Apple took a lot of heat for ditching the headphone jack with iPhone 7. Many labeled the omission a huge mistake, and some even went as far as to say it would leave sales in the gutter. But just over a year on, other big names are following suit.
It seems Cupertino was right again.
Apple has been first to scrap a lot of popular technologies. The company did away with the floppy disk drive and FireWire. And it eliminated optical drives. And Apple left off traditional USB ports in its most recent notebooks.
But Apple’s decision not to include a headphone jack in iPhone 7 was perhaps its most controversial move. Despite it being decades old, millions of people still rely on the 3.5mm port every single day to enjoy their music through their favorite headphones.
The reason behind the decision was simple: Apple needed to free up space for more modern technologies. The company wanted to bring new features to the iPhone, like brighter displays, stereo speakers, and the Taptic Engine. The headphone jack simply took up too much room.
Apple solved the problem on day one by shipping a Lightning to headphone adapter with every iPhone 7. But the complaints rolled in regardless.
Bemoaning the lack of iPhone headphone jack
“Apple wheeled out plenty of rationalizations for the decision, but at the end of the day, it was a bad call, and a step back for the forward-thinking tech giant,” wrote Caleb Denison of Digital Trends. “By alienating a broad base of users, Apple will certainly feel some fallout.”
“What exciting times for phones! We’re so out of ideas that actively making them shittier and more user-hostile is the only innovation left,” said Nilay Patel, co-founder of The Verge.
“The old Apple mantra, ‘it just works,’ is officially dead this week,” wrote Mashable’s Chris Taylor following the iPhone 7’s unveiling. “Now Apple has retreated into its walled garden, and it has built the wall higher. It is a wall beyond the dreams of Trump.”
“Apple has changed the jack and I believe this is a bad move for customers,” wrote Blake Morgan of Forbes. “Right now Apple feels it can do whatever it wants because it’s the market leader, however how long will they be as powerful and successful as they currently are?”
“I know there are many people who don’t care, but I think they should because this is as blatant an anti-consumer move that Apple has ever done,” cried Carter Dotson of TouchArcade. “And I hope enough people say to Apple that this is unacceptable.”
“I’m just not convinced there’s a good reason to get rid of it,” said Cult of Mac’s own Luke Dormehl. “There’s just no real upside to it.”
Except it’s the future!
Plenty of other fans and critics bemoaned Apple’s decision. Some said it was bad for consumers — but many conceded Apple would win in the end. Few predicted that the company would bring the port back for future iPhone revisions.
“I’m usually scared to make predictions, but my bet is that there will be an adjustment period for a year or two… And before long, most major smartphones will end up following Apple’s lead and ditch the headphone jack too.” reads Steve Kovach’s review for Business Insider.
As it turns out, it didn’t take a year or two. HTC, LeEco, and Essential all launched handsets without headphone jacks within the first year of iPhone 7’s launch. Motorola actually beat Apple to removing the port with the Moto Z launched in June of last year.1
And now Google has followed suit, despite mocking the iPhone 7’s missing port, with the Pixel 2. Like Apple, it will ship an adapter in the box, but it is pushing consumers towards its own wireless earphones called Pixel Buds.
Apple’s move didn’t hurt iPhone sales. The iPhone 7 helped Apple reclaim the top spot in global smartphone market share, and sales remained steady through June 2017, despite the launch of the Galaxy S8 a flood of rumors promising even greater things from iPhone X.
Still, the headphone jack lives on for some
The headphone jack is far from dead yet. Plenty of other smartphone makers are still pushing it, and that will remain the case for years to come. But a trend is emerging, and it will continue as our smartphones become thinner and more advanced than ever before.
Apple was right, then. We can live without a headphone jack, and removing it has its advantages. If you refuse to buy a smartphone without one, it might be a good idea to rethink your decision before your options become extremely limited.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
30 responses to “Remember when the internet lost its mind over a missing headphone jack?”
What were we suppose to be missing? HEHEHEHE. Wireless headphones are what most people use so Apple say that and moved forward.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
where’s the part about turning a free accessory into a necessary $200 purchase?
Weren’t wired headphones still included with the iPhone 7 for free? They just had lightning at the end instead of the traditional headphone jack.
yeah and then you can’t charge….
The 8 and X have wireless charging.
Wireless charging with the 8/8+, no Lightning cable needed to charge using wireless. :-)
OR if you want to buy the Apple Charging dock for $49, it has a 3.5mm jack on the back. But how many people actually charge AND listen to music through headphones at the same time? There are also splitters too, so that’s another option.
How many people actually do this though? I asked a bunch of my friends (with different brand phones) who does, and it turned out I am the only person who does this, and only at night and only because the battery in my iPhone is on death’s door. Most of the time people are listening to music while walking around. If you really do need to charge and listen, you can get a splitter cable.
Good way to lower battery life, when I went out frequently I tried to always keep a portable usb charger plugged into it… hence why my preowned iphone has 95% its original capacity after 3 years, (and my mom who only plugs it in when low is at 75% after 1 year).
Yeah, and they give you a free dongle for the older 3.5mm jack headphones and the dongle is less than 2 inches long. Not a big deal.
What cracks me up is the price these companies charge for a replacement dongle.
HTC charges $12 for theirs.
Google charges $20.
Apple? $9.
Also check to see what these Android mfg. are charging for storage.
Apple charges $150 to go from 64GB to 256GB on the 8+’s. That seems like a lot doesn’t it. Well, they are charging $.78 per GB.
Go to HTC, they charge $80 to go from 64GBB to 128GB, that’s $1.25 per GB.
Now, Google. They charge $100 to go from 64GB to 128GB, that’s $1.56 per GB and that’s double the price per GB than Apple.
$200? You mean headphones? Well, if you want to splurge, I got mine for 30 bucks.
I’m not saying there’s no merit in the argument, but you could make the same case for Apple not including a case with the phone, for instance.
A case isn’t required to use the phone…. Wireless headphones are if you want to charge.
headphones aren’t required to use the phone either.
I’m not over the headphone jack and I’m not over the optical drive. I still occasionally burn CDs with an external drive that I have to dig up.
Why did the rest of the industry “have” to?
Apple calls the shots as the market leader.
If I’m not mistaken, each company governs itself. If they don’t want to get rid of the headphone jack, they don’t have to. However, if they see a valid reason to follow suit, then that seems to lend credibility to the original decision.
Oppo actually removed the headphone jack for one model back in 2014, then Moto did it a few months before Apple, then Apple did it, and then HTC did it with their U11 and now Google.
out of the Google announcement, their Pixel buds do seem interesting. I do like the idea of having a cable for the earbuds even though it’s not used to plug in to the phone. It at least keeps them together and less likely you are going to lose one.
If they got the translation stuff to work with Translate on iOS and it actually worked, I might be interested if I have to use those earbuds. But otherwise, the Google announcement wasn’t enough to get me to switch.
I personally wish they used a 3.5mm jack that supported both balanced and unbalanced jacks. The problem with the unbalanced was the rustling noise when you moved the cable around. It was noisy. Balanced headphones don’t have that annoying noise and they are much quieter in terms of noise. If they support both balanced and unbalanced 3.5mm then people could also use high end headphones that can use balanced cables. I believe there are 3.5mm jacks that can support both, and there are plugs for either. That would have been much better.
Are you over the floppy disk?
Yes, we have a better and cheaper option. Compact disk. Bluetooth over headphone jack? Nah, still a long way to go
I think the SD card is the real equivalent replacement… New ones can perform like higher end SSD’s too. micro-sd can fit into regular adapters but without the switch on them aren’t they technically micro mmc’s not sd’s?…
#apple was right. #again!!! and they all follow. One can not stop Progress.
“Plenty of other smartphone makers are still pushing it,”. Apple is telling me that I have to buy a new stereo (mine is 20+ years old and sounds incredible); a new car as mine only has a headphone jack; stop playing music during the three yoga classes a week I teach because they only have wired access.
I imagine that I’m the only person on the planet that still has wired headphone jacks for *all* of my music need because Apple said so. It really seems like they’re going out of their way to alienate customers these days.
“Pushing it” indeed.
I think they just look at the world around them and sales of wireless headphones and said lets do this. I don’t see many if at all people still plugged in. If you get a new car now you just link via Bluetooth so that way you can easily charge and jam to the music. Don’t see how Apple was saying get rid of your stereo system you can use that the same way at home.
Use your incredible speakers from the set with a new device, or attach the output of a new receiver into it, no one claims you have to replace an old stereo,,,
“The reason behind the decision was simple: Apple needed to free up space for more modern technologies. The company wanted to bring new features to the iPhone, like brighter displays, stereo speakers, and the Taptic Engine. The headphone jack simply took up too much room.”
Thanks for the rationalization. But it’s hard to believe that a $700 billion company can’t figure out a way to keep the headphone jack. This is more about marketing and image. They’re trying to turn iPhones into a simple “just works” type of appliance with as little distraction from the screen as possible. The latest models don’t even have a “home” button.
Headphones are moving in the direction of wireless Bluetooth devices, to be sure. I use a Bose QC35 headset that is fantastic and I never use wired ‘phones anymore. But there are hundreds of millions of wired headphones out there. This is not going to be an overnight transition.
It is a big waste of space, not the tech but the physical plug compared with utilization of other electronic chips. you could use that volume on an extra cpu/soc or other complex electronics device.It could easily be an extra 128 GB+ storage fit in there too.
Bluetooth adapters are tiny and cheap plus seem to increase the talk time over traditional powered line headsets, but bluetooth still seems laggy to me when its asleep and you suddenly need to start hearing a sound out of the blue.. that’s the real only dislike I have.
“Needed free space for modern technologies” is the most bullshit point from this article. We all know the barometric vent that was supposed to be the headphone jack is just a piece of useless plastic. It’s already been busted on Strange Parts YouTube channel where he did put a headphone jack on his iPhone 7. It doesn’t add anything technology at all. The reason Apple ditched headphone jack is to dominate Bluetooth headphone market and it works on iPhone 7. Afraid of change and still clinging on floppy disk? Lol you’re deadly wrong. That is because we have a superior replacement (compact disk) and Bluetooth headphone is still not a better replacement for headphone jack at this moment. So many disadvantages than wired headphones. If we have a superior replacement like other tech before this, then we can happily forget about 3.5mm jack. But all we know this article is about justify Apple ‘courage’ to remove headphone jack just because Google did it. No! It’s still wrong on so many level. They are wrong and stupid just like Apple did.
It’s just that the new pixel phones only are getting sold in what 5 countries or so? In the end not much courage there.
My main problem with wireless headphones is simply that they are another device I need to charge and put on a power socket every day. I do not have that problem with normal wired headphones.