Why was headphone jack removed?

[aevan]

It was removed because Apple profits a lot more this way.

This video explains the reasons behind it.

That video presents a very simplified view of the situation. The reason is, of course, control - directing the course for the future. Apple wants more control - for profit, for their vision of computing but, most of all, for the Apple experience. One good example is the Intel cpus in the Mac. Apple almost certainly wants to put their own processors into the Mac, and sure, the side effect of that move will be bigger profits, but the main reason is control of the experience for the user.

This control has positive and negative aspects. In the end, it’s how Apple operates and has been operating for decades. Simplifying this approach to “profiting from cables” is narrow minded.

Also, lol, it doesn’t at all apply to usb-c If Apple wanted to remove the jack to force manufacturers into Lightning, why put usb-c on the iPad? This whole viewpoint is wrong.

They removed the jack because it was taking up space, wireless is the future, and a cheap adapter can fix the situation. Seriously, “I forgot/lost the adapter” is not a good reason to halt the transition to modern ports and communication methods.
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No one stops people from going wireless even if they have the 3.5 mm jack . This decision was wrong for people like me who care about audio quality. Bluetooth has long way to go to reach the quality of the 3.5 mm jack.

That being said most companies care about this so in the end of the day they will remove it from their phones. I could only hope that they improve the audio quality significantly in the meantime.

Adapter. $9. Enjoy audio quality, until usb-c wired headphones become standard, or BT becomes acceptable to you. Transitions are never easy, but as far as transitions go, a $9 adapter is quite a painless solution. Unless you pathologically loose objects smaller than your wallet, like a lot of people here claim they do.

 

[haruhiko]

The headphone jack may be too deep to hit the screen components. But Apple could have included the adapter. But iPad has never come with any earphones anyway.

 

[secretk]

I agree, don’t get me wrong. I don’t like the lack of a headphone jack myself as i have several mid/high-end headphones myself. But its a trend more and more manufacturers are following.

Unfortunately that's the truth .

On the other hand, shouldnt we be connecting our expensive headphones to a quality dedicated player, DAC/AMP instead of an iPad anyway? But perhaps, that’s another discussion

Yes, if we care really about quality we should use DAC/AMP. Those DAC/AMP use connectors though. USB-C DACs are still new and not always good though. And some of them might not be compatible with the device you are working with.
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Adapter. $9. Enjoy audio quality, until usb-c wired headphones become standard, or BT becomes acceptable to you. Transitions are never easy, but as far as transitions go, a $9 adapter is quite a painless solution. Unless you pathologically loose objects smaller than your wallet, like a lot of people here claim they do.

Ugh dongles denote the whole purpose of mobile device. If I have to carry around dongles with my portable devices, it's better to not have them at all. Smartphone/ipad is supposed to be a portable device. Removing things from a device so that 90 % of the people can carry around dongles that actually represent what is missing from the phone denotes the whole purpose of removing it. So let's have thinner phone but bring dongles. In the end I will have to buy separate pouch for all of those dongles.

The whole trend of having thin phones without headphone jacks is wrong. I feel like the whole smartphone industry is stuck, can't come up with innovative ideas so they decided to focus on bezels and headphone jacks.

Something is completely wrong here. What sucks is that most of the brands follow Apple and Samsung so they just go with the flow with those "smart" ideas. I wanted to change my phone few months ago. I honestly was that close buying regular old phone that makes phone calls and keep my old one for an audio device. I don't care about big phones, notches and headphone jacks removal. I don't care about 4K displays either. I want small 4.6 inch phone that has decent battery (read one battery charge lasts at least 3 days) and has decent audio when it comes to calls. And it can connect to Internet via mobile carrier or WIFI. And honestly I can't even find phone like that. In the end I bought an year old 4.6 inch Android phone with headphone jack. I am pretty aware that in 3 years when I decided to change my phone again I won't have that much luck.

Anyway back to the point. Removing headphone jack so that the phone could be thinner is not innovation. And I say this for all of the brands, not just Apple. This is called let's come up with some idea to call it innovation because we have no idea what to do that is really innovative. That being said I am pretty sure that Apple has other benefits from removing the headphone jack aside of calling it innovation. Most of them were already mentioned up in the thread.

 

[Mystro]

Removing the headphone jack was not innovative but more lazy on Apple’s part. Apple could have engineered it in but the bean counters did the math and demographics and figured the dongle was a acceptable solution. I can understand doing this on a phone but a “Pro” devise it was a insult. It was the only issue I struggled with before purchasing my new Pro. Now I have to buy a dozen or so dongles for my company to have “just in case”. I feel Apple should have at least included the dongle in each new IPad Pro box.

 

[Cashmonee]

My understanding with the iPad in particular, the removal was due to the thin bezels. They could not fit the screen that close to the edge and maintain thinness.

Having said that, it is beyond stupid from a functionality standpoint. High quality headphones are wired for one, and a person should be able to choose to use a high quality headphone if they want. Although if you are a company selling Beats, then maybe you want to discourage high quality headphones. Secondly, if I choose to use the separately purchased dongle, I cannot charge the iPad at the same time. Real innovation there. Glad they got rid of the antiquated tech that allowed me to use nice headphones while also charging the iPad. Huge leap forward! Next thing you know, they'll sell us a trash can! Wait...

 

[muzzy996]

*shrug* The main thought that comes to mind is if I were running a for profit company and had the ability to determine the moment at which the majority of my product users no longer needed a particular component of my product I would remove that component without cutting MSRP and marginalize the balance of my users through an accessory to retain the functionality that was lost. I’d find a way to market the decision to reduce customer loss.

Kind of seems like that’s all this is . . .No?

 

[BorderingOn]

You haven't truly experienced Netflix until you experience it with $1500 Focal Clear headphones in hotel rooms late at night through a pure headphone jack without a dongle

Do you think a $10 dongle is going to have a quality amp in it to drive full size headphones?

 

[secretk]

My understanding with the iPad in particular, the removal was due to the thin bezels. They could not fit the screen that close to the edge and maintain thinness.

Having said that, it is beyond stupid from a functionality standpoint. High quality headphones are wired for one, and a person should be able to choose to use a high quality headphone if they want. Although if you are a company selling Beats, then maybe you want to discourage high quality headphones. Secondly, if I choose to use the separately purchased dongle, I cannot charge the iPad at the same time. Real innovation there. Glad they got rid of the antiquated tech that allowed me to use nice headphones while also charging the iPad. Huge leap forward! Next thing you know, they'll sell us a trash can! Wait...

I honestly don't see any person using iPad Pro for music production (which people claim that is possible from app point of view) with wireless headphones. That's just not highly possible.

For phone I understand. I don't like it but I can see how less people use wired headphones nowadays with their phones. That's not the case when it comes to iPad and laptops. It's like with removing the headphone jack, Apple kind of buried Garageband and iMovie and all apps like that.

 

[PanAm-L1011]

Removing the headphone jack was not innovative but more lazy on Apple’s part. Apple could have engineered it in but the bean counters did the math and demographics and figured the dongle was a acceptable solution. I can understand doing this on a phone but a “Pro” devise it was a insult. It was the only issue I struggled with before purchasing my new Pro. Now I have to buy a dozen or so dongles for my company to have “just in case”. I feel Apple should have at least included the dongle in each new IPad Pro box.

I’m not being funny here, but why didn’t you buy something that might have prevented you from buying the dongles?

 

[secretk]

*shrug* The main thought that comes to mind is if I were running a for profit company and had the ability to determine the moment at which the majority of my product users no longer needed a particular component of my product I would remove that component without cutting MSRP and marginalize the balance of my users through an accessory to retain the functionality that was lost. I’d find a way to market the decision to reduce customer loss.

Kind of seems like that’s all this is . . .No?

In general I agree with you. That's how huge companies work. However they did cut the MSRP for two reasons. AirPods are far from perfect (they have design flaws and issues related to comfort and leakage). And iOS does not support good Bluetooth codecs. Now if they had added support in iOS with removing the headphone jack then yeah I would say that they don't impact the end users. The Airpods thing is easy to be fixed - buy another Bluetooth headset. The codecs thing is hard to fix. This is on Apple.

 

[Mystro]

I’m not being funny here, but why didn’t you buy something that might have prevented you from buying the dongles?

The new iPad 12.9 Pro is replacing all our gen 1 IPad Pros for my companies use. I am buying a few new units. The dongle is not that much of a issue but I still have to have dongles just in case we might have to use them for presentations. It’s more of a annoyance having to purchase them.

 

[aevan]

Ugh dongles denote the whole purpose of mobile device. If I have to carry around dongles with my portable devices, it's better to not have them at all. Smartphone/ipad is supposed to be a portable device. Removing things from a device so that 90 % of the people can carry around dongles that actually represent what is missing from the phone denotes the whole purpose of removing it. So let's have thinner phone but bring dongles. In the end I will have to buy separate pouch for all of those dongles.

90% of people won't carry around dongles, especially in a few years. Majority will use usb-c headphones, bt headphones, airpods, etc. A small group of people insist on doing things their way and resist change.

Something is completely wrong here.

People are historically resistant to change. That's all.

What sucks is that most of the brands follow Apple and Samsung so they just go with the flow with those "smart" ideas. I wanted to change my phone few months ago. I honestly was that close buying regular old phone that makes phone calls and keep my old one for an audio device. I don't care about big phones, notches and headphone jacks removal. I don't care about 4K displays either. I want small 4.6 inch phone that has decent battery (read one battery charge lasts at least 3 days) and has decent audio when it comes to calls. And it can connect to Internet via mobile carrier or WIFI. And honestly I can't even find phone like that. In the end I bought an year old 4.6 inch Android phone with headphone jack. I am pretty aware that in 3 years when I decided to change my phone again I won't have that much luck.

You're deliberately avoiding all the innovations in the latest generations - advanced biometrics, incredible performance, AI, AR, computational photography, machine learning, wearable computers.... Mobile devices have advanced so much in the past few years, that they are literally changing our lives in many ways. And yet, you speak as if the only thing Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Google are doing is - making things thinner. Because they took your 50 year old plug.

I can see the reply already: "I don't care about any of that stuff. I just want my headphone jack." Sure, ok, fine - but that's not a lack of innovation, it's your personal disinterest towards innovation that is happening.

Anyway back to the point. Removing headphone jack so that the phone could be thinner is not innovation.

No one is saying the removal of the jack is innovation. Innovation is how they are cramming more and more power into smaller frames. Take iPhone X. It's not smaller than previous 4 generations of phones. It's actually slightly thicker. But it has a much more powerful processor, a bigger screen, better battery life. And it has no headphone jack. So, tell me again, how is Apple making the iPhone thinner? They haven't done so in 4 years. In fact, they have increased the thickness twice in this period of time. And in this time, they more than quadrupled the power and capabilities of their devices (that affects you in obvious but also less noticeable ways, like moving to a better HEIF/HEVC format for pictures and video), dramatically increased the screen size, and even increased the resolution and battery life of their devices.

Loosing the jack is a side-effect of switching to more modern I/O. And you can still use your old headphones, if you want to. In return, you're getting much more of a computer in a small, portable frame. I'd say it's a worthy trade-off. What amazes me is how people don't see the pattern. It's always been this way with technology, and no, today is not different. Things change. People adapt. During the transition, some are eager to embrace new things, some resist.
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Do you think a $10 dongle is going to have a quality amp in it to drive full size headphones?

I don't understand, and the headphone jack on a phone - will?

 

[Newtons Apple]

We need a sticky on the headphone jack.

 

[ThatiPhoneKid]

They want you to shell out more of your hard earned cash on their AirPods

 

[secretk]

90% of people won't carry around dongles, especially in a few years. Majority will use usb-c headphones, bt headphones, airpods, etc. A small group of people insist on doing things their way and resist change.

I am OK using alternatives as long as they provide good audio quality. Currently they are not. I am all for removing something when someone is able to provide something equally good. Until this is the case I want my options for better quality. As of now USB-c headphones do not offer the quality of the 3.5 mm ones. Same for Bluetooth headphones. I gave specific examples where people need that quality.

People are historically resistant to change. That's all.

That is true.

You're deliberately avoiding all the innovations in the latest generations - advanced biometrics, incredible performance, AI, AR, computational photography, machine learning, wearable computers.... Mobile devices have advanced so much in the past few years, that they are literally changing our lives in many ways. And yet, you speak as if the only thing Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Google are doing is - making things thinner. Because they took your 50 year old plug.

Again it's not about the plug, it's about quality. It's easy to remove the jack and yet years later they have not advanced and made better audio quality. And that pretty much tells me something. They removed the jack too early and they were not prepared to advance the audio quality of the Bluetooth headphones. For me it's about this.

I can see the reply already: "I don't care about any of that stuff. I just want my headphone jack." Sure, ok, fine - but that's not a lack of innovation, it's your personal disinterest towards innovation that is happening.

No lack of innovation is the inability the brands to offer good audio codecs. Arrogance is claiming that removing something is innovation and even bigger arrogance is when you are not prepared to offer alternative. It's about this. If companies like Apple spend less time claiming that they are doing innovation and spend more time in actually doing it, I will be happy as a consumer.

No one is saying the removal of the jack is innovation. Innovation is how they are cramming more and more power into smaller frames. Take iPhone X. It's not smaller than previous 4 generations of phones. It's actually slightly thicker. But it has a much more powerful processor, a bigger screen, better battery life. And it has no headphone jack. So, tell me again, how is Apple making the iPhone thinner? They haven't done so in 4 years. In fact, they have increased the thickness twice in this period of time.

Actually Apple themselves claimed that removing the headphone jack is innovation and it was laughable then and it is laughable now. As for the rest it's a personal preference. I don't need that much power in phone because I don't use my phone really for this. I need long lasting battery (like I said at least 3 days). I do not want to charge my battery every day. I do not want bigger screen because I am a small woman. I can't fit those phones in my jeans pocket. I have computer for my heavy processing tasks. Yes the phones are more and more powerful but they are also restricting due to their OS. I don't want to jump through hoops to make something work when I can do it on my computer. I did not have issues with slow phones or lagging in years. Long gone are the years where the smartphone cannot do the simple tasks that the average consumer needs anyway.

You say that smartphones know change lives? How? Give me an example.

 

[VMMan]

I wouldn’t mind the lack of a 3.5 mm headphone jack as much if Apple made a dongle that allowed pass through charging and without any RF interference.

 

[JullsJTRIRE]

In my case I like wireless headphones because I like myself to be free to go anywhere and not be afraid of finding out my device has fallen on the floor or, save God, on asphalt )

 

[DNichter]

It’s not necessary and space for components. There are adaptors for those users/situations.

 

[BorderingOn]

90% of people won't carry around dongles, especially in a few years. Majority will use usb-c headphones, bt headphones, airpods, etc. A small group of people insist on doing things their way and resist change.




People are historically resistant to change. That's all.




You're deliberately avoiding all the innovations in the latest generations - advanced biometrics, incredible performance, AI, AR, computational photography, machine learning, wearable computers.... Mobile devices have advanced so much in the past few years, that they are literally changing our lives in many ways. And yet, you speak as if the only thing Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Google are doing is - making things thinner. Because they took your 50 year old plug.

I can see the reply already: "I don't care about any of that stuff. I just want my headphone jack." Sure, ok, fine - but that's not a lack of innovation, it's your personal disinterest towards innovation that is happening.




No one is saying the removal of the jack is innovation. Innovation is how they are cramming more and more power into smaller frames. Take iPhone X. It's not smaller than previous 4 generations of phones. It's actually slightly thicker. But it has a much more powerful processor, a bigger screen, better battery life. And it has no headphone jack. So, tell me again, how is Apple making the iPhone thinner? They haven't done so in 4 years. In fact, they have increased the thickness twice in this period of time. And in this time, they more than quadrupled the power and capabilities of their devices (that affects you in obvious but also less noticeable ways, like moving to a better HEIF/HEVC format for pictures and video), dramatically increased the screen size, and even increased the resolution and battery life of their devices.

Loosing the jack is a side-effect of switching to more modern I/O. And you can still use your old headphones, if you want to. In return, you're getting much more of a computer in a small, portable frame. I'd say it's a worthy trade-off. What amazes me is how people don't see the pattern. It's always been this way with technology, and no, today is not different. Things change. People adapt. During the transition, some are eager to embrace new things, some resist.
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I don't understand, and the headphone jack on a phone - will?

“Old headphones”, “50 year old plug” is the kind of language that screams brainwashed. People aren’t being luddites. There isn’t a single pair of Bluetooth headphones, at any price, that sounds as good as a decent wired set.

As far as the amp, I can’t speak for every Apple device, but they are, on average, pretty decent in that regard. People rave about the speaker improvements. Well, guess what’s a big part of that.

 

[Greenmeenie]

Personally, I don’t care about the headphone jack. I’ve fully embraced the wireless lifestyle. So much easier without wires. Even YouTube music creator Henny the Bizness doesn’t mind, and he’s a professional musician who uses the iPad Pro exclusively to create his content. So I think all this complaining that Apple is screwing their customers somehow is just false. They aren’t. Change is hard, but inevitable. Technology moves forward. Accept it or be left behind. Kinda pointless to complain, cause you know there ain’t no way Apple is ever going to go back to wired headphones. In fact, I bet they’ll start removing the headphone jack from their laptops next.

 

[44267547]

They want you to shell out more of your hard earned cash on their AirPods

This would be the more obligatory answer you seemingly just ‘threw’ out as you did. But the reality is, you’re likely not an Apple engineer, and we don’t know about all the necessary internal space that the 3.5 Jack was consuming where they made advancements. It was a matter of time before they deleted the 3.5 mm Jack on the iPad, do they want customers to purchase their proprietary AirPods? Yes. But Apple is not forcing anybody to do anything, it’s an optional purchase.

 

[Mystro]

Supplying a dongle in the IPP box, at least on the first year as a transition would have gone a long way at this price point.

 

[jinnyman]

For money of course.
As much as I like their Airpod for its conveniences, I dislike it for evetual battery runout. Mine doesn't last as much, and my triple-fi I purchased almost 10 years ago still works perfectly with better sound.

 

[mofunk]

I totally agree. I like having that option. Without a headphone jack you are forced to go wireless or spend $10 to connect. I don't get it. Why is it removed. Sure you get a smaller device, but I would like to have that option. I've invested in some nice headphones like Shure Sennheiser Sony are all in rotation. Wireless requires charging so when you are traveling you now have to charge several devices including your headphones. Before if you had both wired and wireless you could start with the wireless and then move to the wired.


If you are audiphile you will spend what ever you want to hear the music. I don't want some compressed wireless headphones messing up my listening moments. The average consumer probably can't tell the difference in sound from wired or wireless.

 

[Greenmeenie]

I totally agree. I like having that option. Without a headphone jack you are forced to go wireless or spend $10 to connect. I don't get it. Why is it removed. Sure you get a smaller device, but I would like to have that option. I've invested in some nice headphones like Shure Sennheiser Sony are all in rotation. Wireless requires charging so when you are traveling you now have to charge several devices including your headphones. Before if you had both wired and wireless you could start with the wireless and then move to the wired.


If you are audiphile you will spend what ever you want to hear the music. I don't want some compressed wireless headphones messing up my listening moments. The average consumer probably can't tell the difference in sound from wired or wireless.

The Apple usb-c to mini jack connector isn’t that big. It’s like an inch & a half long. You can always just keep it attached to your headphones, so that you won’t ever have to think twice about it.

 

[willentrekin]

I totally agree. I like having that option. Without a headphone jack you are forced to go wireless or spend $10 to connect. I don't get it. Why is it removed. Sure you get a smaller device, but I would like to have that option. I've invested in some nice headphones like Shure Sennheiser Sony are all in rotation. Wireless requires charging so when you are traveling you now have to charge several devices including your headphones. Before if you had both wired and wireless you could start with the wireless and then move to the wired.


If you are audiphile you will spend what ever you want to hear the music. I don't want some compressed wireless headphones messing up my listening moments. The average consumer probably can't tell the difference in sound from wired or wireless.

I really think chances are anyone who's investing in high quality headphones are also investing in better DAC/Amps that render the entire thread moot. I have Shure SE535s and Sennheiser HD700s, and I wouldn't plug them directly into a mobile 3.5 jack. I'd at least use the Fiio lightning adapter/amp.

For wireless I have Shure SE215s on a Westone wireless cable, and Sennheiser HD1s on the way.

I mean, to answer the overall question of the thread, it's removed because Apple is aggressively pursuing better options, and committing to them entirely, without looking back. Those options might not be best just yet, but there's going to come a time when people think of 3.5 jacks like cassette tapes. Lots of people won't even know what they were. It's like how some younger folks are confused because the "Save" button in a lot of apps looks like an old 3.5" disk.