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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 31st, 2023

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  • Can u name a solution for this that doesn’t involve replacing dongles constantly

    No, but I don’t get why anybody owes you a solution… We are talking about smartphones here, not professional audio devices… Most people don’t care about using professional studio headsets with their smartphone, so I don’t understand why you expect smartphone manufactureres bending themselves over backwards just to satisfy a small minority of people like you when that would mean that 90% of people now have a plug that they never use…


  • No, just because you say “it is obsolete” doesn’t make it so.

    It’s not obsolete because I say so, it’s obsolete because it has no function that cannot be replaced with USB, an interface that is already present on every modern smartphone…

    The headphone jack is an industry standard, has been for decades and will be for much more time

    The fact that we have done something in the past or had a certain standard is not a good argument for keeping it indefinitely…

    It’s not really a standard

    Of course it is… Apart from the Iphone, every smartphone has an USB C interface… Yes, it is kinda a mess with differences in quality etc, but as far as the interface goes, USB C is the standard nowadays…

    Why should i have a more fragile connector that has to rely on electronics when i can use a cable that i can fix myself if it breaks?

    It’s already there… Even if you have a modern smartphone that still has a 3.5mm jack, you still have to have a USB port to charge your phone, etc… So the actual question is:

    Why should a modern smartphone have an additional 3.5mm audio jack that servers no function other than audio when that function is already taken care of with USB (or wireless)? I can see an argument if we were talking about audiophile tech, but we are talking about smartphones

    Also, please point me in the directon of some high end headphones with a usb connector. And i mean high end, reference quality, not some brandless crap from amazon.

    What do you mean with “high end”? “Audiophile stuff”? The focus is obviously on wireless stuff nowadays because most people don’t care that much about audio quality, especially not when listening on their phones, but there are USB headphones:

    https://www.androidcentral.com/best-usb-c-headphones

    Because Fairphone are arguing in bad faith. If they were really concerned about repairabilty, they would have kept a reliable and easy to fix jack instead of selling overpriced bluetooth earbuds.

    Why? It’s just another additional port that can break… I’m sure selling wireless earbuds played a role in their decision, they are a business after all, but that doesn’t mean that it was the only factor in their decisions or that there aren’t viable reasons to move away from the headphone jack…

    If anything, this whole ordeal is a constant reminder that corporations are not our friends, and that some people will somehow just blindly defend them.

    Of course corporations aren’t our friends, they are businesses… And you can imply that I’m “blindly defending them” if you want, just as I can claim that you are blindly clinging to an outdated standard that has by today virtually completely disappeared in the smartphone world and that there would be no benefit in bringing it back…


  • First: nothing you buy will ever be free from exploitation under this system.

    Ok but again, even if you think so, there are still different degrees of exploitation. Saying “nothing I buy will ever be free from exploitation” can also be used as an argument not to care about exploitation at all…

    buying one product over another will make no difference in society and the world.

    Of course it will… You can argue that the difference it makes is so small that it is essentially 0, but it still makes a difference…

    but they never manage to end the harmful production pattern that these companies were applying in the first place.

    Just because you buying a more sustainably produced smartphone doesn’t solve all the problems in the world doesn’t mean that it has 0 impact…

    In the end, conscious consumption only serves to feel good (falsely) about yourself.

    No, it also demonstrates a way to improve something, even if that improvement is minuscule… It also shows the potential issues and problems that come with it… I would never claim that somebody buying a fairphone is changing the world, of course that would be ridiculous. Individual consumer choices indeed don’t have a big impact on systemic issues.


  • with an apple-esque “you are doing it wrong” attitude

    You make it seem as if it was just apple that wants to get rid of the 3.5mm jack in the smartphone market, which is simply not true… I don’t care for apple at all and I don’t see what apple has to do with this discussion… That discussion has already been had, back when the fairphone 4 was released, but some people still make the exact same arguments as in the years before…

    focusing on the actual subject matter - the 3.5mm jack itself

    The subject isn’t whether the 3.5mm jack itself is a viable standard… The subject is if it is a viable standard for modern smartphones… And by now, the direction is clear…

    I don’t see the 3.5mm jack disappearing completely anytime soon, but in the modern smartphone world, I don’t see a reason why we should cling to the 3.5mm jack when we already have USB as a standard that has the same functionality… Especially now, when the switch has already happened…

    Here’s why I don’t feel as if bluetooth or dongles are an appropriate replacement

    Great, but can you also tell me why USB cable headphones are not an appropriate replacement? This is what I find so frustrating about this discussion, people always pretend that the options are either keeping the 3.5 mm headphone jack forever or using bluetooth headphones…


  • How is it obsolete, I understand a lot of people not needing it but all Audiophile products

    In my opinion, it’s obsolete or outdated standard when it comes to modern smartphones.

    I’d rather have that instead of a additional adapter to connect my iems.

    Of course adapters are not an optimal solution, but again, USB headphones are a thing… I definitely see the argument for wired headphones over wireless headphones, but I don’t see a reason why we should use 3.5 mm audio when we can simply use USB, which is an interface that is already the standard…


  • obsolete (adjective) No longer in use.

    And once more it turns into an argument about definitions… I thought it was clear from context, but I’m using “obsolete” here to mean “old fashioned” or “outdated”, a perfectly viable way to use the word “obsolete” if you ask me… And I mainly used it because as I mentioned, this discussion was settled with the previous fairphone… Perhaps a better word to use is redundant and/or outdated.

    The fact that I can go to literally any electronics store and choose from dozens of different 3.5mm jack headphones

    The jack has been THE standard for decades, arguably centuries… Frankly, I am surprised how fast the smartphone world switched. But of course it doesn’t disappear over night, but that doesn’t make it any less outdated/obsolete or whatever word you want to use here… And there will still be viable headphones with the 3.5 mm audio jack, just not in the smartphone world… That’s why I wrote “the standard is obsolete when it comes to modern smartphones”…

    The 3.5 mm jack is going to disappear from the smartphone world completely. Will it still be useful in some other cases? Sure, I don’t see a viable replacement in some parts of the audio world. But in the smartphone world, where every single mm has an impact, it is, in my opinion, simply obsolete, especially when you already have other interfaces built in that essentially can do the same thing already… It’s just additional space being used that is not needed…

    Yes, with time more and more people will buy USB-C headphones, it will become a standard

    It already is a standard and it has been a standard for almost 10 years by now…

    phones makers, following Apples stupid idea, started doing it first.

    Of course they did, nobody wanted to be first to challenge a standard that was always the norm with portable devices, but no smartphone manufacturer wants a plug in their device that is unnecessary or redundant, which is why most followed once the first major player made the move.

    Why start removing jack where they are used the most?

    Because at the end of the day, it’s useless space… And I get it, switching a standard, especially a standard that is so widely used, is always annoying for some time-period. But the switch started 7 years ago…

    People complain because with phones they are losing function

    No, people complain because it’s a change and change is annoying… There is no actual loss of function, the audio jack doesn’t have any function that USB doesn’t have.


  • The headphone jack is an inexpensive small connector

    It’s still an unnecessary addition to modern smartphones that has an impact on design, etc…

    offers far better quality than bluetooth does

    And once again, you ignore what I wrote in my comment and try to turn this discussion into a discussion about “wires vs wireless/bluetooth” when it’s obviously not…

    As for the usb adapters, those are an extra point of failure and easy to misplace.

    If using an adapter is too much of a hassle for you, get a wired USB headphone… It’s funny, you pretend that the only viable options are either bluetooth or an obsolete standard. We already have a new standard… We had it for decades now… And it’s already built into and used with virtually any modern smartphone. But no, because you are used to your old standard, you demand that the old standard is still used in addition to the new standard…

    If Sony can keep the jack on all their devices

    This isn’t about what we could and couldn’t do… We could go back to using cassettes if we wanted to, there just isn’t a good enough reason to do it as far as most people are concerned…

    Look at your comment, you can’t give me a good reason for your argument. Your only argument is “but it’s not that much of a hassle” and “everyone used it in the past so we should continue using it”…

    You don’t like the jack? You can just keep using bluetooth.

    I can just use bluetooth, or I can just use USB. So can you.

    But can you give me one argument why we should, in addition to having both bluetooth and USB interfaces on our smartphones, have an additional plug using a standard from the 1950s that we can ONLY use for audio when we already have to have a USB plug that can also be used for audio?


  • Funny you say this because I’m using one as I write this.

    You using obsolete technology doesn’t make it any less obsolete…

    Because simply plugging in my headphones into the phone

    Why do you keep trying to turn this discussion into a discussion of wireless vs wired? I’m not saying wires are obsolete, I’m saying the 3.5 mm standard is obsolete when it comes to modern smartphones because it’s a standard from the literal 1950s (which is ultimately based on a standard from the 1800s)…

    I don’t have a 3.5 mm headphone jack, yet I can simply plug my wired headphones in using a wire too and just use it without bluetooth… And I can use the same standard plug you too have in your phone already… Why do we need an additional interface just for headphones when I can use the one that I already need to have in the first place?


  • There’s not such a thing like ethical consume under capitalism.

    What’s the conclusion of this claim? That we shouldn’t consume anything at all? That it doesn’t matter what we consume as it all is equally unethical?

    Even if you believe that all consumption is unethical, there are still differences in impact and effect depending on what we consume and how much we consume.

    It isn’t environmental good to change from a working phone to anything.

    Of course not, but who is urging people to replace their new/working smartphone with a fairphone?

    The new costs above $600 and the old ones costs around $400. This is a bunch of money

    From a price/quality perspective, the fairphone has always been “bad”… You pay the price of a upper mid smartphone and get older mid tech. That’s because the fairphone’s main appeal is it’s modularity and their focus on “sustainable” production, which of course has it’s price.

    If your main focus is price and affordability, the fairphone is a bad choice.


  • No, they are not essential… And this isn’t a discussion about wireless vs wired earbuds… USB headphones/earphones are a thing, the fact that you don’t like wireless is not an excuse to demand that an ancient and obsolete standard should be reinstated when you have plenty of options to use wired devices without a 3.5 mm headphone jack…


  • This isn’t a discussion about wireless vs wired though, this is a discussion about whether or not an ancient standard that has already been replaced should be reintroduced just because some people have been using that standard for a long time…

    There are USB wired hearphones, there are even adaptors for your old 3.5 mm jack devices, so how is this about wireless vs wired?


  • So I thought to myself…why?

    Why? There are various arguments as to why the old audio jack standard is obsolete, but this discussion was essentially settled with the Fairphone 4, which was the first one that did not have a headphone jack. And they released a detailed article describing their reasoning…

    https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-jack-3-5mm

    The community has been requesting this for a couple years

    The community? It’s not as if Fairphone just willy nilly decided to get rid of the headphone jack, this was done with feedback from the community in mind… Just because you are loud and passionate doesn’t mean that your opinion is the only one that represents the community’s… As a fairphone user and “member of the community”, I say fuck the 3.5 mm jack… It’s an ancient standard that was obsolete years ago,

    And just to be clear, this isn’t a discussion about wireless vs wired earbuds. You can have wired USB earbuds, you can even use your old 3.5 mm jack headphones with an adaptor. This is a discussion whether we should switch back to an ancient and inferior standard just because you are used to it…

    Just add the headphone jack, shouldn’t be too hard.

    And this entitled and wilfully ignorant attitude will make people take you even less seriously… You can’t “just add the headphone jack”, decisions like that have an impact on all of the design of the device and have to be carefully evaluated… You simply going “come on just do it, how hard can it be” will not convince anyone…


  • The only thing they have in common with vegans is that they are a vocal minority with a strong opinion, and those can of course be annyoing if you aren’t part of the group.

    They are closer to reactionaries and conservatives who want hang on to an ancient standard/tradition mostly just because they are used to it and because it is tradition…

    You can get wired USB earplugs, you can get cheap adapters for your old earplugs, so it’s not as if people are forced to use wireless.

    This is just an ancient technology being replaced with a new technology, and instead of embracing the new tech and demanding improvements or solutions to problems with the new tech, some people just instinctly demand a return to the past without compromise.



  • No, the drive letter is not static. If a drive was a train, the drive letter would be the platform number where the train arrives. Or if a drive was a plane, the drive letter would be the gate number.

    Windows generally assigns the same drive letter to the same device, but if you want to, you could change drive letters randomly whenever you feel like it. The only thing windows needs is that every device has a different letter so that it can differentiate between them, but it doesn’t necessarily matter which has which letter.