If Apple was a democracy

[Red Storm]

Meh. 3.5 is always the first thing to break on my phones/ipods/computers/etc. I'm in favor of a more robust standard, but I wish it were USB-C instead of Lightning.

In my entire life of owning many, many electronic devices, never have I had the headphone jack go bad. As far as my experience goes it's one of the most dependable parts of electronic devices.

 

[ControlD]

In my entire life of owning many, many electronic devices, never have I had the headphone jack go bad. As far as my experience goes it's one of the most dependable parts of electronic devices.

Same here. I thought perhaps I was in the minority though.

I don't believe this perceived weakness of the 3.5mm jack has anything to do with Apple (possibly) removing it.

 

[mikeymikec]

Same here.

Ditto.

I don't believe this perceived weakness of the 3.5mm jack has anything to do with Apple (possibly) removing it.

Nope, they want to sell you some expensive earphones that will probably need replacing when the successor to that phone comes out.

 

[Oyeve]

In my entire life of owning many, many electronic devices, never have I had the headphone jack go bad. As far as my experience goes it's one of the most dependable parts of electronic devices.

I have broken headphone jacks on many 80s walkman clones. Like cheap Aiwa cassette players. But never on any smartphone and I have been through at least 40 of them. In recent history, 10 years, I have only busted one headphone jack and that was on a Sansa MP3 player and only after rolling my office chair over it.

My son, on the other hand, has gone through 3 various ipods in the past, all for headphone jack issues. So, apple probably made cheapass jacks on those.

 

[openwheel]

Never had a 3.5mm jack go bad in my life time. I have had an Apple charging port go bad though. It was an iPhone 4. I've only had two iPhones as daily phone, so I experienced 50% failure rate

Only one micro-usb port gone bad out of perhaps 15 Android phones. You do the math.

 

[mikeymikec]

But never on any smartphone and I have been through at least 40 of them.

At least forty smartphones? Are you aware that they can be charged up after the battery runs down?

 

[master_shake_]

how would you plug in your beats headphones??

oh apple...

 

[Oyeve]

At least forty smartphones? Are you aware that they can be charged up after the battery runs down?

 

[Artdeco]

The only ports I've had problems with are the micro USB, I've trashed 3 of them

 

[ControlD]

Some of you guys must be port challenged.

 

[Deeko]

They want to sell Beats headphones and make more money. Anybody taking bets on how long before Beats with 3.5mm plugs are gone or have only a couple new models with it?

That's crazy. Beats wants to sell headphones to everybody, and no one else will have lightning. This isn't like moving to USB-C where it's only a matter of time before everyone has it.

 

[mrochester]

The only ports I've ever known problems with have been micro USB ports. One of the most poorly designed ports in recently history. Just goes to show that popularity and ubiquity aren't indications of something actually being any good.

I know from experience that when you ask consumers how to improve something, the best they can usually come up with is something very similar, but faster or with a few extra bells and whistles. These are the sort of people who tend to buy Android devices as they can't imagine anything better than a tweaked version of what they already have. Thank goodness for Apple to keep pushing the industry forward despite all the protestations of the Android crowd.

 

[Midwayman]

Remember when this was instantly recognizable as Apple?

That headphone cord was a standout feature.

 

[Raduque]

That's crazy. Beats wants to sell headphones to everybody, and no one else will have lightning. This isn't like moving to USB-C where it's only a matter of time before everyone has it.

Beats is Apple and Apple is Beats. Beats wants to move headphones, sure, but Apple wants to move iPhones more. I could see them limiting their higher-end models to a Lightning connector that only works with iPhones and Apple-approved docks.

 

[WelshBloke]

Beats is Apple and Apple is Beats. Beats wants to move headphones, sure, but Apple wants to move iPhones more. I could see them limiting their higher-end models to a Lightning connector that only works with iPhones and Apple-approved docks.

Not sure how that would increase sales for either Beats headphones or iPhones.

 

[Artdeco]

I seriously doubt Beats will go Lightning/BT exclusively, there are still iPods, MacBooks, etc with the 3.5, and the whole rest of the market for many many years.

 

[Anubis]

Apparently you don't do air travel, nor care about sound quality.

I thought Apple was better than that.

apple has never cared about SQ

the S/N ratio on their stuff has always been horrid

 

[Anubis]

the main reason headphone jacks break is because they get torqued and the solder pops off the PCB

more people need to make low profile right angle jacks and not the straight ones, which is where the issue comes from

 

[IronWing]

Not bad. I could go with the:
flip out keyboard
AA batteries
RCA jacks (and a decent DAC)
headphone jack
USB
Serial port
View-master slot
Rotary controls

Apple should come out with a decent audio player again. When they push the iPod crowd (me) toward phones and phone like devices, they should expect pissing and moaning about how things used to be simple and just work and now there is all this extraneous crap I don't want or use. The iPod Classic is near perfect (could use mo better DAC and a functioning random number generator), the iPod Touch is a silly device.

 

[Nebor]

I really like having a headphone jack, but it seems clear they're going to get rid of it so there's nothing I can do.

 

[Red Storm]

I really like having a headphone jack, but it seems clear they're going to get rid of it so there's nothing I can do.

So... it doesn't matter what features they cut, you're just going to keep buying the next model?

If Google announced the next Nexus phone would not have a headphone jack, I would get another phone when the time came.

 

[Ichinisan]

... I wasn't thrilled with the lightning connector but went along with it because it's small and bidirectional.

Really? It's one of the best things Apple ever did.

I'd have rather they went to USB-C (which didn't exist at the time but the plans were already in place and Apple knew about them), ...

From what I can figure, there was no indication whatsoever that a type-C connector was in the works until it was announced that USB 3.1 was being developed some time in 2013.

iPhone 5, iPad 4th gen, iPad mini, iPod touch 5th gen, and iPod nano were all using the reversible Lightning connector long before USB 3.1 or the type-C connector were announced to be starting development.

 

[Ichinisan]

Apparently you don't do air travel, nor care about sound quality.

I thought Apple was better than that.

What's this quality argument? With 3.5mm, you're stuck using the DAC inside the phone. The alternatives (Lightning or new iOS-optimized Bluetooth products) would bitstream the AAC/MP3/ALAC directly to the headphones. There would be no quality impact. The audio would be decoded in the headphones, and you could get a higher quality set with a DAC that suits your preference. That's something you couldn't do at all through the 3.5mm TRS jack on existing smartphones.

 

[Zaap]

In my entire life of owning many, many electronic devices, never have I had the headphone jack go bad. As far as my experience goes it's one of the most dependable parts of electronic devices.

This.

I halfway expect Apple to eventually do away with the screen. Why...that could shave off another half millimeter!

I *swear* there would be people claim they never used the phone's screen, so good riddance.

 

[CZroe]

Just give me my MIDI ports back and I'll be good. Is there a Loghtning to MIDI adapter?