the repair of a 2010 MBP with one from 2016 and then tell me the 2016 one is easy.

There was a bit of a black hole I agree. The 2021 models are much improved.

On the flip side, headphone jacks can wear out entirely. And one of the advances bluetooth has over normal jacks is that it's now possible for headphones to have mics on them capable of answering calls. Sort of similar to wireless charging, its possible to wear out ports from overuse.

one of the advances bluetooth has over normal jacks is that it's now possible for headphones to have mics on them capable of answering calls

Headsets with mics on them did exist before bluetooth, and so did headsets with control buttons (source: my early-2000s portable mp3 player). The only thing bluetooth added to the mix is cross-device compatibility.

You should have just not bought such cheap stuff.

I've seen the following:

- Notebooks would become thicker and clunkier. They don't want that.

- Same for cellphones, added with things like less waterproof/humid resistance.

With that said - many of the most vocal "tech enthusiasts" consume a lot. These are the people that are passionate about consumer electronics, and will purchase new phones/laptops/TVs/etc. every 1-2 years. So I'm not really sure why they'd care too much about phones etc. potentially not living their maximum lifespan.

thickness I don't mind but waterproof would be sad, that said it would be weird if companies can't make sealed case without glueing everything

I don't know how much glue was involved but Galaxy S5 was waterproof and had a user replaceable battery.

No, it was not "waterproof". It had an IP67 water/dust rating, which is inferior to the IP68 rating achieved by current iPhones.

IP68 is not 'waterproof', Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro is IP69 rated and has an SD card

Stop repeating something you clearly know nothing about.

There was no glue, you just popped out the back panel and took the battery out with your fingers in 5 seconds.

On the other hand, it did have a plastic cap on the micro USB port which you had to open every time in order to charge it. I'm not sure if this was a limitation of micro USB (or whatever the Samsung-specific extension next to it was) - modern phones with open USB C ports seem to have no problem being waterproof.

Tangentially, the S5 had a USB 3.0 micro b port[1]. It was not Samsung specific, but it was not widely used either.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-USB-3-0-Cable-Male/dp/B0...

There are “tech users”, like myself, who buy a quality product and run it until it becomes unsupported. I keep iPhones about five years, which requires a battery replacement.

I’ve replaced several iPhone batteries myself - I have the necessary tools, including the opening tool. Outside of it being a fiddly job involving miniature connectors, I find that the replacement batteries don’t last as long as the OEM ones, even when bought from iFixit.

Also, the battery is glued to the back shell, and the release tapes usually break, because the hot rice bag isn’t as hot as the heated vacuum stage that Apple uses. Then you have to work a monofilament under the battery, which is an annoying three hand job, if you don’t have the stage.

Apple gets $69 to replace the battery. Given the above, that’s reasonable. But, the nearest service is an hour away. The real decision is the personal time and delay to get to and from the service place (twice, or wait around for a couple of hours) vs spend an hour to do it myself.

If the battery was OEM and came out easily, I’d do it myself, every time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com