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
But they did tangle all the time. That was annoying.
Only because people couldn’t be bothered with learning the over-under cable coiling method.
All these people saying they like wireless earphones are completely missing the point. Devices with headphones jacks can do both. Taking away the headphone jack means you have to rely on wireless earphones, which have all the issues the post describes.
But Apple was so BRAVE when they removed the jack!
I wholeheartedly agree, I use Bluetooth most of the time, but I want wired to fall back on. When I’m on the go, bluetooth works just fine, but when I’m sitting down at home I prefer to use my full-size Roland headset on both my PC and my phone. No latency, and superior sound quality.
Bless the few companies out there still putting them (and the SD card slot) into Androids, but even they’re getting more and more scarce. I need to upgrade soon and I’ve never felt my opinions were so limited, let alone combining with other things like network compatibility, unlockable bootloader, etc.
Android used to be the anti-Apple. You used to have so many options, and so much freedom.
Soo… Sony, oppo, realme & HMD (Nokia brand)? That is about it right for new phones I think?
Motorola has a few as well.
Most Sony phones don’t have those anymore.
Coincidentally they’re proudly selling overpriced wireless earbuds since
Wdym, there are adapters and natively wired USB-C headphones.
Adapters are a cop out. Just put the adapters in the phone. It also means you can’t charge and listen to music.
Also while there are some natively wired usb-c headphones, I can’t think of any. Any decent headphones will use a standard 3.5 or 6.5mm audio jack, and then the dac being built inwith those usb-c headphones means you can’t use a seperate dac, it means you can’t plug them into studio gear. It’s just so incredibly limiting.
There is already a universal standard (3.5mm/6.5mm jack) it carries analog audio, why change to a digital connection which requires digital to analog conversion? Why not let the user be able to have a dedicated piece of gear to do that if they wish.
No professional equipment, or even semi professional equipment uses usb-c. It’s a good old fashioned analog audio jack and it’s like that for a reason
I use an adapter from Walmart and it works better than a regular aux plug in a car? Do you think that the audio signal is boosted over type c?
Maximum volume depends on which specific DAC adapter you got.
Correct. That’s why I will NEVER buy brand new wireless earbuds from Apple, Samsung, or any other phone manufacturer. Oh, you took the aux port out of your phones? Go fuck yourself. I will not financially reward you for limiting my freedoms.
Currently I use Jabra Active 8s. The Jabra Active 10s are supposed to be so much better, but for the price, the 8s are just pretty good.
maybe you’re completely missing their point
What point? That the removal of a feature like the headphone jack is a good thing?
no, that the inconvenience of wired earbuds outweighs any advantages. which would still apply to a different port
It also destroyed the “pass the aux cord” when driving with friends.
“Hey, I want to show you a song. Pass the aux cord.”
Plugs
Plays
Now:
“Hey, I want to show you a song. Let me connect to your car’s Bluetooth.”
“Oh, I can’t while the car is driving. Can you pull over for a minute?”
“Which submenu was is it in? Bluetooth or Settings?”
“Do you mind if I remove one of the devices already connected?”
“Oh, it just auto-connected to your phone instead.”
“Here, I’ll just send you a link.”
“Your phone locked. Can you enter your password again?”
“Oh, you don’t have [streaming service] premium? We’ll have to sit through an ad first.”
I feel a cold and detached anger, reading that.
Still can’t get my honda to Bluetooth.
My old car was a Kia. (Don’t hate me. It was 2009, and I was earning $19,000 a year.)
I got a used model that was the one higher than base, that included the deluxe audio package. Basically, it included an aux input and the crappy speakers had metal grills instead of plastic ones.
I spent years trying to figure out why the aux jack never worked, until in 2014 I took apart the insides, and then took it to a dealership to confirm that the factory had installed the standard wiring harness, which didn’t include connectors for the aux jack. They said it would be cheaper to buy a new car than it would be to have them fix the wiring.
I wound up missing the aux roadtrip experience entirely, and replaced the radio with one that did Bluetooth.
Bastards.If cheap is the goal and Honda is out of budget then Kia appears to be a wise choice.
Why are you worried that others would be unhappy that you chose a Kia?
I’m still traumatized from Reddit, where everyone had an opinion, and the consensus is that whatever I said was wrong.
I’m glad you got yourself out of that abusive situation.
You can still do that if you want. My car’s bluetooth is finicky, so I just have a USB C->aux cable adapter I use. You can share between people and have them share their music. It doesn’t help with the password issues, but you absolutely can still use an aux cable with modern phones. You just need to use a USB C->aux rather than an aux->aux.
So glad the Europeans finally broke Apple and their ridiculous charger shenanigans. A coworker just got a new iPhone and asked me if I had an iPhone charger, I told them no all Ive got is USB C. They said they didn’t know what they had and showed me the bottom of their phone and, sure enough, it’s USB C. They had no idea that only Apple kept making their own charge connector and that basically everyone else had settled on one charger/data port like two or three standards ago.
You don’t just pass a phone around? Any long trip, start a queue, add a song, pass clockwise. And if you fuck up the queue and hit play by accident you have to do a shot wherever we end up.
You pass your unlocked phone to another person!?
You’re probably joking, but yeah, I don’t really hang out with people I don’t trust at this point in my life, I’m 37.
My civic has a Pioneer audio ui and I have an aux cord!! It’s a usb-c to aux but yeah. It works nicely. Too bad it’s USB-c and everyone’s phones still take lightning.
Give it 4 years and lightning will be a faint memory
Yep, I look forward to it.
Why on earth would you not just hand them the phone to put a song in queue. Also what songs are exclusive to a specific streaming service? Just play it on whatever you were already listening on.
What do you mean used to? I still do. IEMs with replaceable cables are nigh on indestructible.
Yeah this is just another case of apple diehards forgetting the rest of the world exists. Almost everyone still has earbuds with cords.
Hardly just Apple. Android phones have been shifting to removing the headphone jack as well. The workaround is meant to be to use a USB-C dongle, but I ended up just getting multiple bluetooth headsets. I miss my wired earbuds though, that I could hang from my ear when I needed to talk to someone, and never had to worry about charging.
Have been? It’s already done for the most part. AFAIK, there’s only one, maybe two companies still making phones with headphone jacks. Drives me up a wall, I fucking hate it.
Not only has it already been done, but it happened for most android phones pretty much the model year or two after apple did it. Enough time to get all their snarky ads in, let apple take the heat, and adjust their plans to follow the business model exactly - push people away from included headphones and towards their own +$100 Bluetooth headphones.
And the thing is, I love Bluetooth headphones. I used to love wired but the convenience is just too hard to beat. But everyone is price gouging the shit out of them compared to what it costs to produce. Granted I run mine very hard at probably an average of 10-12 hours a day split between two pairs at work and home, and I got around 10,000 hours out of my AirPods 2 before they died so I definitely got my moneys worth. But I refuse to pay $100 when I can get a knock-off pair for $4 that sound 95% as good with surprisingly similar battery life.
Really? From personal experience it’s completely the opposite. Almost everyone I see wearing earbuds are wearing wireless ones and it’s not just Apple users with their air pods, it’s android as well.
I’ve thrown away so many headphones because the cable frayed though. There’s always some downsides.
What do y’all do to your headphones that this is a major issue? I’ve never really had wireless headphones and I think I’ve maybe had one pair of wired ones that had that issue in my life.
Normal use
But like… Clearly there’s something we’re doing differently here.
Pocket? Idk, it seems natural to me that moving around with a device in your pocket, plugged into a pair of headphones would cause bending and twisting of the cord, which would wear it out over time.
And lots of other stresses, like accidentally getting them caught on something and yanking them out of your ears, wrapping them up to put away in a bag/pocket, etc. It’s no wonder I wore out so many pairs.
OTOH, the only wired listening device I own now is a headset that I wear at my desk, which I expect to last forever because it’s subject to none of those stresses.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Guess I’ve just been lucky. I assume some people might also pull out the cable at the cord instead of at the base, I’ve seen that happening with charging cables sometimes.
At the moment I also have to use a little C to 3.5mm adapter and could maybe see that taking some damage but so far so good.
I could see the (USB-?)C adapter taking the worst of the wear-and-tear, and maybe being more resilient than plugging the 3.5mm directly into the device. Imagine the travesty if it turned out that USB-C adapters turned out to be the solution to fragile headphones all along!
Are you taking a belt sander to it? That might be the difference.
I’ve found any type of exercise wearing wired phones wears them out fast.
Okay that’s a fair point my lazy ass had not considered. Although cycling hasn’t caused me any issues.
Just buy ones with detachable cables, or, better yet, mod headphones to use standard connectors such as MMCX (a set of Koss KSC75s). This also allows for different male connectors (3.5, 2.5, 4.4, quarter inch, XLR…) to suit different needs. There’s even bluetooth cables that can plug into otherwise wired headphones. Audiophile world > convenience world.
Modding headphones is way beyond my skillset and time I can invest.
Then just buy a set with detachable cables by default. I only suggest it for the KSC75 because they’re so good sounding and comfortable for cheap.
I’m just not so sure it’s worth it. If the cable frays, I still have to pay $ to replace it every time.
Some of my cables are in the $100 range. They aren’t fraying for many years, they’re outstandingly well built. This is the benefit of detachable cables, is the ability to buy third party. Apos makes a really nice, durable cable, that never gets bent out of shape. The point is that you never have to replace the entire unit.
Lithium ion batteries will degrade over time. It’s an inevitability. The cost of replacing an entire set of AirPods is far more expensive than replacing one cable every thirty something years. They’re unrepairable.
The AirPods Max are an excellent example of the issue. Big, expensive headphones that have peak battery capacity for three years, if you’re lucky–as opposed to the Sennheiser HD600, a set that people have daily driven for thirty years straight, sometimes replacing a cable, sometimes replacing an ear cup. Components, versus entire units.
I’d rather my headphones not be a subscription service.
I’m going into my third pair of ear buds because the batteries only survive for 1h after 2-3 years if you are a heavy user, my wired JBL is still going strong.
I remember they used to last me for years around 2005-2010. Now it is like every year at latest i need to get new ones because the cable got fucked.
I bought a pair of wired earbuds off of wish or temu, something like that, they were like eight or nine dollars.
Honestly compared to any Bluetooth headphones I’ve used, equivalent or better sound quality. And the wire can be pulled out and replaced for just a buck if need be. I’ve had them for 2 years now and they have been wonderful.
Also Moto phones with their operational 3.5 mm jacks for the win.
Meh. I don’t miss getting the cord caught on door handles and having the earbuds violently yanked from my ears!
I like having choices so you do your thing even if it’s not the same as my thing.
It’s this for me, too. I like to pop them in (or really just one) while I do chores and stuff. I did it before the wireless ones too. And now, I feel spoiled by the lack of wires-getting-caught-on-stuff that I don’t want to go back to wired as my primary earbuds.
That being said, I do keep several spare pairs of wired earbuds around, and I am planning on picking up an inexpensive pair of in ear monitors for quiet, music practice
I would just run the cord up the inside of my shirt when I was at the gym or around the house.
I’ve tried that so many times, and I just hate the way it feels. And depending on the material or type of shirt, it’d the cord wouldn’t move as smoothly, and my earbuds would loosen
I’ve literally never had that happen to me, but I’ve always seen it posted constantly. It’s it partially a meme? Or is everyone just constantly getting their headphones ripped out?
It definitely used to happen to me!
It’s not a meme, I’ve broken countless headphones that way. Well, maybe not on door handles, but e.g. in a bus there may be a lot of things the cable can catch on, like arm rests
I didn’t believe the hype about wireless headphones until I bought some with noise cancelling and all that for around $130.
Pros:
1 - You don’t realize how “tethered” you feel on older headphones until you really try to use wireless headphones. There’s a certain freedom you feel when you realize you can place your phone on a hotel table but lie down in bed.
2 - Noise cancelling and noise passthrough is a transformative experience when travelling or find yourself abroad. Airports are much easier to feel relaxed in when 80% of the noise or so can be filtered out as you wait for your flight to board. Additionally, the flight experience is less annoying (no engine drone gets through, even passengers can mostly be ignored) but you still have the option for pass through if someone absolutely needs to talk to you.
3 - Many of these headphones come with some kind of EQ feature, which can occasionally mean that you get speakers with more tunability and thus slightly better bang-for-buck that works globally across apps.
4 - Audio quality. Since these are expensive drivers, you’re often going to get better sound quality than those cheap 30 dollar throw aways were ever going to give.
Cons:
1 - Latency. These things could never be used in professional audio situations other than listening to a pre-rendered song for quality judgements. I don’t thing gaming would be nice with these either, even if I’ve tried (and failed) to play counter strike on these on occasion to keep noise levels down.
2 - Mic quality of the built in is lacking on my particular headphones (Sennheiser CX Plus). They’re really only intended to capture the outdoor for noise cancellation IMO, not the greatest for calls or recordings. They’re servicable, but it’s the area I’d like the most upgrade (and it would probably improve noise cancellation features as well.)
3 - Environmental / Sustainability Concerns: Other than people just “losing” these devices with built in batteries that are bad for the environment being a problem in and of itself, there are other long-standing concerns I have about these devices. They often require proprietary non-open software to configure, meaning if the software gets delisted, you will no longer be able to configure them until someone comes up with some kind of alternative using reverse engineering (good luck). Batteries are likely to degrade over time, meaning you’ll eventually end up with a worthless ear bud on the left or right and the only solution will be to throw them out. These things are often pretty bad scoring on repairability metrics, and I can’t even blame the companies producing them here because they’re so small.
4 - Despite passthrough being a feature, it’s hard to convey to people that you can actually hear them through the device. There should be some kind of blinking light on the outside that indicates that passthrough is enabled or something.
So I actually do love these devices, but #3 of the cons is really the biggest real issue I have with them. If they’re going to cost over 100 dollars, I would like to know that these things won’t just become ewaste in the same way that cheap crappy wired headphones end up being as well (which sea life often chokes on or gets tangled up in.) If they costs a premium, I would really like to know that they aren’t a figurative dead end when they eventually fail.
On points of audio quality - wired $130 headphones will sound even better, due to cheaper technology allowing to place better components, not having to install local (probably crappy) DAC, and due to wireless audio being lossy, even with aptX.
It’s about options, buddy! Having a headphone jack does not prevent you from using Bluetooth headphones.
I definitely agree with this.
I feel like you’re forgetting the market segment of high-end wired headphones. Your point about wireless headphones sounding better confused me because of this.
Batteries are likely to degrade over time, meaning you’ll eventually end up with a worthless ear bud on the left or right and the only solution will be to throw them out. These things are often pretty bad scoring on repairability metrics, and I can’t even blame the companies producing them here because they’re so small.
I’m hoping these start getting recycled for their batteries, like the EU has plans to do.
Anyway, I feel full size wireless headphones are somewhat less problematic as they have bigger batteries, and you can always fall back to wired use (in most cases). But the proprietary app concerns are definitely valid.
The only pro that you make here that has anything to do with wireless headphones is #1, being untethered.
Noice cancelling, an EQ, and audio quality have nothing to do with being wireless.
Regarding latency, wireless mice have less latency than wired mice so I’m sure it’s possible but not with Bluetooth as the tech currently stands. Mic quality and pass through again, aren’t wireless-exclusive features.
You are correct, but like my Bose QC25’s when I had them, it can be really annoying for something to have batteries and be wired.
Wireless earphones with noise cancelling completely transformed air travel for me!
You should write professional reviews.
I’m confused how your pro #2 has to do with wireless headphones, as you could find much cheaper wired headphones with noise canceling even 20 years ago. I’m not sure about pass-through, but I imagine that’s more of a feature now because of technology upgrades.
I even used those wired headphones while mowing the lawn with noise cancelling and could hear the music without having to crank the volume to max. I think there might have even been an EQ button with different settings pre-made (however weren’t customizable to my knowledge). Not sure whether that’s also just because of the technological process now or not.
I’d say battery life is another con for wireless headphones, both for the headphones themselves and the device being used. I have worked a job where we’d have some shifts as long as 10-12 hours and with wired headphones, I’d still have 20-30 percent of the phone battery left, even if I had been listening to YouTube videos with the brightness all the way down. However, with the wireless headphones either my headphones or my phone would die before the end of a long shift like that and I’d be stuck without my music for the last 2-3 hours, even just listening to music with no video.
My experience with earbuds (not headphones) that were “noise cancelling” before active noise cancelling was a thing was never all that great. The seal is too difficult to design in the same way over the ear headphones can be for passive noise cancelling. This is probably due to ear size differences and all that, so ymmv on whether or not passives work. Obviously, passive noise cancelling over-the-ears are going to be better, but that’s basically always going to be true for any debate of Headphones vs Earbuds IMO.
I think there’s a confusion caused by mixing up headphones and earbuds, which I think are for two very different markets. Earbuds have always been for the more casual audience.
My experience with battery life has been pretty much non-perceptual, but I did make note that I’m not sure how long the batteries in these devices can even really last. I agree that the disposable nature of battery-based headphones are a bit disconcerting.
Oh that’s true, my headphones with noise canceling were also over-the-ear. I found that turning on the noise canceling worked great and brought down the sound of a lawnmower really well by playing sound waves opposite the waves of the motor to cancel each other out. I wasn’t thinking about another pair of ear buds.
The wireless headphones that I was using went around your head and didn’t pump the sound directly into your ear, but were supposed to use some bone conduction. I’m not sure if that’s part of the battery issue that I saw. I just know that my phone itself would die before the end of my shift if I was using Bluetooth headphones (provided the headphones didn’t die first) and I would still have battery left after using wired earbuds.
On the other hand, bluetooth headphones never catch on a doorknob and yank out of your ears
On the other other hand, we already had the option of choosing Bluetooth headphones back when most phones still offered headphones jacks.
Truth is, there are obviously pros and cons of each, but it just sucks that we no longer have the choice without jumping through extra hoops.
And the noise cancelling/amplification is something wired headphones probably would never do, and they aren’t more expensive than ear buds, unless you got the cheapest ear buds (that probably sounded like shit and had cords that would fray within months of use), oh and if you used them at all “actively” the cords would eventually wear out even in expensive models. I’ve got a 20$pair of ear buds from 3 years ago(wanted to make sure I wouldn’t lose them before investing in expensive ones, now I don’t actually like my expensive ones except for airplanes, and still use my cheapos). Oh and you couldn’t be more than 3 feet from your phone if it was charging, and you couldn’t fast forward, rewind, play/pause (if you had a great pair it had a volume control, that didn’t actually change the volume, just added resistance to the signal).
Ask my wife, I was one of the biggest sticks in the mud about losing my headphone jack and changing over to Bluetooth, but since I made the change, I’ve found plenty of reasons to be happy with it. I still miss my old phones built in infrared blaster though. And easily replaceable battery. There were some neat things you could do with the aux jack (credit card reader), and there was some convenience to having things corded together (especially if you’re absent minded) but it’s not as rosey as many would insist it was.
The rose tinted glasses people use when looking back (car technology, streaming being worse than cable, the Internet sucking (though much better arguments for this one)) is really a burr in my side.
You can get headphones with removable cables.
All this romanticizing the past, but who members having to play with the jack until it was just the right in and out to get full stereo. I member. Who members breaking a wire for the left speaker only, so you only have right audio. I member
The real problem is that new phones dont have it, while there are actually people who use it.
To be honest i dont use it either, but i still prefer having it. Just in case you know? Phones without it did not get cheaper after all…
There are still phones that have it. Sometimes even pretty good ones. It’s just that they are not advertised so heavily. I recently learned about HTC U23 or 24 or something. Now I feel dumb because I never bothered to check because I always thought all good phones don’t offer headphone jacks anymore.
LG had it to the end, it was amazing. Still keep my v60 around for listening to music.
I think you meant new iPhones* don’t have it. There are new models coming out every year with a headphone jack.
You can still get a Sony Xperia 1 VI, or a 5 VI, or a bunch of mid range devices with headphone jack. There are offerings with headphone jack, so if you want one, you can get one.
Now the problem is we love to complain but not put our money where our mouth is. Has the lack of headphone jack made the iPhone sales suffer? No, they’ve gone up. Does Samsung sell fewer Galaxy’s? Nope. Is the Xperia range a massive success because they have a headphone jack? Not by any stretch of imagination…
…because most people don’t actually care enough to vote with their wallet instead of yapping away while they buy a jack-less phone anyway.
You’re the second person to say this but I’ve been using the headphone jack for like 3 decades and haven’t encountered this issue.
Who remembers being able to fix it with two inches of electrical tape?
Yeah I remember sitting in class wiring my headphones back together
I remember getting horrible feedback in my car’s stereo when I tried to simultaneously charge my mp3 player from the car’s cigarette lighter adapter and run an aux cable. Somehow this resulted in a feedback loop that ruined the audio quality. I had to either charge or listen to music, not both.
Are you purposely saying “remembers” wrong or do you think the actual word is “members”?
I expect it’s a South Park reference. 'member South Park?
They’re probably referencing ‘member berries.
Last time I used wired headphones on my old phone, I was riding a bike. One of the buds slipped out of my ear and got caught in the front wheel, dragging my phone out of my pocket and smashing the screen. 10/10
https://www.isadoraduncan.org/about-1
Isadora Duncan’s death was as dramatic as her life. On September 14, 1927, she encountered a young driver in Nice, France and suggested he take her for a spin in his open-air Bugatti sports car. As the car took off, she reportedly shouted to her friends, “Adieu, mes amis, je vais a la gloire!” — “Goodbye my friends, I go to glory!” Moments later, her trailing shawl became entangled in the rear wheel, breaking her neck instantly.
How fecking long was the shawl?
Famous-1920s-dancer-long, apparently!
same
These jacks are still in every other audio device. They were removed from phones to force BT usage, which Google needs for their profiling telemetry network and Apple for their Find my Device thing. God forbid someone turns BT off or even decides they would prefer a phone without BT entirely. There is no other reason and how people prefer to listen to music has nothing to do with the subject.
Doubt there is any conspiracy. Headphone jack was probably removed to cut cost since wireless earbuds were becoming popular and majority of users did not mind. It annoyed me at first as well, but once I went with BT earbuds and headset, I cannot imagine going back to wired except when stationary on PC. Battery life is 30 or so hours and I do not thing I have ever had problems with connection.
Only thing that worries me is that your earbuds probably are an e-waste once battery no longer can hold a charge. That said my current earbuds are basically destroyed even though their battery still is fine.
It’s no conspiracy. It’s just a valid strategy to expand your business. It’s not unheard of that companies form cartels. Car companies manipulate millions of vehicles to trick lab tests. Companies like Apple and Google don’t have your best interest at heart. Don’t ever assume their decisions are driven by popular demand. They actively lobby to steer demand.
Removing a few cents worth of metal to cut costs? Because not enough users need it? That sounds more convincing than one of these companies trying to expand their proprietary BT global network features? Not to me at this time.
profiling telemetry network
Of course they need it for the very real scary words functionality
Every single signal your Android phone sends, like looking up the address of a website with Google DNS, or just synchronizing your time with Google time servers, which are defaults in most Android phones, goes right into at least a shadow profile.
Android exists to create highly detailed profiles of individuals, using your own device usage, and detecting other devices around you. Like WiFi hotspots to offer more detailed position information.
Every single time any of this happens, you leave a data point in a Google database. Collecting all BT devices every time you see them as data points is so dramatically valuable if this is your core business. Google is an advertisement platform.
You know bluetooth doesn’t need to be turned on in the settings for your phone to scan for devices right? Google doesn’t need to trick you with earphones to turn it on. Why do these conspiracy theories always involve the vampire politely asking to come into your home anyways?
I know they can still use the chip even if you don’t want BT. I know they can still use it regardless of your desire to disable it. If there was no reasonable user demand for it, then it would be pretty hard to sell a useless piece of metal that only eats up energy and space in the phone.
You know, like an audio jack.
No other type of audio device saw the need to have the jack removed. The BT-only headphones were introduced by the same companies who removed the audio jack from the phones.
Nobody is “tricking” anyone. This is just as regular a shady business practice as false advertising. The companies doing this just weigh their options to maximize profits. This is a laughably easy sell, apparently, so it’s reasonable they would be doing it. The complaints about this subject were loud from day one. Removing the jack is artificially limiting the features of the device for literally no plausible reason. Point to their material that explains it in more words than “we decided it’s time”.
We had the entire oil and tobacco industry lie to us for decades, but this is far fetched?
It’s really hard to follow your train of thought. Bluetooth isn’t a piece of metal in your phone. It uses the same antenna your phone needs for its other wireless connections and it’s also driven by the same modem. Compared to an audio jack its impact is miniscule. The demand for Bluetooth wasn’t created in 2016, it predates smartphones. There were countless wireless earphones before 2016 and they mostly weren’t even made by phone companies. Apple removing the headphone jack wasn’t ‘false advertising’, it was very well publicised.
Yes, phone companies removed the headphone jack from their phones to drive the sales of their own earphones. Yes, Google collects lots of data about you. But interpolating these to “Google wanted people to keep Bluetooth on for its spy network” is a far fetched conspiracy
I got some wireless headphones and now I keep leaving my phone behind.
Because I hear music, I assume my phone is in my pocket and sometimes it isn’t.
That’s a weird assumption, probably developed from years of using the cables. I didn’t use them because of how inconvenient and uncomfortable they were to use. Yanked an earbud and didn’t use headphones in place of speakers. Bluetooth is great
deleted by creator
Luckily the music pauses after a few dozen meters
The ease of pairing Bluetooth headphones lately is pretty nice as well as not having to run a wire up my shirt to avoid snagging.
I do look back kind of fondly on physically plugging in my headphones and just having it work.
for some reason Bluetooth headphones NEVER connect properly for me. I have to delete them and re-add them. Ended up buying $25 IEMs that are wired and they sounded better than my $200 name brand wireless ones lol
In my experience. Once you pass $100 Bluetooth rarbuds it drifts onto diminishing returns territory. Once the Active Noise Canceling feature started to get passed down to sub $100 earbuds then the more premium ones started to look less and less appealing unless you hop on a good sale.
The IEM selection has been getting pretty good lately as well.
Because of the curse of wireless headphones more people use fucking speakerphone in public
I don’t understand this logic, though have witnessed it myself. How does this work?
This issue is solely the fault of capitalism. By removing choice you are forced to by a more premium product, but you’re advertised it by all the supposed benefits: one less external opening on the phone, no more tangled headphones, no more dealing with headphones that only work when the cord is plugged in just right, no more chance of your headphone port going bad.
They skip over the fact that most of these issues are directly problematic because of cost cutting and designed obsolescence (aka engineered lifetimes). The opening is one thing, but headphones tangle in pockets easily because they use such thin flimsy cords. Same thing goes for cords breaking in the lining and only working at certain angles: a more robust cord would be less prone to issues.
On top of this, the entire designs of phones not having repairability in mind is the only reason that a headphone port breaking is a big deal. If they were designed to be disassembled with replacement parts being readily available, it wouldn’t be an issue. They could even make the ports more robust to decrease failure rate.
see also: smart TVs, phones without replaceable batteries
I’m sorry you liked something that is rightfully becoming obsolete 🙁 people liked landlines and beepers too ☹️☹️
Grow up. Dude wrote a good comment highlighting how these policies harm the consumer and you reply with “wow how cringe, capitalism good , actually”
That’s actually one that I don’t think is specific to any instance. By being a Lemmy user we all share some vague view that large corporations are bad, otherwise why would we be here?
Every single problem we face is caused or exacerbated by the logic of capitalism.
So yes, capitalism is bad. Sorry that pointing it out triggers you, but it’s important to do so that people begin to understand and we can collectively do something about it. Infinite growth on a finite planet isn’t feasible and it’s killing all of us.
Go back to reddit then. There’s a reason you left
