Does it make sense to give up the3.5mm jack adapter?
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The value of anything is only truly recognised after it is lost, according to an old proverb. Why not use it with the well-known 3.5mm jack?
We specifically question if it is indeed time to say goodbye and why so many businesses have already done so.
Does it make sense to give up the 3.5mm jack?
The headphone jack was first used in telephone switchboards over a century ago and has since spread to almost every device that can play music, including Walkmans, CD players, iPods, and, of course, smartphones.
Up to the end of 2016, its existence was assumed when purchasing a new device. In fact, the iPhone 7, the first smartphone without a 3.5mm jack adapter, was unveiled on September 7. Many people were offended by this decision and the notch’s subsequent release, yet despite this, more and more Android smartphone makers are imitating the Cupertino business.
But Why?
In order to respond, we can start with an intriguing gadgethacks post that details the “justifications” given by the producers for doing this action.
Apple claimed that removing the headphone jack will enable them to develop slimmer devices, allow for the installation of a larger battery, improve the camera, make the smartphone waterproof, and provide better audio. Let’s look at them all sequentially.
First off, it should be emphasised that the iPhone 6S and 7 are the same size and weigh exactly the same—only 5 grammes lighter, or slightly under a 20 cent coin—in comparison.
The battery of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus is larger than that of their immediate predecessors, about which much has been said on the difficulty of attaining good autonomy, but it is smaller on the 7 Plus by 15 mAh compared to that of the 6 Plus.
The camera argument is also unconvincing because there are other ways to improve the quality of our photos outside doing away with the headphone connection. The iPhone X, for instance, has a great sensor, but the S9’s would be the greatest ever if it had a 3.5 mm input, according to DxoMark.
However, removing the headphone jack is not necessary to ensure that the smartphone is waterproof: to provide an example, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is IP68 and retains the connector, and the same is true for the S8 and S9.
We now turn to the audio problem. The standard jack is criticised because the sound quality degrades as a result of the different conversions.
Although theoretically accurate, the difference between them cannot be heard by a human ear, according to gsmarena:
Your ears are not compatible with digital audio, as I already stated. Your ears simply don’t care whether the audio is 16-bit or 32-bit, MP3 or FLAC. Only once the analogue audio has been appropriately amplified can we listen to it. Furthermore, it makes no difference if the processing takes place on your phone or in your headphones.
On your phone, you might have a 24-bit track of excellent quality. Information might be processed on the phone first, then transferred to your headphones via an analogue cable. Or, it might be transmitted as a digital signal straight to your headphones before being converted to analogue and then to your ears.
Finally, when you make a decision to move forwards, your new choice should be unquestionably better than the one you were considering before. The comparison between switching from floppies to CDs, for instance, is invalid. By the time floppies were phased out, the CD was already widely adopted, had incredibly rapid read and write speeds, had a substantially bigger capacity, only came in one format, and was significantly less brittle.
On the other hand, there are still significant questions about the jack’s alternatives, particularly regarding their viability.
Type-C or Lightning-compatible headphones are still hard to come by and not exactly inexpensive. If ours should suddenly forsake us, it is not always easy to even sneak into a home goods store and buy a pair for €2/3/4/5 to keep us company during the day. Indeed, an adaptor may always be purchased.
Yet, this would become extremely uncomfortable and unattractive to look at if it also had a charging entry for smartphones. Also, it will be responsible for processing the sound once connected, so if it were of poor quality, even while using top-notch headphones, the listening experience would be ruined.
3.5mm jack adapter
Bluetooth chapter: although we’re not there yet, it could be a good option. The aforementioned technology continues to experience issues with abrupt disconnections, and there have been reports of extreme battery depletion while using it. The cost of Bluetooth headphones is higher than that of regular headphones, and they require frequent recharging.
We are already bound by a number of electronic chains: we must charge our power banks, smartphones, laptops, tablets, and in certain circumstances, even our smokes, almost daily. Is this additional item really required? Finally, let’s take a moment to consider our automobiles. A car with an AUX port is more likely to be owned by the majority of us than a Bluetooth device.
Hence, the 3.5mm jack is universal, useful, and unrestricted, or simply “plug and play,” and there doesn’t seem to be any good reason to do rid of it. Or so, there would be one, but it would only benefit the manufacturers that decide to do without them financially: each of them actually has a unique model of wireless or Type-C / Lightning headphones that aren’t exactly sold at a discount.
Thus, speaking as a user, I hope that this technology won’t be completely discarded, at least not until a worthy replacement is available. Additionally, this might be advantageous for the various manufacturing firms because, as we noted last week, the smartphone market lacks innovations. By going against the grain and keeping some “obsolete” features that are actually still useful to many people, it might be possible to steal market share from rivals.