We used to have earbuds that don't need to be charged because they had a headphone jack, didn't get lost so easily because they had a cord attached to a headphone jack, never lost the bluetooth connection because they had a headphone jack, and they cost less because they had a headphone jack. https://bsky.app/profile/daisyfm.bsky.social/post/3l3mfjc6sn62k
Waterproofing is very difficult with a headphone jack. You'll notice virtually every single phone with a headphone jack is 'splash resistant' while many without are able to survive being submerged. It also saves a relatively large amount of internal space, for something that easy to move external with an adapter.
If we're talking about adding back in older communication standards, I would personally prefer an am/fm receiver and IR blaster; it would be cool to use my phone like a universal remote.
Something I have heard in the past but is a headphone jack that much harder to waterproof vs a USB-C port? I'm genuinely curious because I don't know. It feels like the two would be of a similar difficulty.
Yeah, also Samsung made it work in the S active phones, and Nokia has started carrying the torch with their XR line. That's Def not the reason for them being removed.
I think most USB-C ports have sensors that allow them to turn off when wet. I'm not sure what the challenges are doing something like that with the headphone jack.
They don't even need to do that. Just blast music straight into the water. It's not like anyone would be listening anyway.
Samsung had headphone jack until note 10 and ip67/68 rating since s5. Similar story with other brands. What you described are two separate trends.
Cheap phones still have fm radio support. Pretty sure it's disabled in software in everything else, and you need cabled headphones to serve as an antenna either way (not sure if usb c works).
That makes me wonder how the Zune pulled of having a pretty solid and clear radio without an antenna. Must have had one wrapped around the inner casing or something.
I don't get what people are doing who need waterproof phones, but I will accept that some people need this. To me it sounds far more like an edge case than people wanting wired headphones though, especially at the time they started removing jacks.
I really can't say for sure. It rains a lot where I live, so water proofing is a pretty big boon for me. I used to carry around a USB-C to headphone port adapter, but I never used it.
Valid. I've been thinking though. What's the problem with making a waterproof audio jack, if we have the USB C for charging?
I don't want to hate on wireless by any means. I often prefer wireless. But it's really fucking nice to have a power source connected and audio as well. It's very convenient. Especially if you have a dock and headset.
It just feels like such a redundant transformation that achieved nothing for the user.
There's adapters that allow charging at the same time. I'm not sure why audio jacks are difficult to waterproof. Samsung managed it on a few models, so it's certainly possible.
Personally I haven't had a situation where I wanted an audio jack in years, I assume the extra internal space goes towards things like longer battery life or slimmer form factors; not nothing, but also probably not a big deal for most people.
It seems like laptops are doing the same thing: all external ports are USB, and any specific needs get handled with dongles.
USB-C ports are pretty flexible, you can split one into many, use them for video & audio, use them for power delivery & networking, and they can transfer more data per second than cat5. It seems like manufacturers are trying to make it the one port to rule them all.