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Comment by verroq | Hacker News Reader

To be honest I expected the discussion to be more on the idea of customising electronics, either functional or ideological.

The irony of owning the only iPhone 7 that has a headphone jack from a company that has a slogan that says "think different" is just too rich to not be pointed out. This is the embodiment of the hacker mentality, not satisfied with the status quo and constantly pushing the evenlope.

I eagerly await the day when we can "compile" physical objects and electronics like we can with software. Who will care if the next iPhone have a headphone jack when you can make your own?

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Remember how Modular phones have terribly failed? Essential is now trying the same but not sure where it'd get with that!

That said, Don't you think even now we've got wireless streaming with bluetooth or wifi which Headphones can make use of to move forward with headphone jack missing?

> Remember how Modular phones have terribly failed? Essential is now trying the same but not sure where it'd get with that!

I would not call Essential phone a modular phone. The idea is to sell addons to the phone. The phone itself is the antithesis of modular. It cannot even be opened without destroying it. It got 1/10 repairability score from iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Essential+Phone+Teardown/967... .

Essential reminds me of Handspring who made palm PDA's with an expansion slot (which is what the essential technically has). I feel like its going to end up like Palm by folding back into Google.

heh, the Springboard slot.

Man the handspring is an excellent PalmOS unit.

They were few and far between but I've got a few of the "cool" modules, a huge GPS, an SD card reader, a memory bank, and the "good technology" MP3 player.

Good actually pivoted from hardware to making an exchange compatible mail client for PalmOS to compete with Blackberry.

The slick Vizor Edge unit had a removable springboard slot, which triples the sub-cm thickness.

Handspring then made the Treo, which was competitive for what it was until WebOS and iPhone came along to spoil the party.

Palm Pre anyone? :(

> Don't you think even now we've got wireless streaming with bluetooth or wifi which Headphones can make use of to move forward with headphone jack missing?

If BT didn't cut out/die and had decent quality I'd agree with you. I've tried multiple headphones, but my experience says it's just not there yet.

If you have to push users to using a new technology, instead of letting them pick it up on their own because it's obviously better, that tech might not be as ready as you think it is.

Not really — wireless audio quality is significantly worse and less stable and wireless electronics are significantly more expensive. It's a feature in search of a purpose.

My air pods/air buds/ whatever Apple calls them, they cut out a lot. Sometimes only one at a time, sometimes both. Sometimes they don't connect to the phone at all despite being fully charged.

My older plug in headphones with the adapter? Works every time.

That's funny because my AirPods work great for me and I barely notice them most of the time yet I have piles of old headphones and earbuds that have crimped cables or knots and they cut out all the time. I even have two sets of great headphones (cans) and one of them needs a little bit of wiggling to get it to play 100%.

Seems like a trade-off in either case and I'm willing to try the wireless thing until it becomes a pain. So far, it's been a pleasure.

You have a point on the expensive but the rest is factually not true. Modern BT codecs are CD quality and modern BT chipsets will cut out less than the movement of a headphone cable in your pocket will.

I think if we're talking about compilation as an analogy we're talking about being able to customize the phone to very specific specifications before it's manufactured (battery size, camera type, headphone jack, etc) and then having the phone constructed in the same sealed kind of way any modern phone is made. That might be interesting if the manufacturing process could be made cheap enough.

Exactly. I think the most common usecase would be to choose between different case thicknesses with the ability to add an additional battery in this space.

It might make sense to temper your eagerness as you will be waiting for a very very very long time ;)

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