I wish there was some hope that all of this bad press would just mean that people won't buy this because people really do want the 3.5mm jack. So sad that saying that Apple will sell something makes it a fait accompli that we must obey Apple.
I am not sure if that future, where everything is tracked and sold for Google ads - and with Chinese weird mix of capitalism and authoritarianism - is better than Apple-made future, but that's for another debate.
Yes. I bought Chinese smartphone for 130 euros few weeks ago and I can't feel much difference from premium Android phones. Sure, camera is not so clear, touchscreen lags sometimes, but it's acceptable for my use case and the fact that it's 3-4 cheaper than a brand phone with same/similar spec.
My first foray into Chinese phones was the OnePlus One which I was more than happy with (still am), I then bought a cheap Doogee X5 for about €50 to use on my commute, which was OK for such a cheap phone, camera was rubbish but I never used it and the GPS tracking and 4g that I did use was perfect for my use case.
I see it's out of stock now and price have increased slightly. BTW, its screen is surprisingly good.
How right you are! The Google Nexus lines were originally industry leaders, signalling the next minimum feature set and specs for Android phones with the added benefit of unadulterated (carrier cruft free) Android releases on the fastest release cycle.
Now vendors are far exceeding specs found on Nexus phones and even the rumored Pixel phones; the next Asus phone[1] has 6 GB of system memory versus Marlin's rumored 4 GB, and the Asus phone has expandable memory^H^H^H^H storage to boot which is something Google eschews on their devices.
So consumers are really down to rolling the dice on timeliness of vendor OS releases - do you risk a nicer phone that is potentially rarely, slowly or never updated or take a middle-of-the-road phone from Google that'll have regular security patches and OS releases for 18 months?
It's no wonder people root their phones and run Cyanogen so they can have the best of both worlds.
[1]
http://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_821powered_asus_zenfone_3...
It's in the inability for the OS to be kept up to date so security patches aren't always forthcoming.
Welcome to the future.
A "loud whine to take out hearing" is at least theoretically possible, except that many people are listening to that already - I think they call it music. :-)
All these tech were already obsolete by the time Apple got rid of them; 3.5 mm jack is not such case. I'm not using Apple products, but if I would, I'd be mad that I can't use my headphones anymore and must buy new ones that doesn't provide much/any benefit.
You still can. They even include an adapter in the box. What more can you ask?
This dismissiveness is the reason we need influential voices to speak for the user in the design process.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/belkin-introduces-li...
But I guess that's par for course for the consumers that clad their fantastically stylish sci-fi pocket supercomputer marvels of manufacturing in neon Croc-rubber.
Users have gone wireless on nearly everything else, and are about to buy more wireless headphones than wired. The dongle is just an interim fix until you switch other devices to matching wireless; we've done it many times before, and we'll do it again.
Users that want cheaper phones so they can pump more money into the accessory ecosystem the functionality back.
You have fun charging 2 or 3 things every few hours and having horrible device interop or none at all with your headphones and other accessories. I'll keep my headphones.
The real goals behind the removal of the headphone jack are DRM, extracting more money out of their peripheral industry, and the chance to make another kooky fashion statement.
If I had to guess, I would say that Samsung would be one of the manufacturers to abandon the jack, but I feel like at least LG, HTC, and perhaps a few others would keep it.
LG's latest flagship even had a removable battery (which is pretty unusual for a flagship at this point).
Maybe I'm wrong. I'll check back in 4 years.
I remember when phones had the smaller version, but it was used primarily for headsets.
A little while later, someone released an adapter, and that lessened the annoyance.
But later phones that had 3.5mm (or 2.5mm) in-built were definitely better.
Today, Apple is that company and the course they set is the course the industry proceeds on.
[0] Software, though, is a bit different. If I list pros and cons of iOS vs Android, I personally think Android edges it out. But that's just based on how I like to use my phone. Then, for desktop it's Linux > OS X.