Long before it was ever announced, the rumor of there being no standard 3.5mm headphone jack in the iPhone 7 spread like wildfire. It was terrible, unthinkable, and downright silly to simply remove the standard headphone jack in favor of using the Lightning port, the same port that charges the device. The rumors would prove to be true come September when Apple announced the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but Apple wasn’t the first to make such a critical change last year. As it turned out, both LeEco and Lenovo considered the feature inferior to the clarity of USB-C and omitted the 3.5mm headphone jack in some of their most popular phones last year as well, well ahead of Apple’s reveal.
The trend continues this year as enthusiasts are left to wonder whether new phones will have a 3.5mm headphone jack or not. Sometimes they do, like the Samsung Galaxy S8, which was rumored at one point not to have one; sometimes they don’t, such as the HTC U 11. As the gradual removal of the headphone jack becomes a common occurrence just one year later, we now have the perspective and clarity to revisit the topic and ask ourselves: Just how important is the headphone jack, anyway?
Like every subject, responses will vary from person to person. I’ve seen both vehement opposition and support of the removal; I’ve also seen people change their minds as their favorite flagship turns up without one or as other features of a device make up for the lack of headphone jack. On the other hand, many remain staunchly opposed.
Personally, I’m finding it difficult to move past it. I filter out the phones that don’t have a headphone jack because it’s still something I use almost every day, sometimes when I’m charging my phone. I have a healthy (or unhealthy) collection of earbuds laying around my house: in my room, computer desk, car, and purse. The only reason they’re there is because I’ve forgotten them there, but they’ve come in handy. I’m a forgetful person, so trying to remember to bring an adapter dongle with me everywhere I go otherwise wouldn’t work well for me until I had enough time to build up another collection of forgotten dongles. Additionally, I switch between Android and iOS frequently enough to where choosing between USB-C or Lightning connection headphones could be a hassle, just like it is with chargers.
If the trend continues and it ends up dying out, I’m sure I would adapt. For now, I’m doing the whole “voting with my wallet” thing by opting to avoid phones with no headphone jack as it’s still important to me, and there are still plenty of devices out there that include it. Mostly I’m just hoping that it ends up like the time companies tried to remove microSD card support in favor of cloud storage; many of them just ended up bringing it back. No harm, no foul. On the other hand, removable batteries had the same fate and has yet to make a resurgence.
Readers, now that we’ve had a year to settle in to the new reality that phones may or may not have a headphone jack, what are your feelings on it? Are you staunchly against their removal, or are you more lenient now that we’ve had time to get accustomed? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
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