One should be at the bottom one at the top. I understand space on the phone is a premium but a second port would make the phone so much more usable. Wired headphones, flash drives, camera modules, speaker modules, keyboards, even connection to a TV, all could be used while charging. It’s a shame it’s not a thing, USB is extremely versatile port, but you only get one and it’s used for charging half of the time. (I am aware dongles exist)
I honestly don’t think it made a noticeable difference in terms of selling AirPods, it simply reduced cost.
I only buy phones with 3.5mm jacks on principle, and yet I stilled jumped at the chance to get Pixel Buds cheaper when I got my 5a because of how convenient they are. The decision between wired and wireless is now nearly exclusively because you prefer either fidelity or convenience over the other. Not whether or not your phone supports them. Besides, if you’re picking fidelity you probably scrutinize much more on a phone than headphone jack or not.
I’m pretty sure the rise of BT headphones is solely due to Apple removing the headphone jack.
Yes, I know BT headphones have existed before, I was an audio/technology editor, so yes I know. Which is why I also know how tough it was to get some half-decent BT audio adapter or earphones 10 years ago, even tho BT 2.0 was in every phone for close to a decade already. Then within few weeks to months after the jack removal and introduction of AP, the market got flooded with them. Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence.
It may sound like a good thing to have so many choices, except you’re losing the original choice of whether you want it in the first place. Combined with another lovely trend Apple has kickstarted - non-removable batteries - it just means yet more ewaste.
And I’m sorry, but the whole idea of “true wireless” is fucking terrible. I use sporty BT earphones I can hang around my neck or just put in a pocket when I’m not using them. Fiddling with 3 separate small things every time I want to take earphones in and out is madness. Of course you’ll loss something eventually.
You can crawl the way back machine though and find that this just isn’t really true in an appreciable way. Yes, after 2016 we start to see more and more wireless headphones but is that because of the iPhone or because Moore’s Law means standards increase, production gets cheaper and form factors get smaller?
I don’t disagree with you at all which is why I still make it a point to only buy phones exclusively with 3.5mm jacks still included.
That’s just, like, your opinion, man. That’s totally subjective and your taste. The ability for me to put earbuds in under earpro is masterful. That I can do work and keep my phone somewhere off to the side and out of harms way is beneficial to me. That I don’t have to worry about routing a cable through my clothes to prevent it getting grabbed by moving machinery and parts is a definite benefit.
And I’m sure absolutely none of that applies to you and that’s okay! It’s why I still advocate for 3.5mm jacks because my use, and your use, is totally different and deserve different accomodations.
Here we can be pretty sure, because Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP, allowing stereo sound, has been widely available since mid-00’s (I got my first phone with it in 2005), BT chips cost pennies even then and mono earphones of that size were old news too, so none of that was anything special. And it’s not like Apple were the ones to make it affordable anyway.
I’ll credit Apple for putting it together in a meaningful way, but of course they had to do it the asshole Apple way. Honestly, Apple designers should be charged with crimes against humanity for their popularisation of built-in batteries and other disposability features, and all the idiot designers who followed that example, with them. If not on principle, then for all the ewaste.
Of course it is. But to be clear, I’m not against all wireless. So I’m not comparing ‘true wireless’ with classic cabled earphones, but with wireless earphones that have a cable connecting them and controls/battery somewhere between them. I wish designers would concentrate on improving this style rather than producing millions of buds people keep losing or discarding and then re-buying.
(Ed: I mean even TW can exist if people want, but the Apple effect makes everyone think that’s the only way to make earphones.)
👍