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Comment by jwebb99 | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand this push to get rid of the analogue headphone jack.

It's a solution in search of a problem--like removing physical buttons from the Kindle...the alternative (touch screen page turns) is more high-tech, but not as pleasant.

I'm sure audophiles would appreciate a digital interface for their headphones, but everyone else is perfectly content to use cheap $5 earbuds for their highly compressed audio files.

Yet, we're now supposed to believe that the general public will enjoy paying a premium for new gear that replaces their cheap and perfectly functional headphones?

Just because a technology is old and low tech doesn't mean it's antiquated.

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> It's a solution in search of a problem

It does solve a problem. It solves the problem of Apple having less money than it wants to have. It just doesn't solve a consumer problem.

The term you're looking for is "chronological snobbery," coined by C.S. Lewis. It's the idea that something is worthless because it isn't new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronological_snobbery

>I don't understand this push to get rid of the analogue headphone jack.

I think I read that removing the headphone jack is needed to make phones thinner.

I don't care for a thinner phone. Leave the analog headphone jack. My phone is usually in my pocket when using the headphone jack and the jack does a very good job of keeping the headphones connected. USB-C or lightning cables are much easier to knock out of the port thus interrupting my listening experience.

It's not the age of the tech, it's the amount of space it takes up. Getting rid of the 3.5mm jack gives them 3 or so square cm on a preciously tiny motherboard. They can use this space for more battery or components on the mobo. One less port also means one less place water can get in.

These are things Apple pursues relentlessly.

> I'm sure audophiles would appreciate a digital interface for their headphones, but everyone else is perfectly content to use cheap $5 earbuds for their highly compressed audio files.

Well about that......Heres another point to your argument:

As an audiophile, I'm going to have to compress the music regardless to fit on the phone due to storage limitations. I enjoy owning my music, as does many other people who work in digital music. Otherwise, I can barely fit one full length studio album in lossless compressed FLAC or lossless uncompressed WAV format.

There is also a school of thought that compressed, and even lossy (to an extent) audio sounds better ("punchier" drums is the often cited argument).

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