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Someone should saw off the legs of the techbros that came up with the idea of removing the headphone jacks from phones. Just like the headphone jacks, legs are technologically “superseeded” by cars and electronic wheelchairs.
Meh, I haven’t really missed it as much as I expected. The one and only (pretty minor in my case) issue I’ve run into is not being able to charge the phone while connected to the car’s stereo. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if you could just use a usb-c splitter to do that.
Fair point, at least they should give us two USB-C ports, at least on the flagship models.
I’ve literally never used the headphone jack on a phone in 10 years.
And I wonder how many would still want it back if they realized the phones then were bricked after getting submerged in water like they used to.There are many phones with a headphone jack that have an IP68 rating which invalidates your whole point. If the headphone jack was so compromising then Apple would have needed to remove the charging port as well.
many phones with a headphone jack that have an IP68 rating which invalidates your whole point
Typing on one right now.
A sick and twisted part of me wants to see charging ports removed too. Every port! Make it IP69+ compliant. Maybe then the careless kids I know might keep a device alive for more than a year. Ultimately all that would do is barely solve one problem and introduce a whole lot of other problems.
I’ve literally never used the headphone jack on a phone in 10 years
We understood that as soon as you said “literally”.
I’ve not used on*star, a fire extinguisher or a #2 pencil in a while either, but I bet they’re important. Beware false consensus.
About 10 years ago I used headphones daily, now I do so just frequently enough that it’s irritating to realize I need to purchase a dongle just to do so and go “well I guess I’m not listening to music/podcasts right now”
What I learned when working for a phone manufacturer is that the headphone jack usage varies by product segment. Cheaper phone users use the headphone jack far more frequently than premium phone users, so they’d keep it on the budget models but drop it on the higher end models. They also did similar with NFC and wireless charging which was interesting…
Headphone jacks can be waterproofed, manufacturers are just lazy.
Most people don’t use them and never did, all the people downvoting are just salty because they’re not the target audience.
People are downvoting because the comment is flat-out wrong.
There is no right or wrong, it’s all subjective opinion.
Nope.
if they realized the phones then were bricked after getting submerged in water like they used to.
This is not subjective, it’s objectively false.
it objectively depends on the design of each individual phone
So we agree, you were wrong about it “all being subjective opinion.”
Phones became waterproof before removing headphone jacks became a trend. You’re talking nonsense.
Most people don’t care, don’t use it and it saves cost and thickness. I think they are smarter than you on this.
You are not their target audience, they know there’s not enough of you for it to make a difference.
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It saves an amount of money so minuscule it literally makes no difference.
As for thickness, the iPhone 15 is 7.8 mm thick. You cannot in good faith believe that a 3.5 mm headphone jack can’t fit in it.
Wouldn’t they have to sacrifice like three* minutes of battery life or something though? Everything packed sooo tightly.
*or 10 or 30, somebody here probably can make a really good educated guess
Depending on the internal design of the phone, maybe.
But batteries are rectangular and they can’t put them EVERYWHERE. There are places (such as near the USB port) where you can’t really put battery no matter what because there have to be things that would interfere with the rectangular battery.
So it might have an effect, but not necessarily, depending on design, and it might be smaller than you’d think.
Phones are so thin now that people are crying back the thicker ones…
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And then you can sell USB-C -> Jack converters (which break after a while - I’ve dismantled one for recycling for my Raspberry Pi, later I might make one epoxy potted for my phone), easy to lose wireless earbuds, etc.
If the fucking usb c audio was at least consistent, but no, the dongles are different and the phones are different, good luck trying to not blow up ypur phone by buying the wrong accessory (I blame the spec, not that I’ve read it)
Best if you get one of those USB DACs. Those even work on a PC with a converter.
They did it to improve water resistance and to sell the more expensive wireless earpods.
which don’t really matter unless the difference allows your phones to survive a full cycle in a washing machine. So far many phones which removed the headphone jack still does not.
I don’t remember the last time I needed/missed 3.5mm
I wouldn’t mind if they replaced TRRS with a better connector. I get that the jack is a large part and it’s difficult to seal against water ingress. The wiper contacts on it are also unreliable, and the plug doesn’t release well when your cord snags.
Multiplexing headphones with my one and only charging port is absolutely the worst possible answer.
(Did i forget to mention that I want it to be an open connector? One that any vendor can make without Apple’s permission?)
Apple ditched Lightning last year. All iPhones from the 15 forward are USB-C.
Lightning and USB-C are both equally terrible headphone plugs.
Sure, in that the port is far more versatile than it needs to be for audio output. I’m not arguing otherwise.
I would have shared the hell out of this meme on Facebook when I was ~18 years old.
i hope i don’t end up with the -4000 mAh battery if i buy the phone
If you had one you could sell it for millions to some thermodynamics denyers.
Correction: the iPhone 16 does support physical SIM.
Depends on locale, I believe. I think the US version is eSIM only.
Not even what it was once close to being unfortunately on the android side either.
Android users have also been losing features every year.
Flagships have seen the removal of:
-SD card expansion - what we could once count on to use phones like mirrorless cameras is now gone so they can rip you off for higher non expandable storage (128GB SD? $10. 128 -> 256 GB base? $200)
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3.5mm - why buy cheap wired headphones when you can force people to spend 10x as much on wireless! Coming up with a solution to a problem they invented.
-
IR blaster - yes I used it since it worked on TV, receiver, DVD player, air conditioner, etc. Also super convenient if you have used stuff you bought without the remote
-
FM radio - yes I used it again since no data needed! Can also be fun to listen to campus radio or when travelling
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notification led - The RGB led was pretty good when you had binds foe each app to know who texted you and why. Always on OLED draws substantially more power than the LED did
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Always unlocked bootloaders - the custom ROM scene was pretty big at one point, but has shrunk as more manufacturs have begun locking bootloaders ‘for safety’
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removable battery - phone no longer holding a good charge? $15 fix. Was also super convenient since I bought a spare that I kept charged and in my bag, meaning I could go 0% to 100% in 2 mins… better than fast charge!
List could go on for longer. Maybe it’s just nostalgia but I do miss some of those days.
I’m conviced LG (do they even still make phones?) and Samsung removed the IR blaster so you connect their ACs, TVs and other shit to the internet
- Losing SD Expansion sucks; they should bring this back. Only reason they stopped this is greed.
- Yet another Nice-To-Have that is gone; but I’ve never seen any phones that weren’t Samsung with this. This one doesn’t really even affect waterproofing; or phone size so they have no excuse.
- I certainly miss this one; but the FM Radio was present back on my 2020 Moto G6 Power. It was present on my 2020 Moto Edge. This one got stolen from us because we lost the 3.5mm Jack too…they used the wire from your wired headphones as an FM Antenna lead.
- This is nice; but I ended up having to root my Nexus 6 to make this work properly and use all the colors the LED could perform. I don’t really miss it with Bezel-less phones.
- I hate that bootloaders are frequently locked; but it’s been less necessary to root Android as it’s improved over the years. There are still a few pain points; but not quite as many that require root.
- This is another case of greed. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have removable batteries for phones that aren’t IP67 or higher. If it ain’t waterproof; there’s no reason to seal the battery in…and replaceable batteries is a benefit when they accidentally ship units that become “spicy pillows” when the batteries swell due to bad batteries. It also simplifies disposal of phones; which don’t need disassembly if they’ve got a removable battery.
My old HTC one had an ir blaster. It was great.
- Losing SD Expansion sucks; they should bring this back. Only reason they stopped this is greed.
Fuck that noise. SD expansion was a terrible idea and I’m glad it’s gone. There are so many problems introduced by removable storage, it was a terrible PITA to deal with as a developer. One of Google’s dumbest ideas in early Android. Good. Fucking. Riddance.
I have honestly never heard this take but it makes sense. If you feel like elaborating more on why it’s a pain for developers I would be interested. But like, I also have google if you don’t feel like typing it all out lol.
Several things that made the SD card annoying to developers.
First: you could not install an APK on the SD card (probably due to DRM reasons). So if you had a larger app and you wanted users to be able to take advantage of the additional storage offered by the SD card you could not do this simply by having a large APK. (Note that this also was true for phones that had no removable SD card but had internal memory that presented itself as ‘external storage’).
On some phones the normal storage was so small that any larger app had to leverage the external storage to be able to even fit (we’re talking 10+ years ago). The way to do this was using so-called ‘expansion files’. These were additional data files, up to 2GB a piece, that could be installed on the external storage. These came with some additional difficulties.
- They were pure data files, so they could not contain any executable code. They were just big binary blobs, so none of the Android built-in mechanisms for loading assets depending on screen density, screen size and all that stuff worked. You had to do it all by hand.
- Since they were just binary blobs, you had to do any organization inside the files yourself. For example, they could be large ZIP files but you had to do all the ZIP handling yourself. Compared to normal APKs that are also ZIP files but where you can just load stuff from the APK archive and it’s all handled by the framework.
- The expansion files were separate from the APK. The Play Store did try to automatically download them if your app had expansion files, but this was not guaranteed. Furthermore, because they live on an SD card they could disappear at any moment. Your app needed additional logic to deal with this, code to re-download the files if they were missing, code to handle errors during the download, UI to show the download progress, etc.
Another problem with SD cards was the huge variety in quality of SD cards. Phones internal storage is reasonably fast, but you never know what kind of cheap-ass yanky SD card the users installed in their phone. This caused all kinds of performance problems in more demanding apps and as a developer you had to deal with the fall-out (bad reviews, support requests, etc.)
Uh, No. Hell to the fucking no. Bring back SD expansion. Treat it like the data storage device it was.
Your beefs with Google are misplaced; because they were trying to mess with what folders were used; and with trying to protect user privacy because applications were misusing storage to violate their user’s privacy.
Yeah @[email protected] - this is a first! Also curious to hear more.
The newest HTC phone had a headphone jack and expandable memory. Hopefully they keep going down that route and keep up the software support and I might have to consider them.
IR blasters are very common on Chinese brand phones even today. It’s easily the feature I miss most from my Huawei.
Ah; I don’t use Chinese branded phones at all. Never have.
Phones in the US market do not usually have them, unless they’re Samsung branded, and since I don’t include Chinese made phones in that “group”, what I’m saying is true for the US.
I’m based in the US and that’s where I used my Huawei phone until recently. OnePlus is among the manufacturers that still do IR blasters, and it looks like the OnePlus 12 has one and is easily purchased from their US store page.
As far as I can tell Samsung hasn’t released a phone with an IR blaster since 2015 either. Essentially, IR and Samsung hasn’t been a thing for a long time. If we are going by total volume then I would agree that the most common manufacturer in the US that has/had IR is Samsung. If we are going by new phones available today, then Samsung isn’t even in the conversation.
I’m not entirely sure what this comment is in relation to yours, I don’t think I disagree with you, I think I’m just adding some context or nuance.
This is what Android users get for pining after Samsung despite them being first in line after Apple to remove most of these. JFC they made a phone that exploded and they STILL lead the market.
(yes, I use android too)
yeah thats why we dont buy samsung. isnt it great that we can just not buy a flagship and just get a better phone for less money.
JFC? I don’t know that brand.
They make jicken
no no, they come from jentucky
Jeantucky?
it has free children
Bought a new phone and still find myself searching for the audio plug every time i pick up my headset…
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I’m about to drop a really dumb question in here:
Why do so many people dislike Apple? I have listed some of my problems with Apple (listed in no particular order):
- Keyboard layout
- I fundamentally disagree with FaceID and would prefer a fingerprint sensor
- Lack of customisation (you can’t even hide the finder on MacOS)
- Apple makes it really difficult for people to leave their ecosystem
However, I really don’t understand why people, ordinary people, dislike Apple, other than due to being overpriced. I mean I really think physical SIM cards are a thing of the past and less secure than eSIMs since you can’t just take a physical SIM out using a pin. Although I heavily dislike the provisioning of USB 2.0 in 2024, the reality is that most of my files, even on my Android device, are transferred via networks. And yes, for the point about battery, I don’t particularly care about the battery size as much as I do the battery life. Even then, I always have a charger in my bag. It also helps that I barely use my phone.
Once again, keep in mind this is from someone whose only Apple product is a Macbook.
I can understand hating on Apple as a company, I was furious at how long they took to throw USB-C on things, however, often times people provide arguments that are baseless, as are several “points” listed in this image.
Who cares about a physical capture button? Any professional required to use a camera for a living will not be using an iPhone. Who cares about physical SIM vs eSIM. Hell, I’m an advocate for eSIMs. Who cares about the unlockable bootloader? And really, with modern consumerism, who on earth is listening to hi-res wireless audio and not a song off of Spotify, YouTube, etc?
I agree with the 120 Hz point, there is no reason a flagship phone at a a flagship price should not provide a smooth refresh rate. I partially agree with the storage point, however, the vast majority of people do not take advantage of their phone’s storage, so why would Apple be competitive here? They try to optimise for profit. I definitely agree with the point about the lack of modern USB. The lack of the 3.5mm headphone jack kinda sucks for everyone who owns devices that cannot be used with phones without this jack.
I’m opening to listening to other people’s takes and discussing this with them.
no you got a point. i think your listed problems are the main problems you can have. with the hefty price and the “elite” vibe they sell in ads and so on, its really easy to hate. hateing apple feels like punching up.
and (most) android users dont realise that instead of beeing in apples eco system they are “trapped” in googles. I apprechiate apple for them not just blatently selling personal data, recorded from my phone. I also think in terms of polish there is no competiton. whoever used both, iphone and android phone, cant deny that ios is just far more polished. everything just works.
I personally dont like the apple proprietary ecosystem, but with no really good open source phone os, they are the best alternative on the marked atm. i dont know about laptops.
How are we trapped in Google? It’s a burden to move if I wanted to, but I can interface with everyone except apple just fine.
i am unsure what you mean about not interfaceing with apple? I heard in america imessage is a big thing that prevents that, but the rest of the world doesnt really use it. and besides there are many messangers that let you interface.
also i mean the burden to move. the burdon to leave the alphabet system is just as hard as the apple system imo. its just annoying both dont make it easy for any cross useage.
Edit: just wanna make clear i am not an apple apologist. i heavily prefer open source alternatives and use them whereever i can. i just dont get how people act as if andeoid/google/ect. are better or even good alternatives.
I agree it’s hard to leave any ecosystem. But while Apple maintains you don’t need any cross connection; Android, Microsoft, and (to an extent) Linux all play nice with each other.
I think their point is that nearly every other phone is in the Android ecosystem, isn’t it?
Oh. In that sense yeah. But most of us are also trapped on earth under that logic. I do think we need some more competition in the operating system market but I’m not sure who could pull it off. Even Microsoft bounced off of it. There is Graphene but it’s a tiny sliver of the market.
who on earth is listening to hi-res wireless audio and not a song off of Spotify, YouTube, etc?
The decision not to include hi-res audio support out of the box is more baffling when you learn that Apple Music in its basic package offers high-quality lossless audio for streaming. Why have this, and make your users jump through extra hoops to take advantage of it?
To answer your overall question, I am one of the Apple dislikers and with me it comes down to openness and customizability (I like to tinker with my electronics and computing devices, and I can do that much better with an Android device), and not wanting most of my money that I spend for the product I’m buying to go to marketing.
Sorry for the late reply.
I understand now why the decision not to include hi-res audio support out of the box is baffling. However, in your second comment you present customisability as a negative when in reality, it’s more of a trade-off. The more options you present to a user the more complex the system you have to deal with.
Sure, I respect and agree with your opinion regarding openness, and agree with the fact that Apple’s ecosystem is closed af. However, the point about customisability is a trade-off and imho a preference.
I’ve worked as a back-end developer (C++), so it’s not that I don’t know how to use technology or am afraid of learning or something along those lines. That said, there is a certain amount of elegance to simplicity and consistency, which I value.
And yes, I do currently use an Android device, which does have some custom gestures setup, custom icon packs, some applications which are not available via the Google Play Store. However, I really do believe that the point about customisation is a trade-off, and in my view “more customisation better” does not scale well; allow me to provide you with a simple example.
Suppose we could control every little detail regarding our device’s software (non-malicious), almost as if we had the source code, I believe people would struggle to access generally easily-accessible settings (such as accessibility settings). Furthermore, these settings likely (but not necessarily) would not apply consistently, and the lack of implication from settings (but greater control), might mean that someone might need to reconfigure each application for accessibility features, or have to accept the idea that they cannot fine-tune different applications for their accessibility requirements.
Lastly, to your point about marketing, you have presented a very logical and reasonable point, yet one I consider almost invalid, since we should be observing this through the lens of a consumer. They could choose to sell their phones at a loss despite spending a lot on marketing. I’m not saying it’s viable, but I’m saying it’s possible. However, the point I’m trying to make is that this isn’t relevant. We observe through the lens of a consumer. And so we look at the price we have to pay and judge the device’s “features” or whatever you’d like to call them, objectively or relatively, based on this price.
In summary:
- Agreed with hi-res point
- Agreed with openness point
- Disagreed with customisability point
- Disagreed upon the $$$ on marketing, not my job to judge what they’re spending on, I’m judging the end-product as a consumer
By the way, thought I’d clarify my stance on this, since I’m not an Apple fanboy, is that I prefer Apple to other tech giants (Google is an obvious choice for an example).
for me the point about being locked into an ecosystem is reason enough.
Some more on that:
- Apple has actively resisted efforts by the EU to standardize
- iPhone doesn’t allow you to install apps they haven’t approved.
- Apple devices often refuse to interface with non-apple devices despite being physically capable.
- You cannot easily install other OSes on Apple hardware.
- Apple software is almost entirely closed source, and they likely have backdoors everywhere.
I just want to own my phone man
And let’s not forget their anticompetitive practices
For me it was the pure ridiculousness of trying to pass documents back and forth with one person in the group using a Mac. Maybe Apple is better about universal document file types these days but that was it for me. I was never going to contribute to an ecosystem that created that level of disruption.
They frequently didn’t allow me to use copy/paste around 10-15 years ago and I never forgave them for robbing me of such a basic feature. I switched to Android as soon as my iPhone died.
There are a few video on YT from reputable creators highlighting malpratices Apple does on a yearly basis to rip you off in every way imaginable. Louis Rossmann and Hugh Jeffreys have done some “compilation” videos on that topic. To point you to a quick one, search for “Astonishing Anti Repair Pratcices by Apple in the last 15 years” by Hugh. If you value yourself, don’t buy Apple products.
Pretty simple: Pretending to deliver the latest tech for a premium price. But the non-pro models simply don’t have the latest tech, but they do have the premium price. And Apple practices upselling like no other (I mean, look at those storage upgrade prices).
There are more reasons than I have time to type out, but I am a long time mac and iDevice user. What’s got me raging lately is how, out of spite over a (justified, imo) EU ruling, apple is refusing to let EU customers access the newest toys in the playground. I’m in the process of transferring over to Android right now, I just havent found the right phone for me, yet.
who on earth is listening to hi-res wireless audio and not a song off of Spotify, YouTube, etc?
I generally agree with you but as someone who can’t hear the compression in a good quality mp3 I can definitely hear when Bluetooth is using an older audio encoding protocol because it compresses the music to hell and back
#4 is the reason I never bought into apple. Also, the users are a little cultish.
At least be accurate.
The “Pro” model iPhone has a lot of the features you are calling out the non-pro one for not having. Also no non-proprietary lossless audio streaming would be more accurate.
How is the first point not accurate? Iphone 16 is still a phone that’s gonna release in 2024.
Edit: Well I am wrong the sony phone is much costlier than the non pro version. I apologize.
Comparing phones on specifications when both operating systems are different is kinda stupid. I guarantee most people don’t care about refresh rates or data transfer speeds.
Also, not a meme.
S24, Pixel 9, iPhone 16: 7 years of is support
Sony: 2 years
Confirmed: my six year old iPhone gets the new version of iOS this month. Runs amazingly. Battery lasts all day still. No complaints.
Kernel source code released so you can support it indefinitely yourself?
Only Sony.
Google and Samsung do this too
But good luck maintaining the kernel by yourself.
Where meme?
user replaceable battery?
I’m no apple fan, but some of these features don’t really mean much, like the screen refresh rate, data transfer rate, or codec support. Pretty small subset of users are going to care about these, the vast majority of people just browse, play simple games, and maybe run a map or spotify or whatever.
That said, the 16 is built to use Apple’s AI, and that’s pretty much reason enough for me to not want to go anywhere near it. I’ll buy an older model before I support this AI crap.
It would be fine to have released a phone that is spec’ed for a basic user case. My problem is the expert user level price point for it. Disregarding all other gripes about Apple, that is.
I have both, and the iOS integration of basic features is what matters. Consider examples like… passwords; I’ll get a verification code in a text message or an email and it’ll auto populate and then delete the message. There are so many features like that, which make your phone a seamless part of the “ecosystem,” like wirelessly extending a screen to an iPad (with zero setup), or having your phone automatically act as a webcam — weirdly easy. Android is the opposite. You need an app to do anything and it will require setup and it won’t work every time. Convenience is what matters. Bootloaders and codecs are not as important as whether my earbuds connect instantly and 100% of the time. A phone should make my life simpler. Etc.
Yeah, it’s easies and will make your life simpler as long as you want to do something the producer contemplated. As soon as you need a feature that is a little bit more peculiar, good luck with that.
And with this i don’t mean that Android is perfect, just that an even more closed ecosystem isn’t exactely the best choice.
You’re not wrong. I just think phones do too much as it is. I have like 5 computers, and I don’t need my phone to do everything. But what it does it has to do perfectly.
whether my earbuds connect instantly and 100% of the time
My airpods connect flawlessly with my android device and so do all my other Bluetooth devices
My ~230$ android phone has 120hz screen and very similar features. However, I had to turn the refresh rate back to 60 cuz it was chewing through battery. (5kma)
My brother got a Sony phone, he had to stop using it within the week given how cheap and laggy it was.
What did he do to it?
Nothing, he had an iPhone before, tried the Sony phone, could not believe how laggy and buggy using it was, went back to an iPhone in less than a week.
Some people just don’t enjoy the experience of Android, I tried, really, really tried but also couldn’t (had one for 3 years).
And I’m sure people would disagree.
Which phone was it? Sony has products in the low, mid and high price range and the cheaper phones naturally are weaker than an iPhone. If you compare the flagship models of the two brands the Xperia is at least on the same level of power as the iPhone.
And as an anecdote: I had an iPhone a few years ago and hated it most of the time (and I say this while using a three year old phone that cost me 200€ at the time)
Yeah it was on the cheaper side, my brother would argue that if they put their name on it, it shouldn’t be shit (I kind of agree).
I had an iPhone a few years ago and hated it most of the time
Yeah that’s fine, and there is nothing wrong with that, people should be able to use what they prefer for whatever reason. Others don’t think so as evident by the downvotes of me saying what my experience was like and what I prefer.
Nah, I don’t disagree. Your experience is valid. Did he get some tech support for it or something? Because that doesn’t sound like normal behavior for a new phone, no matter the brand.
