The top of the phone’s bezel contains a camera, and the bottom doesn’t. Why do you want a larger chin with wasted space? The pixel 1’s chin always bothered me for that reason.
Either you make a phone clearly asymmetric (eg new iPhone X) or clearly symmetric. The new Pixel tries to have a symmetric design but fails slighlty (top and bottom bezel have similar heights and form language but are still asymmetric).
As an audio engineer, the headphone jack removal trend is an absolute travesty in an industry that utilizes AUX IN audio capabilities night after night.
I'm often using iPods or other local-music devices to pump sound into concert venues between acts. Taking away 1/8" audio standards in favor of USB-C or Lightning non-standardized ports causes chaos when needing to fill in music in a pinch.
In my industry, I simply cannot live without a standard audio port, which absolutely no one was clamoring to discard.
If my 1st generation Pixel were to break today, I'd buy another 1st generation Pixel.
I love my Pixel, but they just lost me as a customer for this reason. I'm not totally against removing the headphone jack, but it's not time yet -- the transition has been done poorly.
Yep. All that was needed to get me to switch from my current iPhone 6/iOS was a current Google branded Android phone with a headphone jack. Now there is no reason for me to switch if I am going to be stuck buying a bunch of adapters.
Yep, after being really impressed with the Pixel I knew Pixel 2 was going to be my next phone. Not anymore. Lack of the headphone jack is an absolute no-go for me.
I think Google is okay with that. They know the phone isn't for everybody and fortunately there's a lot of choice in the Android world.
If you want to run iOS apps, you are kind of stuck taking what Apple gives you and so I think the frustration with removal of the headphone jack there is warranted. I don't understand why anybody cares that Google is doing this. We have a lot of choice in the Android world.
>>I don't understand why anybody cares that Google is doing this.
Because I wanted to buy a Pixel, and now I won't because of a decision they made? I can of course go and buy something else, but I'm just voicing my displeasure with this.
Because being forced to go to another Android device means you no longer get stock Android. That's why it's annoying.
Having used every Nexus device from the One through to my current PixelXL, except for the Nexus 6 which I skipped in favour of the OnePlus One, I'm very annoyed I'm going to have to put up with :
1) Someone else's skin on Android
2) Someone else's schedule for supplying my phone with software updates, which from my experience with the OnePlus One, and with anecdotal evidence from everyone who hasn't had a Google device seems to be "sometime, if ever".
Do you actually use the headphone jack? Most people don't and because of wireless headphones, I bet the number that do is getting smaller each year. I think the best you could say is that it's too early to get rid of the jack. It's definitely on track to get to the point where the value of it is less than the cost of it.
Same. I have a variety of different things that use the headphone jack. A good pair of headphones, a couple of pairs of sound-isolating earbuds, a couple of pairs of open-ear headphones for running and walking. Because those are cheap, I can always keep a set where I need them. If I lose them or give them away, NBD.
Taking away the headphone jack does not solve any problem I have. It would impose extra costs, both in conversion, and ongoing. And it gives me a worse experience overall.
Why is it not time yet? When I lost my Pixel on a trip, I switched to an iPhone 7 + airpods and it's been great. I don't want to go back to wired headphones. Apple certainly seems to have nailed it. I can't imagine Google + HTC can't too.
It's great that they work well for you, but AirPods and the like don't work well for me at all. The audio quality drop is noticeable to me; interference is a perpetual problem even when I'm just walking down the street or walking through my apartment. Bluetooth on both Android and iOS is clunky and annoying (and it's not totally their fault, the devices and the protocol have something to say about that) that the physical act of jacking headphones into a device makes unambiguous and easy. I very much want to be able to take the headphones I use on my computer and just go rather than play the pairing/reconnect dance or whatever.
If I don't care about what I'm listening to that much (podcasts etc.), wireless headphones are fine, don't get me wrong, but the usability across-the-board still sucks, while not in any way or at any level improving the experience for me. It is a strictly worse experience.
I'm not going to get into an audiophile/golden ear flamewar, but I am always skeptical of this claim. Yes, SBC is not the world's best, but it supports bitrates upto 500 kbit/s. I'm not going to claim it is completely transparent, but 9 times out of 10 it is being used with shitty bluetooth headphones (where the alternative is shitty wired headphones)... at that point the quality of the headphones (wired or not) has far more to do with the audio quality than anything.
And yes, I doubt most people will notice an audio quality drop in a pair of high quality Sennheisers going from wired to SBC (there isn't convincing evidence that aptX is much better than SBC). I wouldn't be too surprised about a conflicting experimental result, but skeptical for now. Anyway, most people are not hooking up high quality headphones to their phone, or they are purposefully using phones tuned for a particular lo-fi response (Beats)... who cares about whatever SBC does at 350 kbit/s at that point.
Edit: And walking down the street is hardly a hi-fi listening environment.
The audio quality issue is not due to encoding. It's due to garbling and interference from, you know, the two feet from my pocket to my headphones while sitting at home in my apartment. This has happened in every apartment I've lived in since getting Bluetooth headphones. It happened in my parents' house with a quarter mile to any neighbors. It happens when walking down the street. It happens at the gym. It happens at the office.
In an optimum environment it's fine. In the real world, having my headphones make farty noises in my ears two or three times in a ten-minute walk is silly and we live in the future and it should be better than that.
I ride the subway in NYC every day, and this is especially bad on my commute. The interference is absolutely unacceptable, and has convinced me that bluetooth is not ready at all for my use case.
The airpods themselves, sold as a premium experience, lack the additional comfort and noise isolation of quality headphones.
The mere prevalence of people enjoying the stock iphone, ipod, cheap airline, and wireless headphones -- versus isolation quality you can get in a $20 pair of sony's suggests I'm a minority when it comes to audio quality.
The issue has nothing to do with bitrate. The first issue is that the signal cuts out randomly due to interference. The second is that you have to convert the signal to analog and DAC quality matters.
To increase battery life, you have to go with more simplistic conversion which reduces quality. To reduce the cost of 2 DACs (one per ear) you have to use worse hardware. The net result is that the onboard DAC is basically guaranteed to be better and the amount of interference over wired headphones will be minimal.
I’m chaffing at the naked push towards buying apple’s expensive wireless earbuds here. I buy apple because they are the best phone out there, but lately I have been very frustrated with headphone dongles and looking elsewhere. I don’t want to buy more apple hardware to solve a problem apple created, and my other Bluetooth headphones are a nightmare to keep paired and charged.
You're really asking why overpriced wireless devices with mediocre to atrocious battery life and substandard audio quality are not a sufficient replacement for devices you can literally buy in any convenience store around the world for tens of dollars? There is room for a headphone jack in these phones (video below). The only reason they removed them when they did is to push accessory sales.
> substandard audio quality
> literally buy in any convenience store around the world
A substantial drop in audio quality is most likely completely psychological (not saying it isn't a real problem for some). But wired convenience store headphones typically are not great sound quality wise, the SBC codec of bluetooth likely has very little to do with sound quality at that point.
Maybe, if you're comparing actually good monitors. But to bitch about bluetooth sound quality when comparing to typical cheap earbuds is a bit silly.
> The only reason they removed them when they did is to push accessory sales
This is baseless and ridiculous.
They did it because people are expecting more out of their phones e.g. better cameras, better screen, battery life, TouchID, FaceID all whilst demanding the same thickness. Something has to give. First it was the 30-pin adapter, now it's headphone, next will be SIM.
And Apple makes so little from their accessory sales compared to everything else they do so it is illogical they would intentionally cripple their flagship device to make a few hundred million.
> They did it because people are expecting more out of their phones e.g. better cameras, better screen, battery life, TouchID, FaceID all whilst demanding the same thickness. Something has to give. First it was the 30-pin adapter, now it's headphone, next will be SIM.
Way to completely ignore the fact that there is room for a headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8. It was not removed in order to make room for anything. See the video I posted above.
Well for starters we are still at a point where the majority of owned headphones use a 3.5mm. Bluetooth is becoming more popular, sure, but 3.5 is still the norm. Now I have to carry around an adapter to use any of the nice pairs of headphones I own? Alternatively I have to buy a pair of $200 airpods that sound like garbage to get the full experience? The market isn't ready.
My biggest problem with this is that I do not want to have yet another device that requires batteries and/or charging in order for it to function. Wired headphones powered through the audio cable are simple, don't quit working if their battery drain, don't require charging, and you can find them anywhere if you need a replacement.
I have... I don't even know. 20? 50? devices that need to be charged on a regular basis. I really don't want to charge anything besides my phone and my laptop. I don't want the ritual of taking 2 or 5 or 10 different things out of my bag at the end of the day, plugging them in, and then unplugging them and rewrapping the cables and putting them back into my bag. That is not "convenience" in my book.
There's also a small level of cognitive overhead involved with remembering which devices were charged when. We're not talking rocket science here but most of us are IMHO already in a constant state of distraction thanks to information overload, and I don't want more variables to think about.
For me it's not time yet because it's a clunky and annoying process to switch bluetooth earbuds from my phone to my laptop and back, at least compared to the simplicity of unplugging something. This is something I do multiple times a day.
Apple is the only company that has figured out how to make it easy, but it requires a iphone/macbook of course.
Yes, I've hated this change ever since I got my last iPhone. It's a pain and doesn't actually improve anything. I bought a bunch of those little dongles because I always lose them.
I wonder how many customers they will lose because of this decision? What I don't actually understand is what exactly is gained by its removal? It doesn't seem to be a limiting factor in either thinness or waterproofing, which are the only two I can think of.
I know I for one will never buy a phone with no headphone jack.
I think (good implementations of) wireless headphones are the way of the future.
What did they gain by removing floppy disk drives from laptops? Well, nothing per se, but it allowed them to make smaller laptops.
Removing the jack will allow them to make phones thinner - if not now, in future iterations.
And the thing with keeping features around is that it's not just a question of that one feature. It's cumulative over time. It's not just a question of removing the floppy drive, it's that AND the internal modem AND the CD drive, etc. The effects can add up.
I mostly use my headphone jack to connect to stereo systems at home and in the car, so wireless headphones don't really help (nevermind how much more expensive they are and issues with sound).
I understand that's the case now - I did say "the way of the future". I believe wireless will become the standard everywhere (for everyday use, at least).
Any transition like that is going to be awkward at first. If people tried to wait for perfect conditions, progress would never be made.
But does every networked device have ethernet these days? My laptop doesn't, nor does my phone. There are some contexts where Ethernet is more appropriate, but that doesn't mean it's more appropriate everywhere.
> Pushing progress is not an excuse to force transition with cost and effort burden on customers.
You can't make progress without doing some of that.
> But does every networked device have ethernet these days? My laptop doesn't, nor does my phone.
Every stationary or semi-stationary networked device should probably have Ethernet. A desktop or laptop should; a phone shouldn't (because it's mobile). It'd be nice if IoT thermostats and the like were wired, but that would require homes to have Ethernet-over-power or Ethernet runs in the walls or something.
WiFi is inferior to Ethernet, except when mobility is necessary. So for mobile devices like phones, it's not needed. For tablets, probably not (but imagine if your charging cable could also carry fast, reliable networking to your tablet, so you could have a better experience while reading or watching TV, but still be able to get up & go).
When they removed floppy drives it was because there was a better alternative. I don’t agree that Bluetooth is a better alternative than a cord that is 100% reliable to pair, perfect audio quality, and never needs to be charged
> From what I've heard the ear pods are very reliable to pair and have good audio quality.
I think the comparison to removal of floppy drives fails here because neither is clearly superior to the other.
Wired headphones are inconvenient (you need a wire) but have great sound quality and reliability. They're also cheap. Wireless headphones are convenient in some aspects (no wires) but inconvenient in others (need to charge them) and have decent quality and somewhat less reliability. They're also expensive.
You can't say wireless headphones supersede wired headphones, they just choose different tradeoffs.
> have decent quality and somewhat less reliability
I don't believe that is inherently true about wireless headphones.
Re: tradeoffs, you can say that about any set of alternatives, and there can still be one option that in the long term is best for most people. Eg horses vs cars as means for personal transport.
> I don't believe that is inherently true about wireless headphones.
I believe it is. Wireless headphones are subject to interference while wired ones are not. Physical connections are much less likely to fail. Wired headphones also lack batteries.
> Re: tradeoffs, you can say that about any set of alternatives, and there can still be one option that in the long term is best for most people. Eg horses vs cars as means for personal transport.
It's true that whether a product is superior to another is a subjective decision but I think there's a threshold to be met in terms of numbers.
Horses vs. cars is easy: Cars today are cheaper, faster, safer, require less space and require less maintenance than horses. The number of people who'd prefer a horse to a car is insignificant.
Wired vs. wireless is much closer. I think at best 50% of people would prefer wireless after trying them for a week or two.
Wireless and wired aren't mutually exclusive either. There's no reason a phone can't support both wired and wireless headphones and let people choose. That's what we've had for years now and unsurprisingly, wireless headphones haven't really taken off.
> Wireless headphones are subject to interference while wired ones are not.
The GSM "buzz" would like to have a word with you.
Admittedly it's no longer much of an issue as that standard is not used much anymore, but still...
> I think at best 50% of people would prefer wireless
I'm curious what your sample size on that is, as literally everyone I know who switched to a (good) pair a bluetooth headphones (20+ at this point) is 100% on the wireless bandwagon, myself included.
Admittedly - a large portion of that 20+ samples of anecdata are from pool players who like to wear headphones while playing the game. The fact that there are no wires means that said players no longer have to come up with a way of dealing with the wire to prevent it from interfering in the game (so, sure, my sample is biased).
> Wireless headphones are subject to interference while wired ones are not.
That's not true. Have you ever had gunk get into your headphone jack and have that affect the sound? I have.
> Physical connections are much less likely to fail.
I hear the air pods are pretty reliable. I've had plenty of wired headphones either stop working properly or stop working altogether. Wires can get yanked and this an effect the internal connections in the headphones, for example.
> Wired headphones also lack batteries.
The literal text of what I was replying to was "have decent quality and somewhat less reliability", and batteries have nothing to do with that.
> Horses vs. cars is easy: Cars today are cheaper, faster, safer, require less space and require less maintenance than horses. The number of people who'd prefer a horse to a car is insignificant.
We're not talking about horses vs cars today, we're talking about horses vs cars when cars were being introduced! That's the analogous situation.
> I think at best 50% of people would prefer wireless after trying them for a week or two.
On what grounds?
> Wireless and wired aren't mutually exclusive either. There's no reason a phone can't support both wired and wireless headphones and let people choose.
Yes, that's true. But I think that the longer-term picture is different. More features means more cost and complexity. And you can't consider this just in the context of one issue. It's cumulative over time. An analogy here is all the various features that have been lost in desktop and laptop computers over the years (and replaced by different ones). Sure, any one of those isn't necessarily a big deal, but in the longer term it's not about individual ones. If you said that about each individual feature, and kept it on, the devices these days would be really encumbered with all sorts of stuff.
> That's what we've had for years now and unsurprisingly, wireless headphones haven't really taken off.
We're not talking about decades and decades of good, consumer-level priced wireless technology. It's still pretty new, and that also means it's still pretty expensive. I think it's clear that a fair number of people who are against the wireless headphones still haven't actually tried good one, which shows that the exposure levels for the technology is still pretty low.
And removing the jack is the kind of thing that may push the adoption of wireless headphones and lead to the kinds of economies of scales that reduce the price and lead to more takeup.
Ethernet makes less sense on a mobile device, because you don’t carry routers on your body, and the standard was no where near as old. Again, removing because there was a better alternative. Adaptors are not a better alternative. Bluetooth is not a better alternative.
Your metaphor is dropping important details. The cable mattered because it tethered you to a location, which is not true of headphones. Routers also didn’t need to be charged before or after.
The headphone cables tether you to your phone. There are times when you want to be able to put down your phone and be able to use headphones but not be physically connected to it. Eg lying in bed listening to music, but then getting up to go to get something from the kitchen (and not having to pick up your phone, or carry it with you, or unplug the headphones) before lying back down again. And being able to do that while continuing to listen to the music.
Routers need to be plugged into a wall socket. Batteries don't require that constant use of a cable or socket.
They can make the phone thinner, but they are only doing that by putting more hardware (a DAC) into the headphone. It's massively duplicating one component for such a negligible advantage.
I don't think the consumer cares about such duplication (indirectly, they will, if it makes the headphones cost more, though I think that cost will go down over time).
An advantage I didn't mention in my original comment is: getting rid of cables. Personally, I hate headphone cables. They seem to always be getting tangled up when the headphones aren't in use (meaning I have to mess around untangling them before using them), and always caught on things while I'm wearing them.
It's cost vs benefit. Obviously there's differences of opinions on the costs vs benefits, but I'm of the view that the benefits of wireless outweigh the costs of charging the headphones.
The floppy disk stopped being good at moving files between computers and making backups because single files of popular types regularly exceeded its capacity at the time it stopped being a standard feature. Modems and CD drives had fallen into disuse in favor of alternatives by the time they started getting left out.
The analog headphone jack still does as good a job of connecting headphones, speakers and such in a practical sense as it always did. Perhaps even better since cars have aux in ports most of the time now[0]. It hasn't fallen into disuse either. While bluetooth headphones exist and enjoy some popularity, most people I know own, and regularly use wired headphones.
I don't think the analogy holds. The headphone jack is still as useful and popular with consumers as it ever was.
[0] Yes, they also usually have bluetooth, but getting a car and a phone to pair, and getting the right phone to be paired at the right time isn't always a good UX.
> The floppy disk stopped being good at moving files between computers and making backups because single files of popular types regularly exceeded its capacity at the time it stopped being a standard feature. Modems and CD drives had fallen into disuse in favor of alternatives by the time they started getting left out.
There were still people who had stuff on floppies who wanted floppy drives.
There was a big fuss when Apple first removed CD drives from their laptops.
> The analog headphone jack still does as good a job of connecting headphones, speakers and such in a practical sense as it always did.
Many people -- I'm not claiming it's the majority -- disagree. Many people find headphone cables a big pain in the ass.
> While bluetooth headphones exist and enjoy some popularity, most people I know own, and regularly use wired headphones.
At least part of that is that wireless headphones tend to be expensive and many of them aren't the best at pairing and staying connected. Those things aren't inherent to wireless technology and will change over time.
> Yes, they also usually have bluetooth, but getting a car and a phone to pair, and getting the right phone to be paired at the right time isn't always a good UX.
Again, that's nothing inherent to wireless. Apparently the Apple wireless pairing works pretty perfectly.
> Many people find headphone cables a big pain in the ass.
But they don't also find having to charge headphones, and eventually to throw them out and purchase new ones, to be 'a big pain in the ass'?
> At least part of that is that wireless headphones tend to be expensive and many of them aren't the best at pairing and staying connected. Those things aren't inherent to wireless technology and will change over time.
I'm pretty sure that expense and complexity are inherent to wireless. No wireless connexion is going to be as cheap and reliable as an equivalent wired connexion, if only because the wireless connexion terminates in … a wire.
The complexity in wireless such as Bluetooth is strictly because it's a digital, packed-switched network driven by a fairly complicated software stack.
Basically, chaos originates from the involvement of computer science.
Cordless home phones and "900 Mhz" wireless headphones to use around the house are dead friggin' simple and reliable.
> But they don't also find having to charge headphones, and eventually to throw them out and purchase new ones, to be 'a big pain in the ass'?
you have to buy at least one pair of wireless headphones (and eventually they'll be bundled with phones), but you wouldn't need to replace them any more frequently than other headphones. This is the way with all changes. When wifi first became available we had to buy new modems.
As for charging them, that doesn't seem like a big pain to me. I charge my phone and laptop each day, this is just one other thing. For me the benefits -- no cables to get tangled (and have to untangle) or get caught on things -- outweigh the costs.
> I'm pretty sure that expense and complexity are inherent to wireless. No wireless connexion is going to be as cheap and reliable as an equivalent wired connexion, if only because the wireless connexion terminates in … a wire.
I hear the air pods are very reliable.
Regarding expense, if economies of scale get going, which I believe will happen, and manufacturers get more experience making them, then this will make the prices come down.
> but you wouldn't need to replace them any more frequently than other headphones
Except that the batteries will eventually stop holding a charge. This is not a problem with wired headphones. I can plug a 40 year old pair of headphones my Dad got in college into my phone and they work the same now as they did then. You can't do that with wireless headphones.
And, it's not like most wired headphones last forever. I must have gone through 5 - 10 pairs in the last few years. Admittedly most of these were towards the lower-end, but still, they just stopped working.
This is an argument against non-removable batteries more than against wireless headphones in general. There's no reason headphones can't have both onboard charging and removable batteries in standardized sizes. It's fairly common in higher-end flashlights, for example.
>> The analog headphone jack still does as good a job of connecting headphones, speakers and such in a practical sense as it always did.
>Many people -- I'm not claiming it's the majority -- disagree. Many people find headphone cables a big pain in the ass.
I agree completely - wireless headphones are amazing, I hate dealing with cables.
My first pair of bluetooth headphones were shit, and very difficult to switch devices, so I went back to wired. My second pair of bluetooth headphones (Bose QC something) are fantastic! Easily connect to multiple devices, easily switch between the devices. My third (AirPods) are similarly amazing, easy to switch devices, easy to pair.
I'm never buying a pair of wired headphones again.
> Removing the jack will allow them to make phones thinner - if not now, in future iterations.
People keep saying this but the circuitry and the depth was very small. There was even that guy from China who hacked a working 3.5mm jack into the iPhone 7 without changing its shape AT ALL yet Apple cited that they had to remove it to fit in more stuff.
If this isn't something that's useful to remove now, they should wait until it IS useful. It's all very frustrating. I now have my non-techie family asking me what to do with their phone that doesn't have a headphone jack or they're asking for support for their bluetooth headphones which MOST of them still completely SUCK (especially for the average user).
I mean I ultimately agree with you but I think we're still years away.
Its a dealbreaker for me. Otherwise, I would have considered the phone. I use my headphone jack nearly every day. I have a nice pair of Shure earphones that I use. I have no desire to get some wireless earphones. The headphone jack is small, durable, and ubiquitous. Removing it is idiotic.
If you work in 'the industry', surely it would not be a big deal to carry around an adapter a long with the other standard tools of your trade? I imagine it'll be about as inconvenient as carrying around ear buds.
It is much more likely that I misplace an adapter or break the connector or break the port than it is that I have a problem with a built-in 3.5mm jack. And, similarly, this is why we still use 1/4" jacks and XLR for real audio gear. We could make all this stuff smaller, we could make all this stuff digital, but it'd be more stuff that breaks on us.
I lost my iOS headphones and the little white adapter so I can use the "old" plug. For the past two days I have been running in the gym without listening to absolutely nothing even though I have like 20 headphones in my closet. What a stupid idea.
"I'm sure you can put up with this massive inconvenience for a job and workflow I have no understanding of or context for but sure do have an opinion on"
The audio industry is the most adapter-heavy industry on the planet. I need to carry a bag of adapters, and I'm just a small-time home-recording guy.
Single/double RCA to mono/stereo big/small jack, double mono/stereo big/small jack to stereo/mono small/big jack, the other way around, and more, you name it.
Even if you got a 3.5mm jack, you’d still need adapters, because very little audio equipment uses 3.5mm jacks anyway. Even the most basic stuff only carries 1/4”, RCA or XLR. My headphones do not carry a 3.5mm jack as well.
You might think of committing to a single cable-type everywhere, and being done with it – but if you’ve ever coded in the real world you know how realistic that sounds.
A 3.5-to-1/4 adapter or cable is a difference of kind to a Lightning or USB adapter. One costs me a couple bucks, is electrical, and in a pinch I can even repair it in the field. The other costs me no doubt more (and I say "no doubt" because I can't even find one for an Android device, and that's before we get into compatibility-matrix craziness), is digital, and is a black box to me.
I'm with you, fellow small time home recording guy who needs to carry around adapters. My synth is 3.5mm out, my mixer is XLR / 1/4 inch Mono or Stereo, my piano puts out in mono or stereo 1/4, and on and on and on.
I still think that the hubris to say 'what's one more adaptor' is enormous.
With the iPhone, some combos are no longer possible with any adaptor. For example, audio out and data in. Nobody makes an audio+data dongle, only audio+charge.
man. you're in the audio industry. most people are not. I'm talking the VAST majority of people. So they should cater to you? I think it is not unreasonable to expect the professional to have whatever equipment they need - there are aux adapters for USB C and lightning. They are small. They are inexpensive.
I agree the fact that a huge majority of headphones are still sold with the standard head phone jack - means the move is too early. Last release they even mentioned the head phone jack as a feature (and it was)..
Then don't buy this phone. Headphones will soon all be either wireless or use USB C or lighting anyway. And if there are headphones that do not, use an adapter.
No one is going to move to usb c or lightning, it offers absolutely no intrinsic advantages over the 3.5 jack and isn’t going away from laptops, desktops, speakers and other electronics. You’ll just buy dongles or Bluetooth.
They end up having an intrinsic advantage when they are the only port present. I want the same jack for my headphones on my phone and laptop. I wish it was a 3.5mm, but since it isn't I'd prefer a lightning or USB C that did.
I bought headphones from Sennheiser with lifelong guarantee once, and I plan to use them until I die, just like my parents used their Sennheisers for decades.
There might be many people like that, but given the cost of such headphones they'd have to be a small percentage of the overall population of phone/headphone users.
No, only 24 to 60 months of all failures repaired, for free, without questions asked.
Afterwards you can get all parts replaced for basically nothing, though, or buy the replacement parts and do it yourself (I just replaced the leather pads and cabling on mine)
This was an unnecessary change no matter how you slice it. Just look at the other options: bluetooth or an adapter. With bluetooth you have to pair it and remember to charge the headphones. With an adapter you have to remember to bring it everywhere if you want to listen to a podcast or music or audio book. They say they're making a simple device but they're making my life more complicated. This is one of the few times where I'll get upset over such a simple change, especially since I was planning to buy a Pixel 2 until they announced this.
I'm not an audio professional and I think there's far more like me that you can't ignore.
then use another type of connector for headphones. aux does not have to be the only connector forever. what makes this so special that it is the only connector that people refuse to upgrade? EVERY OTHER CONNECTOR has gone through improvements. new USB standards. new video. everything. why is this any different?
> then use another type of connector for headphones.
USB-C is a nice connector, and for digital headsets it is pretty nice, but it has some disadvantages (and advantages!) compared to standard headphone jack:
1. Portable devices tend to only have 1, so no listening to music while charging. Common in car scenarios, not all cars have BT audio, and BT audio implementations in cars can vary in quality by large factors.
2. Sound degradation over BT is a problem. Recompressing an already compressed file (e.g. MP3) is going to result in a loss of quality. Since a lot of music is streamed at a bitrate that is "just above noticeable loss", further compression will result in a sound quality decrease.
3. It moves the DAC to outside the phone. This is mostly a good thing, assuming the dongle uses a good DAC, and eventually we'll see third party high quality USB-C DACs (as are already present on desktops for traditional USB)
4. Pure USB-C headphones require more engineering, and they require a type of engineering that headphone companies are not traditionally familiar with. Headphone companies are experts in making high quality analog sound systems, shoehorning the need for digital expertise is needless. (Though more and more headphone companies already have a digital team, it does raise the bar for new entrants.)
5. The AUX jack is pretty damn good. Replacing it with a digital jack isn't really needed. Even with a huge industry push, it'll be many many years before USB-C is everywhere, and if you count the professional markets, it will likely be decades, if ever. (This isn't helped by Apple pushing a competing standard!) Digital means software, which means things can and will go wrong. With an analog plug the quality of the signal is the quality of the physical connection and the wiring going between them, and as a species we have almost over a century of knowledge about analog signals. With digital, ideally quality never degrades, but with firmware/software bugs it can degrade, and to get optimal quality it'll require every device in a chain not have any bugs related to sound quality.
>EVERY OTHER CONNECTOR has gone through improvements. new USB standards. new video. everything. why is this any different?
Physical improvements have been necessary for USB to increase bandwidth. 3.5mm is a connector for carrying two (sometimes 3) analog signals, and backwards-incompatible changes aren't necessary until we develop a third ear.
What I really don't get is why we want to move the DAC into the headphone. It just makes sense to have a single DAC in the phone, that anything can plug into. Now every set of headphones needs its own DAC to convert that digital bluetooth/USB signal into something you can actually hear.
I'm not against removing the Aux port on principal or anything, but I just don't understand why we're going toward removing seemingly core hardware.
Even on desktops/laptops 3.5mm audio is still used. Why do we need dongles to use core features?
Especially since we're removing an "out" port, now we're reliant on a single port to manage all in and out. I don't want to carry dongles to be able to use my phone normally.
I wonder what they'll remove next? Volume buttons? "Oh you can just turn it down with software already on the phone!" Well I could, but damn would that be inconvenient...
Desktops and laptops have different constraints than phones. Bluetooth uses less power (from the device), makes waterproofing easier, and frees up space for battery. I personally would prefer having a headphone jack on the phone (even though I've never used mine), but I understand why they did what they did.
It's hardly a scientific study, but it reinforces my prior belief that aux doesn't inherently require any electricity, while bluetooth is sending information over radio waves which of course has to use electricity.
I'm not sure about the difference when it comes to fancy, high-powered headphones, but my (anecdotal) experience with bluetooth vs. analog certainly supports the idea that bluetooth uses more power. I'd appreciate some citations if you have some other information about this subject.
AUX has to send electricity down the wire to drive the speakers in headphones. The Quora article you link to is weirdly written but confirms this, "the signal is from your phone and your phone uses it's battery to make it." I.e., headphones work by taking electricity from your phone and converting it to sound.
What on earth do you need a scientific study on? There are speakers in the headphones that produce audio. Where do you think the power for that comes from?
While driving the headphones, sure - I'll believe that in certain cases with high-draw headphones. But from a daily power drain perspective, I find that very hard to believe. Bluetooth transmitting is going to be orders of magnitude higher draw than corded earbuds. And when you're not actively listening, standby is still digging Bluetooth further in the hole.
its up to the phone how much amplification there is on the analog output. the latest BT specification is pretty low power, but which is lowest will depend. in my own experience, it seems like i get longer battery when using the jack over the BT radio, but i have not tested this rigorously
My audio jack is neither core nor I need a dongle after it's removal. On the go I've got BeatsX, at the desk, I use good headphones which are connected via USB.
So you can arrive to your destination with 50% battery.
There's really no argument that paints headphone jack removal as a net positive. Samsung has proved you can waterproof a phone with one (and an SD card!).
I actually bought a $25 bluetooth -> aux adapter that sits in my car like 2 years ago. I get in my car, plug in my phone to charge, bluetooth turns on and auto connects.
Well, for some reason the ports on my phones would always kind of stop working at some point unless I held the headphone jack in at just the right angle. It wasn't the headphones because they would work fine on other devices.
> Well, for some reason the ports on my phones would always kind of stop working at some point
Lint. Headphone jacks and lightning ports on every iPhone I've ever owned would always stop working properly after 6 months to a year of being carried around in my pocket. (Sort of) easily fixed with a paperclip to pick the lint out of the port, of course, but annoying and the headphone jack was harder to clean than the lighting/dock connecter port.
I am not an audio engineer but I own a pair of bluetooth headphones and 2 devices that I use them with and it's a nightmare as both devices fight over it. It seems to be the USB problem all over but an order of magnitude worse. I can't just flip the cable over, I need to disable bluetooth temporarily on the device that I don't want to pair.
Yeah, I love the direction LG has taken here. Rather than removing the port, they have added a higher quality DAC to make the inbuilt 3.5mm port even better!
So, I use it all the 3.5mm jack even more now. Is the idea behind an adaptor so that the user can use an even higher quality DAC?
John Gruber's stance on DXO is utterly meaningless, and it's farcical that you seriously cite it.
Measuring the technical capabilities of an imaging device is patently obvious and justifiable. From dynamic range to optical and electronic resolution, noise at different light levels, etc. You can question their methodology, but saying that it "doesn't measure anything" is nonsense, and citing a guy who laughably claims that you can't measure the "art" is uproarious.
Gruber has less than zero legitimacy in this discussion, and his sole motivating intention is defend Apple in all facets.
Gruber's conclusion is correct, even though his reasoning is not. DxO scores are crap, because they do not adequately control scenes in their comparisons.
I agree entirely -- their methodology is sloppy and what they do have is poorly documented. I certainly don't hold their scores supreme or canonical. Complaining that it can be done with more rigor and consistency, and with more objective openness, is valid. Gruber's hand-wavy art complaint is not.
Did you read that blog post? He was criticizing DXO for giving the iPhone 8 the highest score ever, not defending Apple. How do you objectively measure bokeh effects? And if you're so defensive of DXO, can you explain why their photo subscores range from 51-89 but that adds up to a 96?
Should we run it through a machine learning algorithm to see how the hell any of the "component" score adds up to a 96 overall score? And why only those components, but not others? I want my dog nose filter score in too.
Gruber had previously shat on DXO when the iPhone was bested by the Pixel. He took this opportunity to say "Oh btw the iPhone is now best...but it's still horseshit look at how unbiased I am".
And I'm not "defensive" of DXO scores any more than I'm defensive of dpreview. DXO analyzes a variety of real world technical capabilities of imaging systems -- most certainly in an imperfect way and needing more rigor -- but to call it "horseshit", or to ridiculously claim that it measures nothing, is specious.
> Measuring the technical capabilities of an imaging device is patently obvious and justifiable. From dynamic range to optical and electronic resolution, noise at different light levels, etc.
I agree completely. DPreview and other sites do that.
> but saying that it "doesn't measure anything" is nonsense
Then please tell me what that one final number measures. How do they get to it? It doesn’t seem objective at all.
Other camera review sites give a bunch of objective measurements then a subjective opinion about how the camera related to others.
DXO wants you to think their arbitrary number is scientifically rigorous.
> and citing a guy who laughably claims that you can't measure the "art" is uproarious.
Are you claiming you can measure art? That’s what DXO seems to do. Having a single number final score means that if camera A had a higher score than B then it must take objectively better pictures.
Or we have to admit their score is subjective.
> Gruber has less than zero legitimacy in this discussion
Why?
> and his sole motivating intention is defend Apple in all facets.
He’s complaining that the iPhone had the highest score ever. If you were right he would be writing about how DXO said it was the best camera ever, not that DXO is a sham.
If you can’t look past Gruber’s byline I imagine there are other articles online about DXO and their questionable practices. I’ve seen others before, this was the first Google turned up.
Because Gruber is a biased individual whose professional existence is to pander to a narrow crowd. He has nothing broadly interesting to say about cross-cutting concerns.
"He’s complaining that the iPhone had the highest score ever."
He previously dismissed DXO when the iPhone was beat. Now he wants to simultaneously crow about the iPhone taking the victory while claiming that he totally doesn't care about it anyways. People buy this teenager level nonsense?
"Are you claiming you can measure art?"
This is absurd. DXO is a broad, generalist, imperfect measure of imaging devices, and paradoxically there is broad agreement that the devices that do really well generally are capable of the best photos.
But you can take a great photo with a pinhole camera, from an artistic perspective. Does this make a pinhole camera the best? That is nonsensical.
Don't believe DXO. Don't believe Consumer Reports. Don't believe metacritic or star reviews or RT or whatever. But to claim it measures nothing, or to cite some biased player, is not credible.
> He previously dismissed DXO when the iPhone was beat. Now he wants to simultaneously crow about the iPhone taking the victory while claiming that he totally doesn't care about it anyways.
He wasn’t crowing about it. He was complaining people were taking about DXO scores at all because they’re a sham.
In the portrait pic of the girl, the difference between the Pixel 2 [1] and the iPhone 8 [2] is night and day, with the Pixel 2 looking like shit. She so pale, and the fake bokeh looks like a 5 year old smearing all over, it's simply not pleasant to look at.
And the whole push on adding the fake bokeh """scores""" to justify changing the scores so every fucking newly released device gets the highest score is stupid. Thanks for scoring the bokeh, if I had really wanted bokeh, I would have pulled out my bulky mirrorless camera.
I bet when a new phone comes out and they pay the DxO guy enough, they will add a dog nose filter score to make the new camera score the highest.
That might be true, but I'd say if they say their expertise is to have artificial intelligence, then by that I'd like to have the picture that is the most pleasant to look at. By that benchmark, and I can confidently say that 1 is definitely not more pleasant to look at than 2.
Remember, the picture is always a depiction of what our eyes see, and that our eyes see is only a part of the reality. My eyes don't see bokehs. My eyes don't focus the same way the camera does. My eyes don't see in 3500K or 6500K or whatever the hell that is. My eyes don't care how many strands of hair there are in her eyebrows and how detailed they are. My eyes don't see in black and white, either. Yet those are what you see in pictures. Focusing on the little detail "accuracy" and forget what it really matters at the end is dangerous.
Weird that you spend virtually the entirety of your post comparing the "bokeh" score when that is one area where the pixel 2 scores significantly worse than the iPhone 8.
Another one of your posts, talking about the white temperature, etc, is just surreal, and I dare you say that you are utterly clueless on this subject.
I really really hope they have fixed their supply issues this time around. I live in the 4th largest city in North America and I was unable to get a Pixel within a reasonable amount of time.
Same. I waited for weeks for the Pixel to be in stock last year. I finally bought an iPhone 7 Plus after being all android since the T-Mobile G1. I love it, and it shipped in like 24 hours! I was blown away that google couldn’t provide a phone to those that wanted it. (Note: I wanted to max out storage and I wanted the XL. There was stock on models with the least storage.)
I may consider the Pixel 2 XL over the IPhone X in a few months, but will definitely need to see some reviews of both first.
The removal of the headphone jack is devastating. I listen to music nearly every waking moment, so I am unsure about moving to Bluetooth whenever I use headphones.
How do you leave it attached when you plug it into your laptop and how do you listen while you charge? Great that it works for you, but having another dongle that you can lose, and have to attach and remove throughout the day is a real pain for others.
It looks great, I hope Google can keep up the shipments. I really like the white and black XL, and the orange button really reminds me of Dieter Rams calculator from Braun.
Good points. I had assumed base storage would be 32GB for all time, that recent phones would use the same processor, and that LGs OLED investments had trickled down to their own devices. Times, they are a changing.
Motion photos - if I'm understanding correctly this is basically "motion stills"[1] integrated into the main camera app. It takes three seconds of video, but no photo with it like in live photos.
I currently have a Nexus 6P. It was the flagship before the Pixel series. I use Bluetooth headphones daily on my commute using the Philly subway system (SEPTA). In center city and around suburban station I experience sound cutting in and out all the time on two different wireless bluetooth headphones. It seems to work just fine in my apartment when I don't need it but is never reliable when there's a ton of other signals around.
I can't stand the current state of the industry. New phones cost more but offer little in terms of value. They also look like trash. Who actually thought it was a good idea to make a flag ship phone have a two tone plastic case?
I'll be sticking to my aluminum cased 6P for a while. I'm also likely to get it again when this one finally dies. There's absolutely nothing that makes me want a Samsung or a Google branded Android phone right now.
What headphones do you have? I've found that your experience varies wildly depending on your headset. Can you try a different set of Bluetooth headphones and report back?
I had every Nexus through to the 6P, and then moved to a Galaxy S8. With the Pixel Google has been overcome with profound me-tooism trying to ape every choice of Apple. It's humorous that the new iPhone offers wireless charging.
Coincidentally I just caught their cringe-inducing intro of the new Google Clips that captures live photos. Groan.
I can't bring myself to buy a Samsung device. The bloatware is cringy as fuck. Maaaybe if it was unlocked right away and someone on XDA put together a Google only rom but short of that I'll never willingly buy a Samsung device.
For sure, Samsung's desperate attempt to fork off users is annoying. From Bixby to their own little app store, to duplicate versions of all of the basics like the clock and the calculator. But overall my experience has been extremely positive.
And it's only fair to note that what we know as the pure Android was Google essentially sweeping in all of the cool things from Samsung, HTC and others.
I don't agree with that assessment. I've been using Android since 1.0.
The default experience is simply just that. No frills. No skins. Just Google apps. What exactly did they pull from HTC or Samsung that is now in the Gapps package?
Android comes without Google apps as well.
Gapps package installs Gmail, Maps, etc but not much in the way of frills.
I've used maybe 15 Android devices since it's inception. HTC, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, and "Google" (two Nexus devices and 1 Pixel).
If I had to choose I would take stock Android in terms of aesthetics, ten times out of ten.
However, over time Android has indeed taken MANY features from HTC, Motrola, Samsung and other OEMS and added them to vanilla android.
I know I'm forgetting a lot more but off the top of my head:
- multi-app support
- always on displays
- readibility
- night mode
- smart gestures
- Stamina mode which is now Doze on stock Android
- voice commands
- even things like Google Now (minus the smart assistant) to the left of the home screen, were actually provided earlier by OEMs (as a method to differentiate) like HTC's blinkfeed
- heck, the first stock Android devices, didn't even have smart dialers (HTC added that as part of their Sense dialer)
Samsung's Touchwiz looked terrible until the most recent incarnation (it's now called the Samsung Experience) and it did contain some bloat, namely with duplicate apps but it's always been much more feature packed than stock Android. Some of the features were not so great but a lot of them were and eventually Google copied them. You can say the same to a lesser extent for HTC, Sony and Motorola.
None of them? There is absolutely no question that these vendors tried some novel things that were later integrated within Android.
And if we need to talk about experience, I started with a G1 on Android 1.0, then G2, HTC Hero, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Glide, GS2, Nexus 4, GS3, Nexus 5, one other HTC that I can't remember the name of, Nexus 6p, GS8. I've tried a lot of devices, and I've rocked them all.
And through those with unique vendor additions, it was always a mix of ups and downs, and later to see many of those innovations being swept into the Android base.
I also question any claim that Android is "without frills, without skins". Android is 98% frills. With each iteration we have a new laundry list of frills. At the same time the core OS took until about version 7 to finally get basics like smooth scrolling down (something that vendor skins got to a much better state much earlier).
I used the 6P for a fair amount of time, but I think the Nexus 5 was still the high water mark for Nexus phones. Cheap, great hardware, durable, and perfectly sized.
That said, I would have kept my 6P if I had known how disappointing the Pixel 1 was going to be. Double the price without any useful changes just feels like a rip off. No chance I'm going to throw more money at Google for another mediocre product.
Google just dropped support for the Nexus 5X and 6P, for unknown reasons. I hate it. Now I have no options left. (I need a device that will get android developer previews)
Some of my users are on Pixel devices and will get Android 9.0 the day it is released, while in best case, the source code only drops a week later. So assuming it takes me 10 minutes to fix all bugs, my app might crash for a week.
Realistically, my apps would be at least a month unusable.
After finding cheap Bluetooth headsets on Amazon last about as long as a pair of earbuds, and have no cord, I don't see a problem.
I'm very rough on physical devices, and will go through 4-6 pair of earbuds a year. Because these do not physically connect to the device, they take an order of magnitude less wear, and thus last longer.
I have the same problem of "going through earbuds." I'm not an engineer but I believe it has has to do with feedback when unplugging and plugging in the headphones. I have both a Nexus and an iPhone and have noticed that the new lightning headphones last longer then the same Apple branded earbuds.
The Bluetooth Advanced Audio Distribution Profile doesn't have a standard for loseless audio, which means that you end up crappilly re-encoding the audio to send it to the headphones. The reference codec (SBC) is particularly crappy. Shipping MP3 or AAC over Bluetooth is not mandatory and may or may not work depending on the sender and receiver.
The oldest pair of headphones that I own that work is older than my usage of the Internet. The oldest pair of headphones I own that I still use regularly I bought for college - and that was a long time ago.
Assuming that everyone treats their equipment as though it's disposable is frustrating to me. Some of us use our gear for a very long time, and in the case of something as mundane as a 3.5" jack, expect to be able to.
I take great care of my headphones, because they're such an important part of my life. I use them 90% of every day.
I have never had a pair of headphones last for more than 2 years. Almost every time it's because the cable gets worn out from rubbing against the inside of my pocket.
I've never had a pair of Bluetooth headsets that haven't had connection issues with my Pixel. This is especially true of the cheap Sony pair I tried, but also true of the nicer Macaws and Here Ones. Even my car's head unit has a new bug with Oreo where it connects/"plays" but is muted until I reconnect.
Interesting. I've never had bluetooth issues with pixel. My current headphones (Bose QC35, but not the fancy assistant ones) work amazingly, and even my older headphones (ancient LG Tones) worked great. My only complaints with my 5X were occasional stutter, and that was gone with Pixel.
There might be something wrong with your Pixel. I use a fairly inexpensive set of Jabra headphones connected via Bluetooth to an old iPhone 5C that I use as an iPod and it has worked flawlessly for many years now.
As I understand it, they aren't waterproof when you have headphones plugged in. This is important to know if you like to listen to music or podcasts when you swim.
Well, for a device that is basically the primary device for the vast majority of people to conduct their lives, that are expected to have useful lives of about 2 years, i.e. ~750 days, $400-$500 more may absolutely be worth even a slight improvement, as long as you can afford it.
> $400-$500 more may absolutely be worth even a slight improvement, as long as you can afford it.
The problem is, the Nexus series showed us that Google can release a high quality phone at 1/2 the price of the rest of the market, and keep it updated and running fast for years.
There is obviously more money in selling phones at market rate.
The problem lies with the definition of market rate. I cannot justify spending €300 more than a S8+. I've had many Nexus devices and always felt like I was getting a discount in exchange for being a beta tester. Then Google raised their pricing to match the iPhone's, yet I don't see much improvement in quality control (both hardware and software) or in operations (they're still incapable of a worldwide launch or proper stock management, despite volumes that are a fraction of their competitors').
I don't even understand how the Pixel 1 was fairly successful in the US (subsidized phones and project Fi maybe?)
I think Nexus phones sacrificed in the materials department to hit their price point. Other phones from Chinese manufacturers had similar specs, so it isn't impossible.
Custom tooling for complex industrial design is expensive, and the Nexus series tended to re-use existing phone designs wholesale, which also likely cut costs.
Since I put a case on my phone anyway, I don't particularly care about the industrial design. I also understand I am not in the majority there. But a $500 premium is a lot...
My Nexus 5x runs like crap, very slow and closes apps when I do 2-3 things at a time (music, gym app, browser for example). I tried everything, reinstalled 7.X system, installed 8.0 on launch, removed most of the apps... Btw, removing facebook and messenger apps helped very much. Now I use messenger lite and don`t use facebook on the phone (thanks, Google :) ). Was waiting for new phone releases, but maybe for the first time I will try an iPhone, I just hope iOS is not that limited and bad any more.
Wireless charging can't provide enough amps to actually charge newer Google devices. Nexus phones had them through the 5/7, but lost them with the 5x/6p.
My Nexus 5 wall charger can't even push enough amps to charge my Nexus 5x.
Edit: Does the new iPhone use the same wireless chargers as older phones? Can you use it with those Ikea lamps with wireless charging? Or does it use a different/less lossy transmission method?
I picked up the Pixel on release, but I've been disappointed by the quality of the product overall. The screen scratches easily , battery life is mediocre, and the changes to android recently have not been positive. I've had the device replaced once by Google, which was a painless process, but the new one scratches just as easily as the old, and loves to reboot on occasion.
Interestly enough, I started a new job right around the time I got my Pixel, and work provided me a brand new iPhone 7, so I've been able to compare them side by side for a year now, in nearly identical usage. I've been on the android bandwagon for a long time now, but the iPhone 7 is hands down the better hardware. The Pixel has been replaced once ~6 months ago, and spent most of its life in a soft shell case, but it has not handled general wear and tear well. The iPhone 7 has been blatantly abused (work phone, don't care) but still looks brand new. iOS leaves a lot to be desired, but with all of android's missteps the difference isn't as drastic as it used to be.
I recently switched from Android phones to an iPhone in July of this year.
This after having used android since the G1 (first android phone).
I think your sentiments are the most fair and realistic I've come across in a while (FYI for others reading).
The gap isn't as big as it used to be software wise, but the hardware is still better by a big margin. iOS has also been a little more stable, less app crashes, random reboots, etc.
The only thing I'd add is that the apple stores have been surprisingly helpful and have added more to the experience than I would have thought. Go in, try everything, get brought up to speed real quick by friendly staff, and they seem to always be conveniently located (for me at least).
All in all the experience has been better and I haven't missed Android's famous flexibility.
Honest question: for those of you who own a mobile device without a headphone jack, do you find it to be an encuberment?
Personally I still find it a bit hostile to not have the jack available, since often times I find myself charging the phone and using the headphones (when watching videos for example), so having an adapter dongle for such a frequent task seems counterintuitive to me. I believe that if a device is correctly designed, then it should serve most of its usecases without the aid of an extra adapter. These should be reserved for edge cases.
Moreover, I use headphones for a good part on my day and I am not sold on the idea of having a wireless device next to my brain for such an extended amount of time. Sure, we are already exposed to a good number of electromagnetic radiations, but this one I might want to pass. Not to mention the need to charge yet another device.
(personal antidote) I had 3 pairs of headphones I primarily used pre-removal of the headphone jack. 2 bluetooth (working out and @work) and the third was a nice pair for at home listening. I have no problems with a dongle always connected to my nice pair, and have actually found myself using bluetooth more often regardless of Aux port availability.
I have the iPhone 7. I've been using Bluetooth headphones since about 2014 (started with the JayBirds, but use the AirPods now). I use my headphones pretty much all day.
Not once have I noticed the absence of the headphone jack, nor have I felt the need for it.
My friend with an iPhone was unable to play his music through the speakers in my car because he forgot his adapter. We had to use a cup to amplify the speakers. Even if he had remembered his dongle, if he'd needed to charge his phone it'd need to be a splitter dongle.
We'd had no problems playing music in the car for the past decade.
Get a bluetooth adapter for the car. Save yourself from ever having to plug it in (or even pull it out of your pocket) unless you need to charge it. I did this pre-donglegate and plugging my phone in has only been an inconvenience ever since.
I am considering switching from an iPhone 6 to an 8 Plus. Do you regret going for a bigger iPhone or not? I tried the 8 Plus in a store and it was much faster! But also much heavier, that's why I haven't made the jump yet.
Oh sorry, miss typed. I owned iPhone 6+ before but I used to own a smaller screen phone, iPhone 5s and Galaxy S also.
To me, I have no regret for a bigger screen since I'm not a frequent one-hand user. But, if I holding food in another hand, it's a problem. I can't touch another side of screen edge easily. (However, I'm a left-handed, and all designs put the button on right.)
iPhone 8+ screen is much better than iPhone 6+! It's worth to upgrade :) Better camera also.
>for those of you who own a mobile device without a headphone jack, do you find it to be an encuberment?
Yes. Every single day. I bought an iPhone 7 when my 6 got stolen from me. Huge mistake. Have tried several bluetooth headsets, have never been satisfied with their quality (spotty connectivity just from ears to the pocket). I haven't tried the AirPods yet, but I'm not willing to drop $159 on yet another bluetooth product (and they look ridiculous).
The lightning dongle just introduces a new mechanical point of failure, and it's never there when you need it.
I won't be purchasing a product without a headphone jack again.
If you're OK with a headset as opposed to earbuds, I swear by SB220's (https://www.amazon.com/SB220-Bluetooth-Headphone-Streaming-H...). They're cheap and generic, but I like them for exactly that reason; use them as long as they last, sweat into them when I exercise, and keep a few extra pairs around for when one fails (usually they last about 6 months with regular, sweaty exercise).
> for those of you who own a mobile device without a headphone jack, do you find it to be an encuberment?
Never notice it. I have 2 adapters, 1 in my car and 1 in my bag. I can't remember the last time I needed the one from my bag. The 1 in the car stays permanently attached to the car headphone jack.
Any portable headphones I use are bluetooth and were bluetooth before the iPhone removed the jack.
At home, I stream over BT/wifi to speakers/devices.
Sitting at my computer I stream music from my computer. If I were to stream to wired headphones from my phone all the time I would just buy another $7 adapter and leave it attached to the headphones.
you guys should try switching to a camera for your photography instead of a cellphone, then we can remove the camera from the phone too
the idea that because bluetooth headphones exist means the jack shouldnt exist is not fair -- there are plenty of reasons the jack is plenty useful to plenty enough people
the only excuse I can see to remove the jack is that when you sell a billion devices and the little jack costs a buck a device you just made yourself a billion dollars for nothing. oh and now you can sell dongles that cost $1 a pop to make for $10 a pop and you make yourself 10 billion
Exactly. I routinely switch my headset from my laptop to my phone and vice versa. Doing this with a jack is trivial. Doing this with a BlueTooth headset is very annoying and requires additional steps on both devices.
Anecdotally, my experience with Bluetooth headphones is that they’re easier. I don’t have to do anything more complicated than you do — if I turn on my Bluetooth headphones in range of my computer, they connect. If I turn them on in range of my iPhone or iPad, they connect.
If any of them start playing sound, it comes out the headphones. No cable twiddling required.
I think there's value in having a camera there, even if it's shitty. It means you are always carrying around a device capable of image/video recording, which is tremendously useful.
> when you sell a billion devices and the little jack costs a buck a device you just made yourself a billion dollars for nothing
You're looking at it the wrong way. It's not the money you save; it's the money you make by selling adapters.
Also, there might be legitimate engineering reasons for getting rid of the 3.5mm jack. It is rather large by modern standards, maybe there are also water-proofing concerns. It's a trade-off I wouldn't make, but I'm neither Apple nor Google.
If space utilization is the issue then use a 2.5mm jack. Like Palm (before HP) did over 10 years ago. Waterproofing a jack is not any harder than doing it for USB.
Eliminating the jack entirely just means I'll be looking elsewhere for my next phone and I've bought a lot of Google phones.
Bluetooth dropouts and interference are a regular occurrence. And dongles are not necessary unless the phone makers is just trying to make more money by removing existing functionality from the base device.
That's a bad analogy or whatever it is. If you remove the camera from the phone you cannot take photos. If you remove the 3.5mm jack you can still listen to audio and even still plug in wired headphones with an adapter.
In the car the phone is plugged in with a wire anyway, that wire covers power and audio. Or I could use BT.
I’ve switched to BT headphones at work and they’re much more convenient than wired headphones. Before I bought hen I just had a single permenantly on the cord anyway.
When I travel I have my BT phones and the rest already have dongles in them. No need to remember anything.
Something else needed? $10 at many stores and I can get another dongle but I haven’t run into that.
I have a lot of nice-ish headphones and in ear monitors, and I thought it be more of an inconvenience, but it's not. The adapter works fine.
And now that wireless audio sounds good, I find that I use AirPods or Powerbeats almost exclusively while walking around. Turns out the only time I ever plug my nice headphones into the phone is when I'm sitting for long stretches.
it’s annoying! i’m constantly misplacing or forgetting adapters and not able to listen to music as a result. it’s not just headphones; it’s anytime you want to plug an aux cable in.
recently spent a week camping w/ friends unable to listen to any of my music because i had misplaced the stupid adapter...
When they make bluetooth earbuds that have same quality sound as Etymotic ER4's, I'll switch then... the likelihood of that happening is virtually nil.
If you're looking for the best quality, aren't you better off using a USB DAC than using even the wired headphone jack with the phone's DAC that was chosen more for its size and power usage than quality?
Yep, I'm with you. I use Shure SE846 earbuds, and even though the dongle supposedly uses a DAC chip identical to the DAC in the iPhone 6, the audio is noticeably flatter and less enjoyable. Since the chip is the same, I figure it must be either the amplifier (haven't read whether that's the same) or the bit of super thin cable between the chip and the headphone port. It was a downgrade from the iPhone 6.
I have a good number of bluetooth headphones so I never have to bother with wires if I don't want to, and yet I would still rather use wired headphones if I could.
I always tend to get weird Bluetooth problems. I'll turn on a pair of headphones and they will connect to both my laptop and my phone, with the signal from both being choppy. Or I'll turn on my headphones and connect them to my phone, but it will say something like "Connected (no sound)" and it won't play music through the headphones even though they're connected, until I either re-pair or keep pressing the button until it hopefully connects.
None of these are things I'd have to worry about with a headphone jack.
Really happy with it. Never tried it with Apple hw, but guessing it would work. Great as a "wireless headphone enabler" while watching films late, at a screen a little further away than ~1m. Or even for gaming along with a wireless controller etc.
It's not the best day in the world (and Bluetooth doesn't have completely lossless audio in any profile afaik). But it's better than any portable equipment I'm aware of - including the early Sony mp3 players that were steel boxes/melee weapons with proper line out...
Not having a headphone jack sucks. I use the iPhone 7 so I don't have an audio jack.
Instead of trying to remember to bring the lightning headphones or the lightning to audio adapter around, I've simply given up on using headphones. Which is terrible since I used to use my free Apple headphones a ton (on previous iPhones).
As much as people online rave about airpods, I don't need another $$ device in my life to charge and possibly misplace.
It annoys my wife. She can't use the earbuds that came with her phone to listen to anything on her iPad, b/c it only came with a dongle going the other direction (for connecting standard headphones to the iPhone). When we're in the car she can't charge & use the aux cable at the same time. Both of these could possibly be solved with 3rd party dongles, but it's silly to have to pay $20-30 extra for that.
I know that the headphones which came in the box work through the lightning port on my iPad. I think firmware support was added to all devices in iOS 10, maybe check if she's updated.
I prefer solving the charge+car audio issue with a Bluetooth receiver which can be found for $25 on Amazon, my wife loves being able to play music in the car without snaking an AUX cable from the dash to the center console.
I have an iPhone 7 with Airpods and it is the best combo. It is seriously awesome and I don't miss a headphone jack at all. It has literally never been an issue, even before I got my airpods.
I use my iphone + airpods every single day. I have never had bluetooth headphones before so that might slant my judgement a little bit.
Having said that I don't listen to music in my car and don't have a car charger either. I think most people who have issues with the lack of a jack are people who need to charge + play music in their car.
This is coming from someone who also scoffed at how "courageous" apple was for removing the jack. I thought it was stupid, but I "bought in" and got the iphone 7 and couldn't be happier.
Same here, the genius of AirPods is the charger case, it literally feels like I never actually charge them, I can’t recall a single time when both headphones and charge case were both flat.
Yea, it definitely continues to be an annoyance. I have some great bluetooth headphones, but if I forget them I can’t exactly pick up a cheap pair. The adapter works well but it’s easy to lose, especially if you want to use it in a car and also have to remember the lightning splitter so you can charge your phone at the same time.
That said, totally worth the improvements in water resistance. I use it in the shower all the time.
I don't, but then I rarely plugged in headphones before it was removed. The headphones that were included with my iPhone 7 are still in their packaging.
Most of the headphones I own are bluetooth. At home, I stream over BT or wifi and charge my BT headphones while my phone charges. While driving I also use BT, which is nice since I rarely have to pull my phone out and my jams are already playing as I get into the car.
My phone has an headphone jack but I don't use it more than twice a year.
I use bluetooth buds on my phones. tbh I am not entirely sold on having a wireless device so close to my brain either. It is way more convenient than having a cable though.
At the office, I just use full size headphones (the kind you can't run with) plugged into my laptop.
Nope. My iPhone 7 came with a pair of Lightning headphones which I leave in my backpack and an 3.5mm adapter which I leave plugged into my headphones at home. Basically if you don't use more than 2 pairs of headphones on a regular basis it's a non-issue. Worse case you might need to buy an additional ~ $10 adapter for a second set of third party headphones or for a spare.
Incidentally Apple's PR on dropping the headphone jack was terrible. They tried to play it up as almost a benefit when in reality it's a boring lateral move that is of little consequence for most people.
Initially I thought that dropping the jack was a "meh" idea, myself using only bluetooth headphones for more than 2 years now.
But then every single time I commute or go to a park I see a bunch of people with their cable headphones and how inconvenient it is: the cables are just messy, they cling to stuff.
Wireless headphones make more sense in terms of how easy it is to use them. Although, agreed - the PR on dropping the headphone jack was pretty bad.
I'm using an iPhone 7, it will be my last iPhone after 4 models. The lack of headphone jack sucks, the adapter breaks, none of the cheap adapters work - and the audio on good devices sucks.
The only real option is to carry a DAC around which is ridiculous.
Yes, it's a huge inconvenience. I got the iPhone 7 knowing it didn't have a headphone jack. What I didn't realize was how awful the adapter would be (I have two, both have problems). I barely use headphones anymore, because the adapter just doesn't work reliably. Audio sometimes won't play, so I have to unplug / re-plug many times. And when I put it in my pocket, the thin wire seems to lose continuity when it bends. The sound crackles or cuts out with any pressure on the adapter. It was a terrible solution to... I don't even know what problem it solved.
All of my audio is bluetooth (car, AirPods, Bose noise cancelling headphones, LG Tone headset). I don't have them on as much as I used to, as I've become a bit more aware of the risk of damaging my hearing as I get older.
It's super annoying when you're at a friends place and want to play some music through their speaker system, in a hotel room traveling, or just when i'm using both my laptop and iphone with the same pair of headphones having to swap adapters. Bluetooth speakers NEVER pair reliably. It's utterly horrible and I will never forgive Apple for it.
"Hostile" is a good way to put it. I am infrequently, but still regularly, annoyed by the missing jack. It's especially problematic when I need to debug an audio app or play guitar through an Apogee JAM. (There is no existing dongle that gives you both aux and data, so I have to use the speaker.) Makes me feel like I have a toy phone.
I have iPhone 7 for about a year, and it was never issue for me. I dont even carry that dongle. (I usually charge my phone at work where I dont need to use it)
Edit up top: The identification is done on-device. The Verge article didn't mention this.
> And this year’s Pixel will take advantage of the phone’s always-on microphones to listen for music (not just the phrase “OK Google”) and display what you’re listening to on the screen, even if it’s something on the radio.
This sounds creepy. So now when excessive microphone data is seen to be going out to the cloud, they can just say "Oh, the phone thought there was music playing and was trying to identify it. Simple misunderstanding, nothing nefarious!".
Other articles did mention that this will be local.
I have a feeling they are using federated machine learning for this to have a lot of the processing done locally and not need to activate the radios for as much of the processing as possible. They have been making big strides in that area lately and this might be the start of some of the major applications of it (I think they are using it in their keyboard prediction as well from a bit ago)
so there's going to be a huge database of songs on my mobile!!! i don't think anybody asked for it... sounds like trickery... this is going to take up some storage space now...
anyone know how many gb or mb this occupies in my phone... can v jus clear this data...
I doubt it, that would be a good chunk of data for what I see as a fairly small feature.
More likely (this is a guess, nobody outside google really knows at this point), they will use federated machine learning to figure out that something is "a song", then perhaps clean up and isolate the actual "song" part of it and send that over to a google server for processing.
But again it was just announced, so nobody really knows how this works, where the data is or goes, and what tradeoffs were made.
I don't do neural nets, but if I had to crudely estimate...
10,000 songs (the outputs) * 16 layers * 16 parameters per node * 4 for the bytes per float = 10MB + a DB of song/artist names.
I'm probably underestimating the parameters per node, and overestimating the size of the layers closer to the input. Further, it's more likely structured as an LSTM than a convolutional network, since sound is a streaming source.
The phone is just storing song fingerprints, probably no more than a few megs for every song ever recorded. It would be great to extract the data and release it for public use.
Lots of devices already do this. My Echo occasionally misinterprets its wakeword and broadcasts up little 4-second clips of whatever is going on at the time it decides to do that. If you're worried about so-called "accidental" identification that allows them to activate listeners and receive the sound data from the room, that's already a pervasive threat.
Reminder that US intel exploited a bug (or a "bug") in Samsung Smart TVs that allowed them to surreptitiously activate the built-in microphones and stream the room's sound on-demand, obviously with no notification to the user. [0]
That gets me curious, did anyone try running that malware and see which servers it transmitted up to? Would be interesting to go through logs and see, retroactively, who this was used on in the wild. Would be even _more_ interesting if it proxied through a tunnel at a cooperative BigCo...
I'm very disappointed they didn't drop the price of the 1st generation Pixels more. There was a 1 day sale on the Pixels earlier this year (that included a free Google Home device) that was much lower than what they have dropped them to today. My wife's Nexus 5 recently died. I had hoped to get her the 1st generation Pixel to replace it, but I'll probably get her the iPhone SE instead.
Same boat. It's still a fantastic phone and meets all the demands and then some! The the only reason to switch might be the battery life. Still not a serious enough issue to switch, yet.
Pixel's goal is to be an iPhone competitor. This is reflected in its pricing and product design. Nexus was for Android enthusiasts who wanted the stock experience. I think in their own words it was "meant to showcase the best of Android."
The Moto X4 won’t get Android Preview Releases, and is therefore useless for developers.
I’m a student, but I also develop apps. Even with the emulator, there are still bugs you can only find on real devices.
So now every time a new Android version comes out, I’ll either end up with a month where my apps are broken and I’m slowly working on fixing them (so ~10% of the time the app is unusable), or I have to shell out north of $900 just to get the cheapest still supported Pixel in Germany.
Additionally, my largest concern with no mid-range device supporting preview releases is that the mid-range phone experience is going to decline rapidly (slow downs, resource bloat) until the only viable equivalent experience to what we have now is on a $1000+ phone. When phones were sub $500, I could get a new one every two years pretty reasonably. Or if I didn't like my phone, it wasn't a huge hit to upgrade early. But now I'm paying more than 2x what I paid when I started using Android phones. At that price point, Apple starts to look real good.
> Like all Android One phones, Android One moto x4 runs a pure Android experience .... You’ll also get access to the latest updates from Android, such as Android Oreo before the end of the year. Android One moto x4 will be among the first to receive an upgrade to Android P.
Yeah, I feel Google should re-invent itself and make some bold decisions to move out of it's ad business. They seem very capable of making excellent products. Will their shareholders be up in arms if they got out slowly from this add business?
Google Apps, Android, Pixel etc are really excellent products.
Never gonna happen. Google can do the things it does because it holds monopoly pricing in internet advertising. The freedom from competition and massive capitalization is what allows it to invest in blue sky projects.
how can an adjacent pixel be used to calculate depth map. Are they telling me the sensor and their algorithm is that sensitive to generate none binary depth info from adjacent pixels?
614 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 233 ms ] threadI'm often using iPods or other local-music devices to pump sound into concert venues between acts. Taking away 1/8" audio standards in favor of USB-C or Lightning non-standardized ports causes chaos when needing to fill in music in a pinch.
In my industry, I simply cannot live without a standard audio port, which absolutely no one was clamoring to discard.
If my 1st generation Pixel were to break today, I'd buy another 1st generation Pixel.
If you want to run iOS apps, you are kind of stuck taking what Apple gives you and so I think the frustration with removal of the headphone jack there is warranted. I don't understand why anybody cares that Google is doing this. We have a lot of choice in the Android world.
Because I wanted to buy a Pixel, and now I won't because of a decision they made? I can of course go and buy something else, but I'm just voicing my displeasure with this.
Having used every Nexus device from the One through to my current PixelXL, except for the Nexus 6 which I skipped in favour of the OnePlus One, I'm very annoyed I'm going to have to put up with :
1) Someone else's skin on Android 2) Someone else's schedule for supplying my phone with software updates, which from my experience with the OnePlus One, and with anecdotal evidence from everyone who hasn't had a Google device seems to be "sometime, if ever".
That's why this is annoying to me at least.
Taking away the headphone jack does not solve any problem I have. It would impose extra costs, both in conversion, and ongoing. And it gives me a worse experience overall.
If I don't care about what I'm listening to that much (podcasts etc.), wireless headphones are fine, don't get me wrong, but the usability across-the-board still sucks, while not in any way or at any level improving the experience for me. It is a strictly worse experience.
I'm not going to get into an audiophile/golden ear flamewar, but I am always skeptical of this claim. Yes, SBC is not the world's best, but it supports bitrates upto 500 kbit/s. I'm not going to claim it is completely transparent, but 9 times out of 10 it is being used with shitty bluetooth headphones (where the alternative is shitty wired headphones)... at that point the quality of the headphones (wired or not) has far more to do with the audio quality than anything.
And yes, I doubt most people will notice an audio quality drop in a pair of high quality Sennheisers going from wired to SBC (there isn't convincing evidence that aptX is much better than SBC). I wouldn't be too surprised about a conflicting experimental result, but skeptical for now. Anyway, most people are not hooking up high quality headphones to their phone, or they are purposefully using phones tuned for a particular lo-fi response (Beats)... who cares about whatever SBC does at 350 kbit/s at that point.
Edit: And walking down the street is hardly a hi-fi listening environment.
In an optimum environment it's fine. In the real world, having my headphones make farty noises in my ears two or three times in a ten-minute walk is silly and we live in the future and it should be better than that.
The mere prevalence of people enjoying the stock iphone, ipod, cheap airline, and wireless headphones -- versus isolation quality you can get in a $20 pair of sony's suggests I'm a minority when it comes to audio quality.
To increase battery life, you have to go with more simplistic conversion which reduces quality. To reduce the cost of 2 DACs (one per ear) you have to use worse hardware. The net result is that the onboard DAC is basically guaranteed to be better and the amount of interference over wired headphones will be minimal.
I cannot even use bluetooth headphones for a full workday before they die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA
A substantial drop in audio quality is most likely completely psychological (not saying it isn't a real problem for some). But wired convenience store headphones typically are not great sound quality wise, the SBC codec of bluetooth likely has very little to do with sound quality at that point.
Maybe, if you're comparing actually good monitors. But to bitch about bluetooth sound quality when comparing to typical cheap earbuds is a bit silly.
This is baseless and ridiculous.
They did it because people are expecting more out of their phones e.g. better cameras, better screen, battery life, TouchID, FaceID all whilst demanding the same thickness. Something has to give. First it was the 30-pin adapter, now it's headphone, next will be SIM.
And Apple makes so little from their accessory sales compared to everything else they do so it is illogical they would intentionally cripple their flagship device to make a few hundred million.
Way to completely ignore the fact that there is room for a headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8. It was not removed in order to make room for anything. See the video I posted above.
I have... I don't even know. 20? 50? devices that need to be charged on a regular basis. I really don't want to charge anything besides my phone and my laptop. I don't want the ritual of taking 2 or 5 or 10 different things out of my bag at the end of the day, plugging them in, and then unplugging them and rewrapping the cables and putting them back into my bag. That is not "convenience" in my book.
There's also a small level of cognitive overhead involved with remembering which devices were charged when. We're not talking rocket science here but most of us are IMHO already in a constant state of distraction thanks to information overload, and I don't want more variables to think about.
Apple is the only company that has figured out how to make it easy, but it requires a iphone/macbook of course.
I know I for one will never buy a phone with no headphone jack.
What did they gain by removing floppy disk drives from laptops? Well, nothing per se, but it allowed them to make smaller laptops.
Removing the jack will allow them to make phones thinner - if not now, in future iterations.
And the thing with keeping features around is that it's not just a question of that one feature. It's cumulative over time. It's not just a question of removing the floppy drive, it's that AND the internal modem AND the CD drive, etc. The effects can add up.
Any transition like that is going to be awkward at first. If people tried to wait for perfect conditions, progress would never be made.
Pushing progress is not an excuse to force transition with cost and effort burden on customers.
> Pushing progress is not an excuse to force transition with cost and effort burden on customers.
You can't make progress without doing some of that.
Every stationary or semi-stationary networked device should probably have Ethernet. A desktop or laptop should; a phone shouldn't (because it's mobile). It'd be nice if IoT thermostats and the like were wired, but that would require homes to have Ethernet-over-power or Ethernet runs in the walls or something.
WiFi is inferior to Ethernet, except when mobility is necessary. So for mobile devices like phones, it's not needed. For tablets, probably not (but imagine if your charging cable could also carry fast, reliable networking to your tablet, so you could have a better experience while reading or watching TV, but still be able to get up & go).
When they removed that -- or any of the other things -- there was still some backlash from people who still had uses for them, and still wanted them.
> I don’t agree that Bluetooth is a better alternative than a cord that is 100% reliable to pair, perfect audio quality, and never needs to be charged
From what I've heard the ear pods are very reliable to pair and have good audio quality.
I think the comparison to removal of floppy drives fails here because neither is clearly superior to the other.
Wired headphones are inconvenient (you need a wire) but have great sound quality and reliability. They're also cheap. Wireless headphones are convenient in some aspects (no wires) but inconvenient in others (need to charge them) and have decent quality and somewhat less reliability. They're also expensive.
You can't say wireless headphones supersede wired headphones, they just choose different tradeoffs.
I don't believe that is inherently true about wireless headphones.
Re: tradeoffs, you can say that about any set of alternatives, and there can still be one option that in the long term is best for most people. Eg horses vs cars as means for personal transport.
I believe it is. Wireless headphones are subject to interference while wired ones are not. Physical connections are much less likely to fail. Wired headphones also lack batteries.
> Re: tradeoffs, you can say that about any set of alternatives, and there can still be one option that in the long term is best for most people. Eg horses vs cars as means for personal transport.
It's true that whether a product is superior to another is a subjective decision but I think there's a threshold to be met in terms of numbers.
Horses vs. cars is easy: Cars today are cheaper, faster, safer, require less space and require less maintenance than horses. The number of people who'd prefer a horse to a car is insignificant.
Wired vs. wireless is much closer. I think at best 50% of people would prefer wireless after trying them for a week or two.
Wireless and wired aren't mutually exclusive either. There's no reason a phone can't support both wired and wireless headphones and let people choose. That's what we've had for years now and unsurprisingly, wireless headphones haven't really taken off.
The GSM "buzz" would like to have a word with you.
Admittedly it's no longer much of an issue as that standard is not used much anymore, but still...
> I think at best 50% of people would prefer wireless
I'm curious what your sample size on that is, as literally everyone I know who switched to a (good) pair a bluetooth headphones (20+ at this point) is 100% on the wireless bandwagon, myself included.
Admittedly - a large portion of that 20+ samples of anecdata are from pool players who like to wear headphones while playing the game. The fact that there are no wires means that said players no longer have to come up with a way of dealing with the wire to prevent it from interfering in the game (so, sure, my sample is biased).
That's not true. Have you ever had gunk get into your headphone jack and have that affect the sound? I have.
> Physical connections are much less likely to fail.
I hear the air pods are pretty reliable. I've had plenty of wired headphones either stop working properly or stop working altogether. Wires can get yanked and this an effect the internal connections in the headphones, for example.
> Wired headphones also lack batteries.
The literal text of what I was replying to was "have decent quality and somewhat less reliability", and batteries have nothing to do with that.
> Horses vs. cars is easy: Cars today are cheaper, faster, safer, require less space and require less maintenance than horses. The number of people who'd prefer a horse to a car is insignificant.
We're not talking about horses vs cars today, we're talking about horses vs cars when cars were being introduced! That's the analogous situation.
> I think at best 50% of people would prefer wireless after trying them for a week or two.
On what grounds?
> Wireless and wired aren't mutually exclusive either. There's no reason a phone can't support both wired and wireless headphones and let people choose.
Yes, that's true. But I think that the longer-term picture is different. More features means more cost and complexity. And you can't consider this just in the context of one issue. It's cumulative over time. An analogy here is all the various features that have been lost in desktop and laptop computers over the years (and replaced by different ones). Sure, any one of those isn't necessarily a big deal, but in the longer term it's not about individual ones. If you said that about each individual feature, and kept it on, the devices these days would be really encumbered with all sorts of stuff.
> That's what we've had for years now and unsurprisingly, wireless headphones haven't really taken off.
We're not talking about decades and decades of good, consumer-level priced wireless technology. It's still pretty new, and that also means it's still pretty expensive. I think it's clear that a fair number of people who are against the wireless headphones still haven't actually tried good one, which shows that the exposure levels for the technology is still pretty low.
And removing the jack is the kind of thing that may push the adoption of wireless headphones and lead to the kinds of economies of scales that reduce the price and lead to more takeup.
Also, this already happened with the Ethernet port.
Routers need to be plugged into a wall socket. Batteries don't require that constant use of a cable or socket.
An advantage I didn't mention in my original comment is: getting rid of cables. Personally, I hate headphone cables. They seem to always be getting tangled up when the headphones aren't in use (meaning I have to mess around untangling them before using them), and always caught on things while I'm wearing them.
Aside from cost, more devices that need to be charged creates more overhead.
The analog headphone jack still does as good a job of connecting headphones, speakers and such in a practical sense as it always did. Perhaps even better since cars have aux in ports most of the time now[0]. It hasn't fallen into disuse either. While bluetooth headphones exist and enjoy some popularity, most people I know own, and regularly use wired headphones.
I don't think the analogy holds. The headphone jack is still as useful and popular with consumers as it ever was.
[0] Yes, they also usually have bluetooth, but getting a car and a phone to pair, and getting the right phone to be paired at the right time isn't always a good UX.
There were still people who had stuff on floppies who wanted floppy drives.
There was a big fuss when Apple first removed CD drives from their laptops.
> The analog headphone jack still does as good a job of connecting headphones, speakers and such in a practical sense as it always did.
Many people -- I'm not claiming it's the majority -- disagree. Many people find headphone cables a big pain in the ass.
> While bluetooth headphones exist and enjoy some popularity, most people I know own, and regularly use wired headphones.
At least part of that is that wireless headphones tend to be expensive and many of them aren't the best at pairing and staying connected. Those things aren't inherent to wireless technology and will change over time.
> Yes, they also usually have bluetooth, but getting a car and a phone to pair, and getting the right phone to be paired at the right time isn't always a good UX.
Again, that's nothing inherent to wireless. Apparently the Apple wireless pairing works pretty perfectly.
But they don't also find having to charge headphones, and eventually to throw them out and purchase new ones, to be 'a big pain in the ass'?
> At least part of that is that wireless headphones tend to be expensive and many of them aren't the best at pairing and staying connected. Those things aren't inherent to wireless technology and will change over time.
I'm pretty sure that expense and complexity are inherent to wireless. No wireless connexion is going to be as cheap and reliable as an equivalent wired connexion, if only because the wireless connexion terminates in … a wire.
Basically, chaos originates from the involvement of computer science.
Cordless home phones and "900 Mhz" wireless headphones to use around the house are dead friggin' simple and reliable.
(Not to mention insecure: another story).
you have to buy at least one pair of wireless headphones (and eventually they'll be bundled with phones), but you wouldn't need to replace them any more frequently than other headphones. This is the way with all changes. When wifi first became available we had to buy new modems.
As for charging them, that doesn't seem like a big pain to me. I charge my phone and laptop each day, this is just one other thing. For me the benefits -- no cables to get tangled (and have to untangle) or get caught on things -- outweigh the costs.
> I'm pretty sure that expense and complexity are inherent to wireless. No wireless connexion is going to be as cheap and reliable as an equivalent wired connexion, if only because the wireless connexion terminates in … a wire.
I hear the air pods are very reliable.
Regarding expense, if economies of scale get going, which I believe will happen, and manufacturers get more experience making them, then this will make the prices come down.
Except that the batteries will eventually stop holding a charge. This is not a problem with wired headphones. I can plug a 40 year old pair of headphones my Dad got in college into my phone and they work the same now as they did then. You can't do that with wireless headphones.
You're wrongly assuming that this always means the headphones will no longer work. There are wireless headphones with replaceable batteries -- e.g. https://www.beoplay.com/products/beoplayh8#techtalk
And, it's not like most wired headphones last forever. I must have gone through 5 - 10 pairs in the last few years. Admittedly most of these were towards the lower-end, but still, they just stopped working.
I agree completely - wireless headphones are amazing, I hate dealing with cables.
My first pair of bluetooth headphones were shit, and very difficult to switch devices, so I went back to wired. My second pair of bluetooth headphones (Bose QC something) are fantastic! Easily connect to multiple devices, easily switch between the devices. My third (AirPods) are similarly amazing, easy to switch devices, easy to pair.
I'm never buying a pair of wired headphones again.
I still want cheep, easy to find, simple, reliable personal audio that doesn't depend on a low-noise RF environment.
I still want to EASILY interface with /all/ of the current devices that accept standard electronic line-in signal.
Sure, my use case is different than your's, but that port is still useful and it is a feature.
Just make the battery a little thicker to keep things uniform and give us all a full 10 hours of watching videos on a plain / train / etc.
As far as I can tell, that move is now seen as prescient rather than premature.
People keep saying this but the circuitry and the depth was very small. There was even that guy from China who hacked a working 3.5mm jack into the iPhone 7 without changing its shape AT ALL yet Apple cited that they had to remove it to fit in more stuff.
If this isn't something that's useful to remove now, they should wait until it IS useful. It's all very frustrating. I now have my non-techie family asking me what to do with their phone that doesn't have a headphone jack or they're asking for support for their bluetooth headphones which MOST of them still completely SUCK (especially for the average user).
I mean I ultimately agree with you but I think we're still years away.
What is advantage of thinner phones? They are uncomfortable for hands and have probably smaller battery. They must be also easier to bend.
Found the SWE!
The audio industry is the most adapter-heavy industry on the planet. I need to carry a bag of adapters, and I'm just a small-time home-recording guy.
Single/double RCA to mono/stereo big/small jack, double mono/stereo big/small jack to stereo/mono small/big jack, the other way around, and more, you name it.
Even if you got a 3.5mm jack, you’d still need adapters, because very little audio equipment uses 3.5mm jacks anyway. Even the most basic stuff only carries 1/4”, RCA or XLR. My headphones do not carry a 3.5mm jack as well.
You might think of committing to a single cable-type everywhere, and being done with it – but if you’ve ever coded in the real world you know how realistic that sounds.
I still think that the hubris to say 'what's one more adaptor' is enormous.
I'll be sticking with my pixel xl
There’s many people exactly like that.
Afterwards you can get all parts replaced for basically nothing, though, or buy the replacement parts and do it yourself (I just replaced the leather pads and cabling on mine)
I'm not an audio professional and I think there's far more like me that you can't ignore.
AUX is the only standard used by both consumers and professionals, and losing that would be very annoying.
USB-C is a nice connector, and for digital headsets it is pretty nice, but it has some disadvantages (and advantages!) compared to standard headphone jack:
1. Portable devices tend to only have 1, so no listening to music while charging. Common in car scenarios, not all cars have BT audio, and BT audio implementations in cars can vary in quality by large factors.
2. Sound degradation over BT is a problem. Recompressing an already compressed file (e.g. MP3) is going to result in a loss of quality. Since a lot of music is streamed at a bitrate that is "just above noticeable loss", further compression will result in a sound quality decrease.
3. It moves the DAC to outside the phone. This is mostly a good thing, assuming the dongle uses a good DAC, and eventually we'll see third party high quality USB-C DACs (as are already present on desktops for traditional USB)
4. Pure USB-C headphones require more engineering, and they require a type of engineering that headphone companies are not traditionally familiar with. Headphone companies are experts in making high quality analog sound systems, shoehorning the need for digital expertise is needless. (Though more and more headphone companies already have a digital team, it does raise the bar for new entrants.)
5. The AUX jack is pretty damn good. Replacing it with a digital jack isn't really needed. Even with a huge industry push, it'll be many many years before USB-C is everywhere, and if you count the professional markets, it will likely be decades, if ever. (This isn't helped by Apple pushing a competing standard!) Digital means software, which means things can and will go wrong. With an analog plug the quality of the signal is the quality of the physical connection and the wiring going between them, and as a species we have almost over a century of knowledge about analog signals. With digital, ideally quality never degrades, but with firmware/software bugs it can degrade, and to get optimal quality it'll require every device in a chain not have any bugs related to sound quality.
Usb-C to 3.5mm jack, where it isn't a dongle, but rather built into the cable itself.
Because BT isn't an improvement. It's a worse experience in almost every way.
Physical improvements have been necessary for USB to increase bandwidth. 3.5mm is a connector for carrying two (sometimes 3) analog signals, and backwards-incompatible changes aren't necessary until we develop a third ear.
Your storage device has to handshake with the playback device. Maybe HDCP over USB?
Even on desktops/laptops 3.5mm audio is still used. Why do we need dongles to use core features?
Especially since we're removing an "out" port, now we're reliant on a single port to manage all in and out. I don't want to carry dongles to be able to use my phone normally.
https://www.quora.com/Which-uses-less-battery-for-a-car-audi...
It's hardly a scientific study, but it reinforces my prior belief that aux doesn't inherently require any electricity, while bluetooth is sending information over radio waves which of course has to use electricity.
I'm not sure about the difference when it comes to fancy, high-powered headphones, but my (anecdotal) experience with bluetooth vs. analog certainly supports the idea that bluetooth uses more power. I'd appreciate some citations if you have some other information about this subject.
Yes I'm sure those headphone drivers magically shake themselves.
https://www.quora.com/How-much-power-current-goes-through-an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_level
https://www.turntablelab.com/pages/headphone-buying-guide-wh...
So now, instead of a solid standard that has been for decades there's an attempt to have 3 standards.
WTF
Yup, no way I'm buying new a car just to listen to music while driving.
There's really no argument that paints headphone jack removal as a net positive. Samsung has proved you can waterproof a phone with one (and an SD card!).
USB-C allows for analog audio passthrough, unlike Lightning.
Lint. Headphone jacks and lightning ports on every iPhone I've ever owned would always stop working properly after 6 months to a year of being carried around in my pocket. (Sort of) easily fixed with a paperclip to pick the lint out of the port, of course, but annoying and the headphone jack was harder to clean than the lighting/dock connecter port.
About the same price as an overpriced cable from Best Buy.
So, I use it all the 3.5mm jack even more now. Is the idea behind an adaptor so that the user can use an even higher quality DAC?
I mean the fact they sell cameras alone means they’re not unbiased.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/09/22/dxo-ratings-are...
Wait for real camera reviews.
Measuring the technical capabilities of an imaging device is patently obvious and justifiable. From dynamic range to optical and electronic resolution, noise at different light levels, etc. You can question their methodology, but saying that it "doesn't measure anything" is nonsense, and citing a guy who laughably claims that you can't measure the "art" is uproarious.
Gruber has less than zero legitimacy in this discussion, and his sole motivating intention is defend Apple in all facets.
Most DSLR reviews have a consistent scene that pushes the envelope of what a sensor can capture, and all cameras are benchmarked against that scene. Here's an example: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d7500-review-speed-an...
Snake oil is what that number is.
And I'm not "defensive" of DXO scores any more than I'm defensive of dpreview. DXO analyzes a variety of real world technical capabilities of imaging systems -- most certainly in an imperfect way and needing more rigor -- but to call it "horseshit", or to ridiculously claim that it measures nothing, is specious.
I agree completely. DPreview and other sites do that.
> but saying that it "doesn't measure anything" is nonsense
Then please tell me what that one final number measures. How do they get to it? It doesn’t seem objective at all.
Other camera review sites give a bunch of objective measurements then a subjective opinion about how the camera related to others.
DXO wants you to think their arbitrary number is scientifically rigorous.
> and citing a guy who laughably claims that you can't measure the "art" is uproarious.
Are you claiming you can measure art? That’s what DXO seems to do. Having a single number final score means that if camera A had a higher score than B then it must take objectively better pictures.
Or we have to admit their score is subjective.
> Gruber has less than zero legitimacy in this discussion
Why?
> and his sole motivating intention is defend Apple in all facets.
He’s complaining that the iPhone had the highest score ever. If you were right he would be writing about how DXO said it was the best camera ever, not that DXO is a sham.
If you can’t look past Gruber’s byline I imagine there are other articles online about DXO and their questionable practices. I’ve seen others before, this was the first Google turned up.
Because Gruber is a biased individual whose professional existence is to pander to a narrow crowd. He has nothing broadly interesting to say about cross-cutting concerns.
"He’s complaining that the iPhone had the highest score ever."
He previously dismissed DXO when the iPhone was beat. Now he wants to simultaneously crow about the iPhone taking the victory while claiming that he totally doesn't care about it anyways. People buy this teenager level nonsense?
"Are you claiming you can measure art?"
This is absurd. DXO is a broad, generalist, imperfect measure of imaging devices, and paradoxically there is broad agreement that the devices that do really well generally are capable of the best photos.
But you can take a great photo with a pinhole camera, from an artistic perspective. Does this make a pinhole camera the best? That is nonsensical.
Don't believe DXO. Don't believe Consumer Reports. Don't believe metacritic or star reviews or RT or whatever. But to claim it measures nothing, or to cite some biased player, is not credible.
He wasn’t crowing about it. He was complaining people were taking about DXO scores at all because they’re a sham.
The dual pixel thing sounds a little iffy to me in that I wonder if it can really duplicate the portrait mode of the iPhone.
I’ll be very interested to see REAL reviews.
DXO’s numbers mean as much as a five star system. They’re not quantitative but want to be treated like they are.
In the portrait pic of the girl, the difference between the Pixel 2 [1] and the iPhone 8 [2] is night and day, with the Pixel 2 looking like shit. She so pale, and the fake bokeh looks like a 5 year old smearing all over, it's simply not pleasant to look at.
And the whole push on adding the fake bokeh """scores""" to justify changing the scores so every fucking newly released device gets the highest score is stupid. Thanks for scoring the bokeh, if I had really wanted bokeh, I would have pulled out my bulky mirrorless camera.
I bet when a new phone comes out and they pay the DxO guy enough, they will add a dog nose filter score to make the new camera score the highest.
1: A https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ref1_Boke...
B https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ref2_Lowl...
2: A https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ref1_Boke...
B https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ref2_Lowl...
If you compare the right eyebrow, you will see that [1] have more details, than [2]
Remember, the picture is always a depiction of what our eyes see, and that our eyes see is only a part of the reality. My eyes don't see bokehs. My eyes don't focus the same way the camera does. My eyes don't see in 3500K or 6500K or whatever the hell that is. My eyes don't care how many strands of hair there are in her eyebrows and how detailed they are. My eyes don't see in black and white, either. Yet those are what you see in pictures. Focusing on the little detail "accuracy" and forget what it really matters at the end is dangerous.
Another one of your posts, talking about the white temperature, etc, is just surreal, and I dare you say that you are utterly clueless on this subject.
I really hope they can keep these in stock.
I may consider the Pixel 2 XL over the IPhone X in a few months, but will definitely need to see some reviews of both first.
The removal of the headphone jack is devastating. I listen to music nearly every waking moment, so I am unsure about moving to Bluetooth whenever I use headphones.
Just do what everyone else does and leave it attached to your headphones.
+ Software updates
+ Camera software (probably)
+ Squeezing
- Dual camera
Did I miss anything?
†Yes it's unfair to compare speculated launch price to current store price but that's the decision I'm making right now.
3 years of OS and Security updates. The LG will be lucky to get 1.
Unlimited full resolution photo and movie backups.
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...
I can't stand the current state of the industry. New phones cost more but offer little in terms of value. They also look like trash. Who actually thought it was a good idea to make a flag ship phone have a two tone plastic case?
I'll be sticking to my aluminum cased 6P for a while. I'm also likely to get it again when this one finally dies. There's absolutely nothing that makes me want a Samsung or a Google branded Android phone right now.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y2YYS2L/ref=oh_aui_deta... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AWIPITS/ref=oh_aui_deta...
They work just fine at the gym, at home, and at work but when in a crowded public space the cutting in/out is consistent.
Coincidentally I just caught their cringe-inducing intro of the new Google Clips that captures live photos. Groan.
And it's only fair to note that what we know as the pure Android was Google essentially sweeping in all of the cool things from Samsung, HTC and others.
The default experience is simply just that. No frills. No skins. Just Google apps. What exactly did they pull from HTC or Samsung that is now in the Gapps package?
Android comes without Google apps as well. Gapps package installs Gmail, Maps, etc but not much in the way of frills.
If I had to choose I would take stock Android in terms of aesthetics, ten times out of ten.
However, over time Android has indeed taken MANY features from HTC, Motrola, Samsung and other OEMS and added them to vanilla android.
I know I'm forgetting a lot more but off the top of my head:
- multi-app support - always on displays - readibility - night mode - smart gestures - Stamina mode which is now Doze on stock Android - voice commands - even things like Google Now (minus the smart assistant) to the left of the home screen, were actually provided earlier by OEMs (as a method to differentiate) like HTC's blinkfeed - heck, the first stock Android devices, didn't even have smart dialers (HTC added that as part of their Sense dialer)
Samsung's Touchwiz looked terrible until the most recent incarnation (it's now called the Samsung Experience) and it did contain some bloat, namely with duplicate apps but it's always been much more feature packed than stock Android. Some of the features were not so great but a lot of them were and eventually Google copied them. You can say the same to a lesser extent for HTC, Sony and Motorola.
And if we need to talk about experience, I started with a G1 on Android 1.0, then G2, HTC Hero, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Glide, GS2, Nexus 4, GS3, Nexus 5, one other HTC that I can't remember the name of, Nexus 6p, GS8. I've tried a lot of devices, and I've rocked them all.
And through those with unique vendor additions, it was always a mix of ups and downs, and later to see many of those innovations being swept into the Android base.
I also question any claim that Android is "without frills, without skins". Android is 98% frills. With each iteration we have a new laundry list of frills. At the same time the core OS took until about version 7 to finally get basics like smooth scrolling down (something that vendor skins got to a much better state much earlier).
That said, I would have kept my 6P if I had known how disappointing the Pixel 1 was going to be. Double the price without any useful changes just feels like a rip off. No chance I'm going to throw more money at Google for another mediocre product.
The 6P offers me:
- Aluminum case.
- 1080p screen
- 4K video recording
- Slow-motion video recording @ 1080p 240fps
- 12.3MP single shot
- A good enough CPU for lag free web browsing, spotify, snapchat, instagram, etc.
Why the fuck would I pay $700+ for a new phone for marginal improvements???
By the way you can get a custom rom from here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/nexus-6p/development
Some of my users are on Pixel devices and will get Android 9.0 the day it is released, while in best case, the source code only drops a week later. So assuming it takes me 10 minutes to fix all bugs, my app might crash for a week.
Realistically, my apps would be at least a month unusable.
Only conern is the inventory, they make 100 pieces and do marketing for a million, I don't understand the logic, smh.
Consumers are not asking for it for the aesthetics. It doesn't make the phone much thinner. It doesn't make the phone easier to manufacture.
I'm very rough on physical devices, and will go through 4-6 pair of earbuds a year. Because these do not physically connect to the device, they take an order of magnitude less wear, and thus last longer.
The oldest pair of headphones that I own that work is older than my usage of the Internet. The oldest pair of headphones I own that I still use regularly I bought for college - and that was a long time ago.
Assuming that everyone treats their equipment as though it's disposable is frustrating to me. Some of us use our gear for a very long time, and in the case of something as mundane as a 3.5" jack, expect to be able to.
I have never had a pair of headphones last for more than 2 years. Almost every time it's because the cable gets worn out from rubbing against the inside of my pocket.
The left speaker stopped working after 6 months of every day normal use.
it looks like a nice phone, but i have a hard time understanding how it's 5-7x better than my xiaomi.
The problem is, the Nexus series showed us that Google can release a high quality phone at 1/2 the price of the rest of the market, and keep it updated and running fast for years.
There is obviously more money in selling phones at market rate.
I don't even understand how the Pixel 1 was fairly successful in the US (subsidized phones and project Fi maybe?)
Custom tooling for complex industrial design is expensive, and the Nexus series tended to re-use existing phone designs wholesale, which also likely cut costs.
Since I put a case on my phone anyway, I don't particularly care about the industrial design. I also understand I am not in the majority there. But a $500 premium is a lot...
My Nexus 5 wall charger can't even push enough amps to charge my Nexus 5x.
Edit: Does the new iPhone use the same wireless chargers as older phones? Can you use it with those Ikea lamps with wireless charging? Or does it use a different/less lossy transmission method?
Sure, it's slower than a quick charger, but in a lot of cases you don't need a quick charge.
Interestly enough, I started a new job right around the time I got my Pixel, and work provided me a brand new iPhone 7, so I've been able to compare them side by side for a year now, in nearly identical usage. I've been on the android bandwagon for a long time now, but the iPhone 7 is hands down the better hardware. The Pixel has been replaced once ~6 months ago, and spent most of its life in a soft shell case, but it has not handled general wear and tear well. The iPhone 7 has been blatantly abused (work phone, don't care) but still looks brand new. iOS leaves a lot to be desired, but with all of android's missteps the difference isn't as drastic as it used to be.
This after having used android since the G1 (first android phone).
I think your sentiments are the most fair and realistic I've come across in a while (FYI for others reading).
The gap isn't as big as it used to be software wise, but the hardware is still better by a big margin. iOS has also been a little more stable, less app crashes, random reboots, etc.
The only thing I'd add is that the apple stores have been surprisingly helpful and have added more to the experience than I would have thought. Go in, try everything, get brought up to speed real quick by friendly staff, and they seem to always be conveniently located (for me at least).
All in all the experience has been better and I haven't missed Android's famous flexibility.
Personally I still find it a bit hostile to not have the jack available, since often times I find myself charging the phone and using the headphones (when watching videos for example), so having an adapter dongle for such a frequent task seems counterintuitive to me. I believe that if a device is correctly designed, then it should serve most of its usecases without the aid of an extra adapter. These should be reserved for edge cases.
Moreover, I use headphones for a good part on my day and I am not sold on the idea of having a wireless device next to my brain for such an extended amount of time. Sure, we are already exposed to a good number of electromagnetic radiations, but this one I might want to pass. Not to mention the need to charge yet another device.
Not once have I noticed the absence of the headphone jack, nor have I felt the need for it.
Was “forced” to switch to Bluetooth.
Only one bad thing, you can't be charging while listening to music.
Or I'd wait for the x, which has a bigger screen than plus but same size body as 8 (?).
To me, I have no regret for a bigger screen since I'm not a frequent one-hand user. But, if I holding food in another hand, it's a problem. I can't touch another side of screen edge easily. (However, I'm a left-handed, and all designs put the button on right.)
iPhone 8+ screen is much better than iPhone 6+! It's worth to upgrade :) Better camera also.
There are cheap dongles available which allow you to do this.
Yes. Every single day. I bought an iPhone 7 when my 6 got stolen from me. Huge mistake. Have tried several bluetooth headsets, have never been satisfied with their quality (spotty connectivity just from ears to the pocket). I haven't tried the AirPods yet, but I'm not willing to drop $159 on yet another bluetooth product (and they look ridiculous).
The lightning dongle just introduces a new mechanical point of failure, and it's never there when you need it.
I won't be purchasing a product without a headphone jack again.
Never notice it. I have 2 adapters, 1 in my car and 1 in my bag. I can't remember the last time I needed the one from my bag. The 1 in the car stays permanently attached to the car headphone jack.
Any portable headphones I use are bluetooth and were bluetooth before the iPhone removed the jack.
At home, I stream over BT/wifi to speakers/devices.
Sitting at my computer I stream music from my computer. If I were to stream to wired headphones from my phone all the time I would just buy another $7 adapter and leave it attached to the headphones.
the idea that because bluetooth headphones exist means the jack shouldnt exist is not fair -- there are plenty of reasons the jack is plenty useful to plenty enough people
the only excuse I can see to remove the jack is that when you sell a billion devices and the little jack costs a buck a device you just made yourself a billion dollars for nothing. oh and now you can sell dongles that cost $1 a pop to make for $10 a pop and you make yourself 10 billion
If any of them start playing sound, it comes out the headphones. No cable twiddling required.
But charging is.
And 2 inputs are good but it's clearly a pain once you want to connect more devices, say a laptop, phone, ipad, TV...
You're looking at it the wrong way. It's not the money you save; it's the money you make by selling adapters.
Also, there might be legitimate engineering reasons for getting rid of the 3.5mm jack. It is rather large by modern standards, maybe there are also water-proofing concerns. It's a trade-off I wouldn't make, but I'm neither Apple nor Google.
Eliminating the jack entirely just means I'll be looking elsewhere for my next phone and I've bought a lot of Google phones.
Bluetooth dropouts and interference are a regular occurrence. And dongles are not necessary unless the phone makers is just trying to make more money by removing existing functionality from the base device.
the point being that to some, the wired output was useful and significant without the requirement of having additional adapters.
actually wasn't the idea of a "smart" phone that it could replace so many separate things we used to also have to carry around...?
In the car the phone is plugged in with a wire anyway, that wire covers power and audio. Or I could use BT.
I’ve switched to BT headphones at work and they’re much more convenient than wired headphones. Before I bought hen I just had a single permenantly on the cord anyway.
When I travel I have my BT phones and the rest already have dongles in them. No need to remember anything.
Something else needed? $10 at many stores and I can get another dongle but I haven’t run into that.
It’s been a non-issue.
I have a lot of nice-ish headphones and in ear monitors, and I thought it be more of an inconvenience, but it's not. The adapter works fine.
And now that wireless audio sounds good, I find that I use AirPods or Powerbeats almost exclusively while walking around. Turns out the only time I ever plug my nice headphones into the phone is when I'm sitting for long stretches.
recently spent a week camping w/ friends unable to listen to any of my music because i had misplaced the stupid adapter...
I always tend to get weird Bluetooth problems. I'll turn on a pair of headphones and they will connect to both my laptop and my phone, with the signal from both being choppy. Or I'll turn on my headphones and connect them to my phone, but it will say something like "Connected (no sound)" and it won't play music through the headphones even though they're connected, until I either re-pair or keep pressing the button until it hopefully connects.
None of these are things I'd have to worry about with a headphone jack.
https://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-e3
Really happy with it. Never tried it with Apple hw, but guessing it would work. Great as a "wireless headphone enabler" while watching films late, at a screen a little further away than ~1m. Or even for gaming along with a wireless controller etc.
It's not the best day in the world (and Bluetooth doesn't have completely lossless audio in any profile afaik). But it's better than any portable equipment I'm aware of - including the early Sony mp3 players that were steel boxes/melee weapons with proper line out...
Instead of trying to remember to bring the lightning headphones or the lightning to audio adapter around, I've simply given up on using headphones. Which is terrible since I used to use my free Apple headphones a ton (on previous iPhones).
As much as people online rave about airpods, I don't need another $$ device in my life to charge and possibly misplace.
Um, what? You can still use your free Apple headphones. You still have to remember to bring your headphones, no matter which ones they are.
Now I don't use wired headphones at all and the experience is just way, way better.
I still have my audiophile headphones (AudioTechnica M50x) but I only use them when I'm making music or seriously listening to music.
I've offlodaed all casual listening to the Bluetooth earphones. Couldn't be happier
I use my iphone + airpods every single day. I have never had bluetooth headphones before so that might slant my judgement a little bit.
Having said that I don't listen to music in my car and don't have a car charger either. I think most people who have issues with the lack of a jack are people who need to charge + play music in their car.
This is coming from someone who also scoffed at how "courageous" apple was for removing the jack. I thought it was stupid, but I "bought in" and got the iphone 7 and couldn't be happier.
That said, totally worth the improvements in water resistance. I use it in the shower all the time.
Mostly I just use headphones much less.
Most of the headphones I own are bluetooth. At home, I stream over BT or wifi and charge my BT headphones while my phone charges. While driving I also use BT, which is nice since I rarely have to pull my phone out and my jams are already playing as I get into the car.
I use bluetooth buds on my phones. tbh I am not entirely sold on having a wireless device so close to my brain either. It is way more convenient than having a cable though.
At the office, I just use full size headphones (the kind you can't run with) plugged into my laptop.
Incidentally Apple's PR on dropping the headphone jack was terrible. They tried to play it up as almost a benefit when in reality it's a boring lateral move that is of little consequence for most people.
But then every single time I commute or go to a park I see a bunch of people with their cable headphones and how inconvenient it is: the cables are just messy, they cling to stuff.
Wireless headphones make more sense in terms of how easy it is to use them. Although, agreed - the PR on dropping the headphone jack was pretty bad.
The only real option is to carry a DAC around which is ridiculous.
> And this year’s Pixel will take advantage of the phone’s always-on microphones to listen for music (not just the phrase “OK Google”) and display what you’re listening to on the screen, even if it’s something on the radio.
This sounds creepy. So now when excessive microphone data is seen to be going out to the cloud, they can just say "Oh, the phone thought there was music playing and was trying to identify it. Simple misunderstanding, nothing nefarious!".
Okay? The submitted article certainly didn't mention that.
The Anadtech live blog does indeed state "01:05PM EDT - On device machine learning. Local music identificat (sic)"
Even supporting a database of millions of songs would be possible.
Even if it takes up a small amount of space, it's basically a non-feature.
https://blog.afterthedeadline.com/2010/01/29/how-i-trie-to-m...
Many of those songs have never been played[1]. There's a really (really, really, really) long tail.
[1]: http://forgotify.com/
Every year gives us around 100 popular songs (add a % of location-specific popular ones), so it seems the plan is feasible.
I have a feeling they are using federated machine learning for this to have a lot of the processing done locally and not need to activate the radios for as much of the processing as possible. They have been making big strides in that area lately and this might be the start of some of the major applications of it (I think they are using it in their keyboard prediction as well from a bit ago)
anyone know how many gb or mb this occupies in my phone... can v jus clear this data...
More likely (this is a guess, nobody outside google really knows at this point), they will use federated machine learning to figure out that something is "a song", then perhaps clean up and isolate the actual "song" part of it and send that over to a google server for processing.
But again it was just announced, so nobody really knows how this works, where the data is or goes, and what tradeoffs were made.
[edit] typos
I'm probably underestimating the parameters per node, and overestimating the size of the layers closer to the input. Further, it's more likely structured as an LSTM than a convolutional network, since sound is a streaming source.
Reminder that US intel exploited a bug (or a "bug") in Samsung Smart TVs that allowed them to surreptitiously activate the built-in microphones and stream the room's sound on-demand, obviously with no notification to the user. [0]
That gets me curious, did anyone try running that malware and see which servers it transmitted up to? Would be interesting to go through logs and see, retroactively, who this was used on in the wild. Would be even _more_ interesting if it proxied through a tunnel at a cooperative BigCo...
[0] https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_12353643.html
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
https://www.blog.google/products/project-fi/project-fi-welco...
I’m a student, but I also develop apps. Even with the emulator, there are still bugs you can only find on real devices.
So now every time a new Android version comes out, I’ll either end up with a month where my apps are broken and I’m slowly working on fixing them (so ~10% of the time the app is unusable), or I have to shell out north of $900 just to get the cheapest still supported Pixel in Germany.
Additionally, my largest concern with no mid-range device supporting preview releases is that the mid-range phone experience is going to decline rapidly (slow downs, resource bloat) until the only viable equivalent experience to what we have now is on a $1000+ phone. When phones were sub $500, I could get a new one every two years pretty reasonably. Or if I didn't like my phone, it wasn't a huge hit to upgrade early. But now I'm paying more than 2x what I paid when I started using Android phones. At that price point, Apple starts to look real good.
> Like all Android One phones, Android One moto x4 runs a pure Android experience .... You’ll also get access to the latest updates from Android, such as Android Oreo before the end of the year. Android One moto x4 will be among the first to receive an upgrade to Android P.
After Lenovo took over Motorola updates went downhill.
Google Apps, Android, Pixel etc are really excellent products.