I insist that my phone has a headphone jack, even though when I listen to “portable” music, I use a dedicated high-rez dual-DAC player with DSD64 (or similar) audio files through a custom balanced cable into ridiculous IEMs or cans, depending… Yeah. I’m that guy…
My Samsung Note 9 does have a headphone jack and no stupid hole or notch in the screen for the front camera. I was seriously disappointed when Samsung followed apple’s lead and removed the headphone jack from the Note 10 and put a solid hole in the screen for the camera.
I also don’t understand why these phone manufacturers insist on making the phones thinner and completely glass covered. Everyone puts a case on them anyways. Make a thick rugged phone with a huge battery.
I just got a new phone yesterday with a headphone jack. (Pixel 3a)
The biggest deal for me is with cars. I have a Bluetooth adapter for my aux port in the car. But I have a wife and 3 kids who occasionally want me to listen to something when we’re together. Bluetooth is a process to make this happen. Headphone jacks are quick and intuitive.
Or lets say wife and I are going somewhere together. Without buying a whole new fancy head unit, how do you easily transition from one to the other? It’s a pain, and the whole idea of all this technology is supposed to be making your life easier. It’s failing at that.
Currently my 3(?) year old Samsung s8+ is doing this cool thing where if the screen times out or I hit the lock button, I have to do a hard reset because the screen won’t turn back on. Thankfully Google navigation bypasses the sleep timer so I just have to “navigate” somewhere all day.
@Moose have you tried pressing the screen where the home button would be if the screen were on? Samsung made that wake up the screen. It may be an option you have to turn on.
@rpg714 yeah, it vibrates but doesn’t turn on. On very rare occasions I have been and to trick it to turn on/unlock somehow, but even then the screen becomes a glitchy mess that is impossible to make sense of. What’s weird is that if I have the Always On mode set, then it will go to that, but black out when I try to unlock.
@Moose I always love when I’m on a road trip and I take phone and stick it in my pocket without stopping navigation while I stop for a nature break. Google helpfully chimes in to make a u turn at the urinal, and to proceed to the route past the snack section.
I miss the jack. I have an adaptor, but that means I have to remember it when I choose which headphones I will use. Just another item to get lost or be in the wrong place.
It’s much quicker, easier, and safer to use wired ear buds when you sneak away to watch videos during some “private” time. Waiting to pair bluetooth ear buds is a waste of precious time. You’d also need to make sure they’re always charged exactly when you get a chance to use them. Finally, the LAST thing you want to do is start playing the video while the phone is still paired to bluetooth buds that you left in the living room next to your family members!
Also, you can keep a pair of cheap wired ear buds stashed in varies drawers around the house so they are there when you need them. You don’t want to have to explain why you are getting your fancy wireless headphones before going to the bathroom.
Yes it does, and I firmly refuse to buy a phone without one. My Samsung Galaxy S7 Active is getting on in age, but I haven’t yet decided what to replace it with. I need the headphone jack because I connect my phone to a very wide variety of audio systems of all ages, and I have tried Bluetooth adapters…most ruin the quality of the audio, especially when you’re connecting to high fidelity audio equipment. I also just prefer good corded headphones…wireless ones are just more batteries to charge, and possibly tiny and easy to lose.
@PooltoyWolf we just upgraded to S10. One of the reasons was that it still had the jack, as I still regularly use my wired buds at work. Pixel 4 got rid of the jack
BTW, new iPhones still come with wired headphones. They just connect thru the lightning port, not a separate headphone jack.
What doesn’t work (without a splitter/adapter) is simultaneously charging and listening via wired headphones. And since buying my iPhone XR a year ago, I have missed that feature precisely once…while on a plane…because I stupidly forgot to pack my wireless earbuds.
@Ambiverbal … that and, it used to be that everything was all three of
• cheap
• reliable
• universally compatible
I do still miss that. All sources connecting easily to all outputs, no batteries or glitches or fiddly re-pairing to worry about. Plugging your iPhone earbuds into your Nintendo Switch, computer, or other thing? Why not! Plugging any of the above into your car? Effortless. Cable get stolen or have a short? Replace it at less than $10.
Because wired sound quality is better, no remembering to charge buds regularly, and I don’t want to give up my buds, even if they’re aged now. However, I do use a pair of Bluetooth buds when I’m moving around a lot. I’ve had to stop listening to things because the batteries died though…
I rarely ever use my phone as an audio player, though I do prefer one with a jack.
If I’m going to have to carry around wireless buds and some kind of charger or case to keep from losing them, and get poorer sound quality, that just reinforces my decision to use a small dedicated audio player with wired headphones.
@Limewater I will sometimes use my phone (via jack and aux input) for the car when I am in a ‘dead zone’ for radio coverage or don’t want to have to fiddle with the turner controls while on long trips. Pandora FTW!
@mike808 Is it, though?
If a system uses a physical switch inside the jack to select between microphones, sure. But that’s often not the case. It is possible via software to have the internal microphone enabled while something is in the jack. This should be double-true if you suspect your phone of being compromised.
@Limewater@mike808 and your phone likely has more than one mic. Doubt it would somehow be able to disable all of them if the phone was actually compromised.
Everyone has mentioned the reasons I’m about to say but I’m commenting anyways.
I like options. Redundancy or backup is another good way to put it.
Having to charge another device is annoying and you’re SOL when they’re dead unless you buy something like today’s meh item which as it says, works in a pinch for some sort of sound.
I’m turning into a audiophile. aptX is a better step but not quite yet there.
I just took a Delta flight and they were handing out free earbuds…doubt you will see that for Bluetooth buds anytime soon. Again these are backups.
Elimination of the headphone jack is just one more step in making the phone into a “kinda good” replacement for a lot of other things. They’re kinda good e-readers, kinda good video players, kinda good web browsers, kinda good cameras… Hell, they’re even kinda good phones, even though they don’t fit in your pocket anymore and maybe the battery lasts all day. With very little effort, they can be compromised into total crap.
My last one (iPhone 7) didn’t have the jack,neither does the new one. I’ve learned to live with the little adapter, or the bigger one that allows you to charge and listen/talk at the same time. My iPad Pro still has the jack.
My problem is Bluetooth traffic jams, as I’ve kept the old phone as a utility and music device for the truck, and I have the new one, and the iPad in my bag, and they all fight to connect to the car audio or the ear buds or the gps unit and I spend way too much time on the side of the road turning things on and off in confusing sequences getting just the one I want connected to the right thing.
Product idea: personal Bluetooth router (copyright 2019/20 @stolicat). You can have it if you give me some of the riches you’ll make.
I spend way too much time on the side of the road turning things on and off
Turn them all off, all the time. You do not need any of that crap constantly draining your device battery and prostituting your surveillance data by broadcasting it to any device that wants to listen.
Default everything to “off” and just turn on what you need when you need it.
If you can’t do that, then you probably should brush up on your situational awareness and planning skills to make life as easy as these technologies say it us supposed to be.
@mike808 point taken - the iThings all have an easily accessible control center that’s available from all screens that lets you turn off Bluetooth quickly. It would make connecting something more direct, but I’m easily distracted as it is and I’d still need to pull over. I’ve been subject to device accumulation - when it was just one it was no problem, but now that often have three with me, it gets to be a tangle.
I am intrigued, given BT’s limited range, that maybe the reason that Audi has been hanging in my blind spot for the last few miles is to take advantage of my loose-moraled surveillance data …
I still have one, but it’s more because I like to have options. I typically don’t use it and if I was going to be an audio snob, I wouldn’t be playing music on my phone anyways. Good bluetooth headphones and some EQ tweaking gets me there.
yes, because i haven’t upgraded yet, but also…this used to matter because i used one of those wired cassette tape things to listen to music on my ipod in the car. now none of that matters. i still have a pair of headphones somewhere but the last time i actually used headphones for anything was…at least five or ten years ago? never wore earbuds, can’t because of my ear piercings. i think it’s silly to get rid of the jack, though. if i traveled at all without driving i’d be mad.
“Yes, because I haven’t upgraded yet”… AND NEVER WILL!!!
Not because of no headphone jack (ridiculous reason) but because I love the 5/5s/SE form/size. Eventually I’ll have to obviously, but holding out as long as I can. Was hoping that the rumored upcoming SE replacement would be about the same size, but looking like it will be a honker like all the rest.
• in the car, audio quality is utter garbage anyways. I can barely hear anythingnover the car and road noise. Bluetooth, even SBC, is good enough there.
• at work, I have switched from my phone as a music player, to my laptop – same old headphones, same plugging them in
• at home, where I do a minority of phone music listening, I mostly tolerate a Fiio uBTR, which is pretty good for a headphone jack widget that cheap, supports AAC over Bluetooth, and my apartment isn’t a pristine, noiseless environment anyways
• or sometimes I use the little lightning-headphone jack adapter with the DAC in the cable. That’s not too bad.
I insist that my phone has a headphone jack, even though when I listen to “portable” music, I use a dedicated high-rez dual-DAC player with DSD64 (or similar) audio files through a custom balanced cable into ridiculous IEMs or cans, depending… Yeah. I’m that guy…
@shahnm So what you’re saying is, flac off everyone, I’m in for at least a half dozen of today’s deal!
@irishbyblood In a manner of speakering…
@shahnm you’re probably the only one in this thread who knows what flac is.
@irishbyblood Maybe. But I have contracted a bad case of audiophilia, and my wife will explain to you that I have completely lost my mind…
@irishbyblood @shahnm Nope. It’s not as obscure as you think it is.
My Samsung Note 9 does have a headphone jack and no stupid hole or notch in the screen for the front camera. I was seriously disappointed when Samsung followed apple’s lead and removed the headphone jack from the Note 10 and put a solid hole in the screen for the camera.
I also don’t understand why these phone manufacturers insist on making the phones thinner and completely glass covered. Everyone puts a case on them anyways. Make a thick rugged phone with a huge battery.
@rpg714
Energizer tried that.
/image Energizer phone
I just got a new phone yesterday with a headphone jack. (Pixel 3a)
The biggest deal for me is with cars. I have a Bluetooth adapter for my aux port in the car. But I have a wife and 3 kids who occasionally want me to listen to something when we’re together. Bluetooth is a process to make this happen. Headphone jacks are quick and intuitive.
Or lets say wife and I are going somewhere together. Without buying a whole new fancy head unit, how do you easily transition from one to the other? It’s a pain, and the whole idea of all this technology is supposed to be making your life easier. It’s failing at that.
Now get off my lawn
If all of the phone manufacturers get rid of headphone jacks, we will soon be in a time where
We don’t know jack
@mehcuda67
@mehcuda67 @rtjhnstn That’s the ticklish testgum, of the matter for sure…
I’m riding this 2015 iPhone into the ground. And then I’ll have to do some soul searching about whether to adapt to life without a headphone port.
Currently my 3(?) year old Samsung s8+ is doing this cool thing where if the screen times out or I hit the lock button, I have to do a hard reset because the screen won’t turn back on. Thankfully Google navigation bypasses the sleep timer so I just have to “navigate” somewhere all day.
Also the back fell off.
@Moose have you tried pressing the screen where the home button would be if the screen were on? Samsung made that wake up the screen. It may be an option you have to turn on.
@rpg714 yeah, it vibrates but doesn’t turn on. On very rare occasions I have been and to trick it to turn on/unlock somehow, but even then the screen becomes a glitchy mess that is impossible to make sense of. What’s weird is that if I have the Always On mode set, then it will go to that, but black out when I try to unlock.
@Moose I always love when I’m on a road trip and I take phone and stick it in my pocket without stopping navigation while I stop for a nature break. Google helpfully chimes in to make a u turn at the urinal, and to proceed to the route past the snack section.
@djslack @Moose
Please remember to STOP peeing and put away your junk before you turn around tho!
(I might be standing next to you one day!)
I miss the jack. I have an adaptor, but that means I have to remember it when I choose which headphones I will use. Just another item to get lost or be in the wrong place.
It’s much quicker, easier, and safer to use wired ear buds when you sneak away to watch videos during some “private” time. Waiting to pair bluetooth ear buds is a waste of precious time. You’d also need to make sure they’re always charged exactly when you get a chance to use them. Finally, the LAST thing you want to do is start playing the video while the phone is still paired to bluetooth buds that you left in the living room next to your family members!
Also, you can keep a pair of cheap wired ear buds stashed in varies drawers around the house so they are there when you need them. You don’t want to have to explain why you are getting your fancy wireless headphones before going to the bathroom.
Yes, it does, but I’ve never plugged anything into it.
@therealjrn
Yes it does, and I firmly refuse to buy a phone without one. My Samsung Galaxy S7 Active is getting on in age, but I haven’t yet decided what to replace it with. I need the headphone jack because I connect my phone to a very wide variety of audio systems of all ages, and I have tried Bluetooth adapters…most ruin the quality of the audio, especially when you’re connecting to high fidelity audio equipment. I also just prefer good corded headphones…wireless ones are just more batteries to charge, and possibly tiny and easy to lose.
@PooltoyWolf we just upgraded to S10. One of the reasons was that it still had the jack, as I still regularly use my wired buds at work. Pixel 4 got rid of the jack
@kshayabusa Good to know the S10 still has one…I’ll probably eventually go that route.
BTW, new iPhones still come with wired headphones. They just connect thru the lightning port, not a separate headphone jack.
What doesn’t work (without a splitter/adapter) is simultaneously charging and listening via wired headphones. And since buying my iPhone XR a year ago, I have missed that feature precisely once…while on a plane…because I stupidly forgot to pack my wireless earbuds.
@Ambiverbal The point of the complaint is when you have other, better headphones, that suddenly don’t work with your phone anymore.
@Ambiverbal … that and, it used to be that everything was all three of
• cheap
• reliable
• universally compatible
I do still miss that. All sources connecting easily to all outputs, no batteries or glitches or fiddly re-pairing to worry about. Plugging your iPhone earbuds into your Nintendo Switch, computer, or other thing? Why not! Plugging any of the above into your car? Effortless. Cable get stolen or have a short? Replace it at less than $10.
Because wired sound quality is better, no remembering to charge buds regularly, and I don’t want to give up my buds, even if they’re aged now. However, I do use a pair of Bluetooth buds when I’m moving around a lot. I’ve had to stop listening to things because the batteries died though…
@kshayabusa plus the drain on the device for sending out the BT signal…
I rarely ever use my phone as an audio player, though I do prefer one with a jack.
If I’m going to have to carry around wireless buds and some kind of charger or case to keep from losing them, and get poorer sound quality, that just reinforces my decision to use a small dedicated audio player with wired headphones.
@Limewater I will sometimes use my phone (via jack and aux input) for the car when I am in a ‘dead zone’ for radio coverage or don’t want to have to fiddle with the turner controls while on long trips.
Pandora FTW!
meh, please. they’re not wired “buds.” i have a wide selection of headphones, mostly over-ear. and yes, i don’t intend to give them up.
I wouldn’t miss the jack, but my dongle is broken
@billyrogers Big pharma has solutions for those problems!
The headphone jack is one way to be absolutely sure your phone isn’t surveilling you.
mic-lock.com
Mic-Lock Microphone Blocker
@mike808 Is it, though?
If a system uses a physical switch inside the jack to select between microphones, sure. But that’s often not the case. It is possible via software to have the internal microphone enabled while something is in the jack. This should be double-true if you suspect your phone of being compromised.
@Limewater @mike808 and your phone likely has more than one mic. Doubt it would somehow be able to disable all of them if the phone was actually compromised.
Yes. Primarily used to keep my pockets lint free.
Everyone has mentioned the reasons I’m about to say but I’m commenting anyways.
I like options. Redundancy or backup is another good way to put it.
Having to charge another device is annoying and you’re SOL when they’re dead unless you buy something like today’s meh item which as it says, works in a pinch for some sort of sound.
I’m turning into a audiophile. aptX is a better step but not quite yet there.
I just took a Delta flight and they were handing out free earbuds…doubt you will see that for Bluetooth buds anytime soon. Again these are backups.
@FearTheNoFear yeah, free earbuds, but a meal on a cross country trip… no way.
Yes, but I’d prefer that it didn’t. A headphone jack is just one more way for dust and moisture to get in.
@brennyn I rarely take my phone into the mines with me.
@brennyn @macromeh But Bluetooth isn’t going to reach very far into the mine.
Elimination of the headphone jack is just one more step in making the phone into a “kinda good” replacement for a lot of other things. They’re kinda good e-readers, kinda good video players, kinda good web browsers, kinda good cameras… Hell, they’re even kinda good phones, even though they don’t fit in your pocket anymore and maybe the battery lasts all day. With very little effort, they can be compromised into total crap.
My last one (iPhone 7) didn’t have the jack,neither does the new one. I’ve learned to live with the little adapter, or the bigger one that allows you to charge and listen/talk at the same time. My iPad Pro still has the jack.
My problem is Bluetooth traffic jams, as I’ve kept the old phone as a utility and music device for the truck, and I have the new one, and the iPad in my bag, and they all fight to connect to the car audio or the ear buds or the gps unit and I spend way too much time on the side of the road turning things on and off in confusing sequences getting just the one I want connected to the right thing.
Product idea: personal Bluetooth router (copyright 2019/20 @stolicat). You can have it if you give me some of the riches you’ll make.
@stolicat
Turn them all off, all the time. You do not need any of that crap constantly draining your device battery and prostituting your surveillance data by broadcasting it to any device that wants to listen.
Default everything to “off” and just turn on what you need when you need it.
If you can’t do that, then you probably should brush up on your situational awareness and planning skills to make life as easy as these technologies say it us supposed to be.
@mike808 point taken - the iThings all have an easily accessible control center that’s available from all screens that lets you turn off Bluetooth quickly. It would make connecting something more direct, but I’m easily distracted as it is and I’d still need to pull over. I’ve been subject to device accumulation - when it was just one it was no problem, but now that often have three with me, it gets to be a tangle.
I am intrigued, given BT’s limited range, that maybe the reason that Audi has been hanging in my blind spot for the last few miles is to take advantage of my loose-moraled surveillance data …
@mike808 @stolicat
/giphy busted!
Yes, because I refuse to give up my Sony MDR-7506
I still have one, but it’s more because I like to have options. I typically don’t use it and if I was going to be an audio snob, I wouldn’t be playing music on my phone anyways. Good bluetooth headphones and some EQ tweaking gets me there.
yes, because i haven’t upgraded yet, but also…this used to matter because i used one of those wired cassette tape things to listen to music on my ipod in the car. now none of that matters. i still have a pair of headphones somewhere but the last time i actually used headphones for anything was…at least five or ten years ago? never wore earbuds, can’t because of my ear piercings. i think it’s silly to get rid of the jack, though. if i traveled at all without driving i’d be mad.
“Yes, because I haven’t upgraded yet”… AND NEVER WILL!!!
Not because of no headphone jack (ridiculous reason) but because I love the 5/5s/SE form/size. Eventually I’ll have to obviously, but holding out as long as I can. Was hoping that the rumored upcoming SE replacement would be about the same size, but looking like it will be a honker like all the rest.
No jack on my phone. The way it’s played out,
• in the car, audio quality is utter garbage anyways. I can barely hear anythingnover the car and road noise. Bluetooth, even SBC, is good enough there.
• at work, I have switched from my phone as a music player, to my laptop – same old headphones, same plugging them in
• at home, where I do a minority of phone music listening, I mostly tolerate a Fiio uBTR, which is pretty good for a headphone jack widget that cheap, supports AAC over Bluetooth, and my apartment isn’t a pristine, noiseless environment anyways
• or sometimes I use the little lightning-headphone jack adapter with the DAC in the cable. That’s not too bad.
Of course.
Depends. My phone came with USB-C headphones. Does that count?