Bluetooth Won't Replace the Headphone Jack -- Walled Gardens Will (theverge.com) 380
Last year, when it was rumoured that the then upcoming iPhone models -- 7 and 7 Plus -- won't have the 3.5mm audio jack, The Verge's Nilay Patel wrote that if Apple does do it, it would be a user-hostile and stupid move. When those iPhone models were official announced, they indeed didn't have the audio jack. Earlier this week, Android-maker Google announced the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones that also don't feature the decades-old audio jack either, a move that would likely push rest of the smartphone makers to adopt a similar change. The rationale behind killing the traditional headphones jack, both Apple and Google say, is to move to an improved technology: Bluetooth. But there is another motive at play here, it appears. Patel, writes for The Verge: As the headphone jack disappears, the obvious replacement isn't another wire with a proprietary connector like Apple's Lightning or the many incompatible and strange flavors of USB-C audio. It's Bluetooth. And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons. Newer phones like the iPhone 8, Galaxy S8, and the Pixel 2 have Bluetooth 5, which promises to be better, but 1. There are literally no Bluetooth 5 headphones out yet, and 2. we have definitely heard that promise before. So we'll see. To improve Bluetooth, platform vendors like Apple and Google are riffing on top of it, and that means they're building custom solutions. And building custom solutions means they're taking the opportunity to prioritize their own products, because that is a fair and rational thing for platform vendors to do. Unfortunately, what is fair and rational for platform vendors isn't always great for markets, competition, or consumers. And at the end of this road, we will have taken a simple, universal thing that enabled a vibrant market with tons of options for every consumer, and turned it into yet another limited market defined by ecosystem lock-in. The playbook is simple: last year, Apple dropped the headphone jack and replaced it with its W1 system, which is basically a custom controller chip and software management layer for Bluetooth. The exemplary set of W1 headphones is, of course, AirPods, but Apple also owns Beats, and there are a few sets of W1 Beats headphones available as well. You can still use regular Bluetooth headphones with an iPhone, and you can use AirPods as regular Bluetooth headphones, but the combination iPhone / W1 experience is obviously superior to anything else on the market. [...] Google's version of this is the Pixel Buds, a set of over-ear neckbuds that serve as basic Bluetooth headphones but gain additional capabilities when used with certain phones. Seamless fast pairing? You need Android N or higher, which most Android phones don't have.
Latency (Score:4, Insightful)
So, does the new Bluetooth standards fix latency problems? Specifically, when watching video (hooked up to a monitor via HDMI) and listening to a bluetooth headset, the audio sync is *always* off.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Latency (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not going to buy a new set because Apple - or Google wants me to. Fuck them. I'd sooner switch cell phones. Eventually, the manufacturers will get the message.
Good, then you'll be happy. I've used plain old headphones with my iPhone 7.
But hey, it's good to see a man of your convictions, have you considered a feature phone?
Re: $300 headphones (Score:2)
Eventually, the manufacturers will get the message.
Or die a suitably painful death; I'm hoping for the latter.
Re:$300 headphones (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, nothing sends a message like 3% of your least-profitable customers banding together to found an organic juniper berry & desert reclamation profit-sharing co-operative.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:$300 headphones (Score:5, Insightful)
I use the headphone jack nearly every day...as its the only (cheap) way to use my phone with my car speakers.
Sucks how, exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
> And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons.
Does it? I have bluetooth headphones. They are not made by a company affiliated to either my computer or my telephone, the two devices I use them with. I turn my headphones on and audio starts coming out of them. The audio sounds fine. What part of my experience sucks?
Most of the author's complaints seem to revolve around how most fast-pairing protocols are currently proprietary, but... pairing your headphones is something you don't do very often, so it's at best a minor inconvenience.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Does it?
Yes.
The audio sounds fine.
I'm glad it's fine for you. For me, it's far from fine.
Re: (Score:2)
Does it?
Yes.
The audio sounds fine.
I'm glad it's fine for you. For me, it's far from fine.
What is worse, Apple makes absolutely no way that person can use th obviously superior headphone with the 1/8th inch jack It's impossible! and never will be.
And before you start shitting your pants about the Dongle, that unuseable piece of equipment that probably destroys your phone - if for some reason you actually do need top tier headphones, well, those need a dongle too as an adapter. All my studio phones have the larger jacks on them. Yer talkin shite, and you just hate Apple, and are now getting
Re: (Score:2)
I honestly can't decipher what you're saying here.
Re:Sucks how, exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad it's fine for you. For me, it's far from fine.
I agree that you can hear the difference between BlueTooth and wired. I think most people could in a decent listening environment. The thing is that the Venn Diagram has a very tiny intersection point at "People who care", "People who listen to high-quality recordings on their phone", and "People who use their phone to listen to music in conditions approaching anywhere near an ideal".
When the marketing department sees the throngs of people salivating over ooooo... skinny! vs the handful of people complaining about DACs and jacks - well, they make their choice.
In the end, the pickier users can get the USB-C/lightning adapter and move on with life - so long as their battery is nice and fresh!
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
I don't follow. In what way to they "suck"? Presumably you can just "permanently" attach it to your headphones and carry on like it had a 1/8" jack?
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and I forgot one of the major problems with the dongles: they use up the USB connector.
Re:Sucks how, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually going to disagree with you there. Traditionally, the audio jack is on top and that is a bad spot for it. Putting it on the bottom like Samsung did in the S7 turns out to be a better position.
I too thought it belonged on the top like in my old faithful S4, gone to phone heaven before its time. Then I put a headphone jack in and it became obvious that it belongs on the bottom. Here is how.
If not enlightened, repeat steps until reached.
Re: (Score:3)
I hate those things. They grab you in all the wrong places and then your feet turn blue for the lack of blood.
Re:Sucks how, exactly? (Score:5, Funny)
but they do mean that dongles are a bit of a pain in the ass.
You're using them wrong! /me hides.
Re: (Score:2)
They increase the bulk,
I'm going to dismiss that, as people who care about the sound that much have some pretty bulky headphones.
they decrease reliability and repairability,
I don't know if I can agree with this, either. 1/8" headphone connections are pretty darned unreliable. Probably 99% of my headphones have developed a problem at the plug. Sometimes I fix it (my Sennheisers) - but more often they get tossed in the garbage. I've also had to repair multiple 1/8" jacks - including one on a phone. I've had micro USB cords go bad, too - but never a jack. I don't know how USB
Re: (Score:3)
I'm going to dismiss that, as people who care about the sound that much have some pretty bulky headphones.
Consider me the exception, then. I use earbuds with my phone (admittedly high-quality ones, but earbuds nonetheless). I'm no audiophile, I just want the sounds quality to be reasonably good.
1/8" headphone connections are pretty darned unreliable. Probably 99% of my headphones have developed a problem at the plug.
Over the decades, I've had exactly one socket go bad. In every other case, what goes bad is the cable on the earphone side where it leads into the plug. That is trivial to repair with earphones, but much more difficult to repair with dongles and adapters in my experience.
Yes, they are definitely an additional step that audiophiles did not previously need to take
Again, I'm no audiophile. And the pain in the ass
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with this. There are absolutely situations where Bluetooth is the better way to go. There are other situations where wired is the way to do.
For years now, phones have been able to support both use cases. It sucks that some manufacturers have decided that one of those use cases is no longer important.
Re: Sucks how, exactly? (Score:2)
The audio sounds fine.
It sounds okay if both devices support true lossless. I'm going to guess that my bluetooth speaker system (2015 Suburban with factory Bose) is probably more capable than whatever you're using... and it still sounds better if I use analog aux-in.
Re:Sucks how, exactly? (Score:5, Insightful)
> And Bluetooth continues to suck, for a variety of reasons.
Does it?
Yes. It absolutely does. Here's my day to day experience with bluetooth.
Get in the car, set the phone down and turn the car audio to bluetooth mode. Fortunately, it's still 'technically' paired so I don't have to re-pair. However, the last device that my car audio was paired with tends to be my husband's phone, so now the audio system flails a bit while trying to figure out how to connect. Even though my Galaxy S reports that the BT audio has connected immediately, the car audio (comes with the 2016 Leaf, so not exactly ancient) says that the device is not connected. So I'll pull over to the side of the road and start fiddling. I'll select my phone from the car's bluetooth menu, it'll pop up a "downloading address book" popup status message. I didn't ask it to do this, there's no option to turn this off. This step naturally never succeeds. I cancel, try again. Same thing. Eventually, it'll just start skipping this step and I'll get a 'connect' button finally. This step usually works.
I'll usually have to kill the youtube process on my phone since Youtube's app is not smart enough to switch to a new bluetooth connection when it happens (when I'm in the car, I'll get a hankering to listen to a specific song I don't have on my phone. I've found Youtube is the best for that). Now, thanks to collisions in instructions between the car and the phone, the audio stream will start, auto-pause, and then start again. At that point, I'll either have gotten into a car accident or arrived at my destination.
My husband told me that the process probably wouldn't be nearly as rough if we weren't switching devices all the time, that the car wouldn't have to flail around reconnecting. But generally he'll connect his phone during the week, and I'll connect mine during the weekend. Maybe it really would be better if there was just one music device per output. I could blame my car audio system, and I certainly do, but the other car audio systems with bluetooth I'd tried were even worse. This being more recent, it actually works better.
It shouldn't be surprising that my husband's iphone works a bit better than my Samsung Galaxy -- of course the cars with the fancy audio systems will be designed for Apple's stuff. But I'm not looking forward to my next car where most likely there won't even be an analog jack, nor do I look forward to the "phones of the future" which will have no audio jack but instead some fucked up sound system that requires more fiddling than analog wires ever did, requires batteries that have to be recharged and will die out and are likely not replaceable, and sound worse than ye olde analog.
But geez, at least it doesn't have wires! Wires are horrible! So horrible that it's worth all these other sound fuckups just to get rid of wires!
Re: (Score:3)
So I'll pull over to the side of the road and start fiddling. I'll select my phone from the car's bluetooth menu, it'll pop up a "downloading address book" popup status message. I didn't ask it to do this, there's no option to turn this off. This step naturally never succeeds. I cancel, try again. Same thing. Eventually, it'll just start skipping this step and I'll get a 'connect' button finally. This step usually works.
I'll usually have to kill the youtube process on my phone since Youtube's app is not smart enough to switch to a new bluetooth connection when it happens (when I'm in the car, I'll get a hankering to listen to a specific song I don't have on my phone. I've found Youtube is the best for that). Now, thanks to collisions in instructions between the car and the phone, the audio stream will start, auto-pause, and then start again. At that point, I'll either have gotten into a car accident or arrived at my destination.
That sounds remarkably like the audio experience in Linux on the desktop.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
AC, you are misinformed. Look up aptX -- it's lossless Bluetooth audio, largely based on FLAC compression itself.
Re:Sucks how, exactly? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Apple doesn't support aptX, period. AAC is as good as it gets, provided the headphones support that codec...otherwise, iOS falls back to SBC.
Re: (Score:3)
Google's Pixel and Pixel 2 phones both support aptX-HD. I'm looking at my Pixel XL right now, it's one of the listed options.
aptX sounds fine for most stuff anyway. And if you are listening to lossless why would you use the phone's headphone amplifier? That would be crazy, you would need to use a USB DAC/amp combo to get quality good enough for lossless to matter.
Re:Sucks how, exactly? (Score:4, Informative)
AC, you are misinformed. Look up aptX -- it's lossless Bluetooth audio, largely based on FLAC compression itself.
AptX still does not have enough bandwidth to provide a high quality audio experience since it has to run over Blutooth so it compresses audio using a lossy codec. AptX is better than the current codecs used for Bluetooth but it doesn't give you analog quality.
Re:Sucks how, exactly? (Score:5, Funny)
AptX is better than the current codecs used for Bluetooth but it doesn't give you analog quality.
This argument over audio quality from a cellphone is pretty funny. You folks are all novices. I'm a purist. I have a cellphone I built out of vacuum tubes because nothing beats the audio warmth you get from a vacuum tube amplifier. I power and charge my cellphone using a cable made from deoxygenated 8 gauge copper wires, because the oxygen in normal cables interferes with the highs and the high-current capacity of big wire can power the transient demands of good bass.
If you are someone who uses a cellphone as an audio source while you are sitting in your home theater, then you've admitted you don't care about the sound quality and complaining that it isn't perfection is just silly. You're going to buy the components to do the job right. If you are someone who is using the cellphone like the vast majority of people, to provide distractions from having to deal with other people while you walk or ride the bus or drive in the car, then your listening environment is so full of extraneous sounds that you will never get purity in your sound.
And that's why this whole debate over sound quality is silly. Convenience, yes, argue that, but arguing that the high frequency reproduction from your bluetooth earbud while you're riding the bus is clearly inferior to a wired studio monitor analog headphone with 1/4" TRS connector is, well, wasting a lot of everyone's time.
Re: (Score:2)
AptX is better than the current codecs used for Bluetooth but it doesn't give you analog quality.
This argument over audio quality from a cellphone is pretty funny. You folks are all novices. I'm a purist. I have a cellphone I built out of vacuum tubes because nothing beats the audio warmth you get from a vacuum tube amplifier. I power and charge my cellphone using a cable made from deoxygenated 8 gauge copper wires, because the oxygen in normal cables interferes with the highs and the high-current capacity of big wire can power the transient demands of good bass.
If you are someone who uses a cellphone as an audio source while you are sitting in your home theater, then you've admitted you don't care about the sound quality and complaining that it isn't perfection is just silly. You're going to buy the components to do the job right. If you are someone who is using the cellphone like the vast majority of people, to provide distractions from having to deal with other people while you walk or ride the bus or drive in the car, then your listening environment is so full of extraneous sounds that you will never get purity in your sound.
And that's why this whole debate over sound quality is silly. Convenience, yes, argue that, but arguing that the high frequency reproduction from your bluetooth earbud while you're riding the bus is clearly inferior to a wired studio monitor analog headphone with 1/4" TRS connector is, well, wasting a lot of everyone's time.
Wow, overreact much... You took my comment that the audio quality is better out of a headphone jack and then went nuclear.
No one is arguing that you're going to get a studio quality experience with a cell phone. And no one is arguing that bluetooth isn't good enough for many people. But some of us prefer at least a good CD like experience (which cell phones do provide), whether it's walking on the street or riding a bus and bluetooth just doesn't deliver yet. And just because you don't necessarily get a
Re: (Score:2)
Bluetooth does not (and never will) have the bandwidth for the higher resolution audio files (flac for one)..
And neither do your ears in any normal environment.
I don't want to charge my headphones (Score:5, Insightful)
I already have audio technica m50x's and beyerdynamic dt770s. I'm not buying a phone that they won't work with, and I'm not switching to your fucking bluetooth beats you greedy fucks.
Re:I don't want to charge my headphones (Score:4, Interesting)
Same here. If the smartphone isn't compatible with my headphones then it only means I'm buying another smartphone instead.
Can you imagine Macs not being compatible with non-Apple keyboard and mouse? Nobody would use a Mac, that mouse is crap.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you imagine Macs not being compatible with non-Apple keyboard and mouse?
Kind of [apple-history.com].
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that Apple sells a wireless trackpad for your desktop computer tells you everything you need to know. It's all about form over function.
Re: (Score:2)
This, too.
My main complaint with Bluetooth is audio quality. My second (but still huge) complaint is the whole charging problem.
It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason why Apple (and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior is not dependent on Bluetooth 5.0; it is because they support a far-superior CODEC, namely AAC, than typical shitbox BT 'phones/'buds.
Mind you, stuff like Apple's W1/W2 chips helps; but the main improvement is due to AAC.
And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Look into it.
Re:It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC (Score:5, Insightful)
(and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior
Beats? Superior??
Beats is downright terrible. They're one of, if not the, worst-sounding in their price range.
Re: It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC (Score:2)
Beats? Superior??
The software EQ with the most superior marketing.
Re: (Score:2)
(and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior
Beats? Superior??
Beats is downright terrible. They're one of, if not the, worst-sounding in their price range.
Ok, but I don't think that is due to their use of AAC, do you?
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it, but I wasn't really commenting on AAC. I was just surprised at seeing Beats mentioned as being something superior.
Re: (Score:3)
They don't sound terrible to me. Sure, they don't sound as good as a pair of over-the-hear studio headphones, but then again, if I'm in a position where I *want* to really enjoy my music to the fullest extent possible, I wouldn't be using some little bluetooth headphones anyway. I would be using a set of high quality studio headphones, if not actual regular speakers. When I am out and about, *who cares* if the sound isn't top quality? I challenge anyone to be able to pick out the subtle nuances of a son
Re: It isn't the BT 5 that Counts, it's the AAC (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Well not with apple. Apple send the raw AAC stream to the headphones for them to decompress and play. Sony's high end ones support it too. The problem becomes that if your music is coming from Spotify, Google or Pandora, they are sent to the headphones by SBC (the lowest quality bluetooth codec) . On android, some manufacturers have added Apt-X or LDAC encoding, so the stream sent to the headphones is higher quality. You're still experiencing encoding artifacts from what ever the music is encoded with pl
Re: (Score:2)
The reason why Apple (and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior is not dependent on Bluetooth 5.0; it is because they support a far-superior CODEC, namely AAC, than typical shitbox BT 'phones/'buds.
Mind you, stuff like Apple's W1/W2 chips helps; but the main improvement is due to AAC.
And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Look into it.
By the time the music starts its path across Bluetooth (or a headphone jack) it's already decoded.
Re: (Score:2)
The reason why Apple (and Beats, and some other Mfgs) BT earbuds/headphones are superior is not dependent on Bluetooth 5.0; it is because they support a far-superior CODEC, namely AAC, than typical shitbox BT 'phones/'buds.
Mind you, stuff like Apple's W1/W2 chips helps; but the main improvement is due to AAC.
And no, the proprietary aptX is NOT an equivalent. And did I mention "proprietary" (owned by Qualcomm)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
By contrast, AAC is an industry-standard (not Apple-proprietary, as many believe).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Look into it.
By the time the music starts its path across Bluetooth (or a headphone jack) it's already decoded.
Definitely true of WIRED connections (analog or digital); but for BT, AFAIK, notsomuch. Why else would they have certain audio CODECS listed?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
According to Apple's documentation [netdna-cdn.com] they seem to be using AAC at 256kb/sec. That's considerably lower than aptX at around 360kb/sec.
Of course you can argue over which sounds better but since most headphones don't support AAC it's really more of a choice of do you want shitty Beats/Earpods, or do you want some good headphones in which case the lack of aptX support in iOS is a bit of a problem.
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
a move that would likely push rest of the smartphone makers to adopt a similar change
Not the ones that I'll be buying from, until there is an alternative to the wire that is at least as good.
If that means I'm buying a older model, so be it. It probably won't, though. My
prediction is that there will be high-end smartphones with headphone jacks for a few years yet. There will probably be at least one remaining manufacturer that will be happy to take the money from people Apple and Google have decided are no longer important to them.
Re: (Score:2)
No need to stock up. Older used smartphones will be on the market for a very, very long time. There's a store 500 yards away from me right now that does nothing but sell such phones.
factory firmware forever (Score:2)
Complete with the latest and greatest vendor-supported security patches?
Don't you mean flip phones? Because many of those are just fine running factory firmware forever and ever.
Re: (Score:3)
I mean smartphones. The store I mentioned sells both sorts.
Since I replace the operating system on my phones anyway, I don't care about security (or other) patches. I won't be using them anyway, as I just upgrade the OS myself.
Improved Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Improved Technology (Score:5, Funny)
Mhmm. Right. One should think of the headphone jack as a simple electrical interface, rather than some sort of magical sound-transport medium.
Well there you are wrong. My audiophile friends and me have done the experiments, and the best sound possible is found when using the small headphone jacks. It lends a vibrancy and a sort of anti-listening fatigue to teh sound. The 1/8th inch phone jack also extends th ehigh and low end of any headphone, an dthe crispness efface due to the smaller spring metal used, can make a 5 dollar headphone bought at Big Lots sound much superior to a stutio headphone, sa a Beyerdynamic. Where after listening to test tones for a hundred straight hours had people tearing the phones off their heads and run screaming out of the room, while the 5 dollar Big Lot's phones and the exquisite 1/8th inch jack and plugs we had to turn off the test tones after two weeks because we were concerned about the wearers starving to death, and they sure didn't smell good by that time.
Audiophile approved as a critical component of anyone who isn't tone deaf.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The 1/8th inch phone jack also extends th ehigh and low end of any headphone, an dthe crispness efface due to the smaller spring metal used,
This sounds like the kind of stuff you read in the ads in high-end audiophile magazines, where people will sell you 000 gauge power cords for your power amps because the big wire has a lower impedance and allows the amp to reproduce low frequencies better. Or the company that was selling a gold plated digital-certified HDMI cables for, IIRC, $400, because it guaranteed error-free digital sound and video. Or deoxygenated copper cables, or any number of other snake oils.
Never going to replace $5 earbuds (Score:3)
The real problem with removing the 3.5mm jack is with headphone durability. If you use earbuds a lot chance are you wear them out at intervals. When you have a 3.5mm jack and you drop a bud in a glass of water, you say that sucks and go buy another cheap pair of buds.
Re: (Score:2)
The real problem with removing the 3.5mm jack is with headphone durability. If you use earbuds a lot chance are you wear them out at intervals. When you have a 3.5mm jack and you drop a bud in a glass of water, you say that sucks and go buy another cheap pair of buds.
I've listened to regular 3.5 mm plug phones on my iPhone 7. It isn't magic.
Re: (Score:2)
With the dongle, sure. But either I need to buy three dongles (car, office, and home) and then hope I don't lose the little things, or I have to try to carry it with me everywhere, which almost assures that I it'll get washed or lost or left behind pretty quickly. And there's at least a couple of hours at work where I can't listen and charge my phone at the same time. That's not ideal, and certainly a step down from what I've got now.
Re: (Score:2)
I've had the opposite durability problem: the headphone jacks on my last two phones have been flaky and progressively harder to keep working with any earbuds. Bluetooth is my solution for that.
Re: (Score:2)
Just like Common Core... (Score:3, Insightful)
It adds extra bullshit to something that should be as simple.(like plug it in)
instead pair your device, make sure its charged and make sure to turn off Bluetooth when you are not using it! Then when done add those extra batteries to the electronic graveyard! I have had plenty of jacks work for years, I have also had Bluetooth transmitters that sucked so bad they were choppy from 3 feet away or burned out . I can replace a jack in most devices. Not an integrated Bluetooth chip.
Great Job!
While reading this, the imagery it evoked (Score:3, Funny)
was a depressed Goth teenager saying "don't bother... it's probably just going to suck anyways".
Invisible hand...if only (Score:3)
If there really is such a thing as a free market, at least one of the major manufacturers should keep making a phone with the headphone jack. There have to be millions of people who are entirely uninterested in finding themselves locked into what will probably evolve into a one-station radio, with its own stable of "approved" entertainers, and no doubt a "how often can we shear the sheep" approach to monthly fees.
iTunes and Google Play etc; (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes I am pissed at these assholes, Sony, Apple, Google and the whole shebang deserve to be roasted for what they do to classical recordings. Sell me pure 24 bit by at least 96 audio files of great well mixed recordings and I will pay but as long as you jackasses 'normalize' and compress the shit out of classical recording I want nothing to do with you and you will not get one more cent out of my pocket period.
Just one more thing on my "do not buy" list (Score:4, Insightful)
The other is currently a non-removable battery. Sure, the "high end" crap is a no-go that way, but I will get a phone designed by actual engineers, not by marketing morons and wannabe "designers". It will also be much cheaper and do what I need.
Foundations of Freemarkets. (Score:4, Insightful)
For the invisible hand of the free market to work, you need competition. You also need informed customers making rational decisions. If customers are not informed, or if they are apathetic or if they make irrational decisions, it would produce weird results.
Market bubbles from tulip bubbles to emu farming to credit default swap derivatives ... to million people a day buying phones sans headphone jacks.
The free market IS working (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? Bluetooth instead of headphone jacks is a market bubble? Do you logic?
Re: (Score:2)
The premise is wrong (Score:3)
âBluetooth continues to suckâ.
No it fucking doesnâ(TM)t, so stop with the BS. Yes, its true that cheapass bluetooth headpones are bad. Buy the good ones, of which there are many, instead. As more and more people move to wireless, their price will continue to go down. It was pretty hilarious to read about how the Airpods were supposedly âexpensiveâ. Apple literally came in and ate everybodyâ(TM)s lunch. Wireless headphones that used to cost $400 are now $200-250 all of a sudden because Apple forced other manufacturers to respond. Yes, I get that you want your âgood enoughâ headphones for $20 and these are not far away any longer.
Re: (Score:2)
For me, it's not that Airpods are expensive. It's that they are UNCOMFORTABLE. Apple earbuds in general hurt my ears. I much prefer the type of earbuds that use gels (such as Skullcandy).
Re: (Score:2)
For me, it's not that Airpods are expensive. It's that they are UNCOMFORTABLE. Apple earbuds in general hurt my ears. I much prefer the type of earbuds that use gels (such as Skullcandy).
I actually agree with you. I personally tried out Airpods and ended up getting Beats X instead. Those fit me right ouf the box and come with a set of FOUR replacement eartips of different size.
Replace? I thought they support both . . . (Score:2)
I can't see any major player removing support for Bluetooth Audio. So consumers will end with a choice of either using BT, using a legacy headphone jack through a (hopefully free in the box) adapter or using a new one.
This is kind of the opposite of a walled garden, as I understand the term. Here consumers have a choice. In order to be a walled garden, they would have to start locking out all the non-proprietary methods.
Yet another thing to keep charged... (Score:3)
since they got to get rid of the headphone jack (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but then you can't use the USB jack for anything else. We're still talking about a loss of functionality.
Big difference (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a pretty huge difference between saying for best audio quality you need headphones made by us, our subsidiaries, or those who are paying us a licensing fee (Apple) and "Seamless fast pairing? You need Android N or higher, which most Android phones don't have." (Google).
Google haven't added something to the phone that means only headphones they produce or license can work, instead they added something to a headphone. And others could make headphones that do the same thing without paying special fees to Google. And the OS requirement doesn't mean you need a Nexus or Pixel phone, it could be from Motorola, or Samsung or LG or countless others.
Are there good BT headphones? (Score:2)
A few months ago I bought Samsung U-Pro wireless headphones and granted they were cheaper than my 10 year old wired headphones which cost 10 times as much but the BT headphones weren't even as good as the headphones that came with my Walkman in 1985.
Through my laptop they sounded extremely tinny. Maybe it's just Samsung who I should know better than to buy anything from but I couldn't believe how bad they sounded. They sounded a little better through my phone which is NOT a Samsung - I read something aft
Can the free market fix this? (Score:2)
Apple and Google competitors. Just start buying from companies that don't suck as bad.
Huh? (Score:2)
I got bluetooth headphones from Aliexpress for 12 bucks and they're better than the white wired free ones.
Why would anybody shell out lots of dough for a cable?
Problems with BT.... (Score:2)
I'll keep my wired, 1/8" jack than you.
Re: (Score:2)
Can one enable BT but not enable cell? If so it is not straightforward.
Yes, you can, and it's straightforward on every phone that I've ever used. There are separate controls to enable/disable each of the radios (cell/WiFi/BT), so you can mix and match.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Put the phone in airplane mode, then reenable bluetooth, and you're good to go.
Re:Bluetooth audio is great (Score:5, Insightful)
While this is an interesting argument, I'd like to point out, as someone who has been using BT headphones for the last 3 years, that I have to replace headphones way more often than cellular devices. I think I'm on my 3rd set with this phone, and the right bud on this one has a short, so the third is not long for this world either.
So moving the "high end DAC" to the headset may have some advantages, but not having to rebuy it as often is NOT one of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Here is a hint from the actual real world: Even low-end audio DACs are much better than what a human can hear these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What a bunch of bunk. Bluetooth audio is fantastic. They've even got lossless Bluetooth audio nowadays (aptX), so there is no quality lost. By moving the audio DAC and sensitive analog circuitry away from the noisy CPU and mass storage, we could potentially achieve even greater Signal to Noise Ratio. The consumer will only have to pay for a high end DAC -once- in his lifetime instead of paying for a mediocre DAC in every phone, tablet, and computer he buys in his life.
Every pair of headphones I buy inevitably ends up breaking a wire internally after so many uses, besides having those wires constantly in the way. Hell yeah I want to move away from the 3.5mm audio jack!
AptX-HD (lossless), from what I read, requires more bandwidth than Bluetooth can provide. If you are using Bluetooth, then you are stuck with AptX (lossy), not AptX-HD. While AptX is better than most of the current codecs, it still pales in comparison to analog.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
no, it won't happen because consumers will want to use a variety of headphones
Until they cant.
also, bluetooth whilst not perfect works pretty-well these days in most cases
Bluetooth will never beat the reliability of a wire, which by the way, also doesn't need it's own battery and charger.
Re: (Score:3)
Apple/Google apologists are not very smart. This idea of "coexistence" is probably too complex for them. Same as the idea that Apple or Google could actually be wrong on something.
Re: (Score:2)
What am I being locked into, exactly?
Plugging the headset in every night. You have become a slave to your devices. Plugging in a phone or a tablet I can understand because the alternative is to use them plugged into a wall which makes them less portable obviously. But you have lost the freedom to be able to use them 24 hours a day if you want, you have to take time out for charging. And you have lost the freedom to be able to throw them into a drawer for a month and take them out afterwards and use them right away.
Re: (Score:3)
All arguments against removing the headphone jack ironically seem to be complaining because users now have more choices, not less... listen to what you are saying people!
Your statement would be true if people were complaining that phones support Bluetooth audio. But nobody is complaining about that.
What we're complaining about is the loss of functionality, not the existence of other technologies. In other words, the complaint really is about having less choice.