Aux doesn't belong on smartphones anymore.

Once again, remember folks, this is unpopular opinions. Which means this is a good post, not a bad one.

But....but.....but......
I just wanna strangle him. Can I strangle him a little? Just a little choke....
- So long as you promise it'll be under 10 seconds
- You’re going need an AUX cord for that.
- Yes, if you can untangle the aux cord currently strangling you, you can turn its power against him
- strangle with upvotes

Well, that's definitely an unpopular opinion.

For me, there are two reasons losing the aux port sucks. First, it means I have to pay extra for functionality I want. It's not like the phone is cheaper without the aux port so it's just more money out of pocket for me. Second, it means I have to keep track of a dongle. Something I'd be using nearly everyday.

The funny thing about battery size; they could make the phone 1mm thicker and you'd get way more battery capacity from that than removing an aux port.

Also, wireless sucks dick. May as well give my own unpopular opinion.

I used to be a big fan of rhythm games on android, but the loss of the headphone jack has completely killed it for me. Bluetooth latency is still like 200ms, it's insane. I can't stand to even watch video with it
- You can have wired USB C headphones with no latency.
  Also any good headphones should compensate by delaying the video a bit. At least on iOS with Airpods the audio and video are almost perfectly synced. Same with any other bluetooth headphones I've used. I did have a REALLY old BT speaker with like a 500ms delay and that was very noticeable. But that speaker is over 10 years old and cost $20.
The funny thing about battery size; they could make the phone 1mm thicker and you’d get way more battery capacity from that than removing an aux port.
Z space is not at a premium, X and Y space are. A 3.5mm jack takes up a TON of space in all dimensions. The PCBs of modern phones are TINY compared to the phones of old.
- "a TON of space" Give me a break, older phones that were quite literally a small fraction of the size of modern smartphones were able to house them just fine. The space is minimal and everyone knows it. The reason that Apple got rid of it was mostly so that they could push their first party wireless headphones and make a killing. And it worked out very well for them. Everyone else followed suit because... Apple did it!
- Z space is at a premium too, because consumer studies (according to Fairphone) show that people want slimmer phones. More so than functionality like 3.4mm TRRS.

If the solution to a problem that didn't exist before is "buy an extra thing" it's not a solution. It's bullshit to sell you even more garbage you shouldn't need.

Why do these threads keep assuming everyone has high quality aux headphones lying around and nobody has wireless headphones, almost a decade after this trend started? Even assuming you don't have a prior investment in earphones, unless you're fine with the shitty bundled earbuds you need to buy new stuff regardless of the connection.
- The best pair of BT headphones is still incapable of the sound quality that wired ones have. Plus the latency that even the best that Bluetooth has to offer, plus the fact that an aux port is virtually indestructible, and even if you managed to break it, you can still plug your phone in to charge or transfer data. USB C ports aren't as hearty and if you mess it up with it being plugged in while walking around with it in your pocket, your phone is then kinda fucked.
Right?
I just want to hitch my working Clydesdales to my Toyota because I want to avoid the emissions, but it comes with a fucking engine instead and no place to mount the yokes! They don't need ANY gas and can even drive me home at the end of the night. Who has the money to go full electric when the wagon was working PERFECTLY fine.
It's bullshit to sell me all this garbage I don't need.
At some point technology moves on.
At some point we had to give up VHS for DVD It's time to let go of Aux just like we let go of VHS
- Ok, so what should replace the aux port? Becuase right now it seems to be just an adapter .. for an aux port. That's not moving forward, that's just adding extra steps.

I disagree, truly unpopular well done.

But why remove it? Having the option is more convenient then having an adapter, reduces e-waste and you never have to play the "Where the hell did I leave the dongle?" game ever again! 2.5mm sounds great in theory but the vast majority of stuff you'd listen to music on uses 3.5mm.

Solid unpopular opinion.

reduces e-waste
This is technically becoming less and less true as time goes on. Keeping the 3.5mm port only reduces e-waste for buyers who already own 3.5mm accessories. Fewer and fewer of today's younger generations own any 3.5mm devices at all, as more and more devices are unifying toward USB-C. In fact, fewer and fewer people today own any type of wired headphones.
The e-waste is now coming from the older, holdout consumers who are sticking to their 3.5mm accessories, as they're the ones requiring extra dongles to keep their obsolesced technology functional.
- And the non-3.5mm audio equipment is, itself, also e-waste with non replaceable batteries. It's also generally lower quality than analog.
- Lmfao. The audiophile community would burn you at the stake.

Not enough room for a 3.5mm audio port, but we absolutely must have a 50MP dual camera plus TOF sensor!

It's more that it's redundant and takes up a lot of space, you can just use USB-C
- Yeah just remove the camera and connect an external camera to the USB-C port.
- Show me an affordable dongle that supports full speed passthrough charging and clean audio simultaneously. Then, I'll agree on redundancy.

Fuck you, well done.

Extremely misinformed post. Upvoted.

Counterpoint:

External DACs on multiple recent generations of Pixel devices frequently experience severe distortion and Google seems to not give a shit about fixing that.

I literally cannot use wired headphones or speakers with my phone even with relatively high end equipment without horrific audio glitches.

I have issues even with the simplest Apple USB-C to 3.5 mm dongle on my phone. The USB side rocks back and forth, disconnecting from the phone and exploding my ears with popping noises.
It's also flimsy as hell.

2.5mm plugs suck ass. My first smart phone had one and I HATED it. It's so tiny, fragile, and I DETEST working with it.

I actually much prefer working with the 6.5mm Aux jack, but when every mm counts, you need to weigh up the pros and cons and see if 2.5mm, 3.5mm, 6.5mm or No Aux is best.

On top of all other issues, those fucking dongles wiring breaks really fast

And wears out your USB plug exponentially faster.
Also, the 3.5mm audio port on your phone has another reason to exist.
Your music is digital until something converts into an analog waveform that your headphones or speakers can use. That thing is the digital to analog converter aka a DAC.
The quality of the DAC directly effects the quality of the audio. The cheap dongle you buy on amazon for a few bucks is the cheapest pos that exists. Most phones with a 3.5 output will produce better sound because the manufacturer can elect to put a better DAC in the phone hardware. In fact, a high quality DAC built into the phone would be a nice selling point for audiophiles or a nice upgrade for those who might otherwise choose to buy an external dac--now they dont have to.
- When a headphone is connected to the USB-C port via passive adapter, the phone detects this and uses the USB-C port in a pincompatible way; nothing electrical changes.
  This came with a cheap phone I bought in 2017 or so, there are no active components in there as far as I know.
- Apples dongle is $10 and very high quality. It uses the same chip that was previously internally in the iphone. Good adapters aren't that expensive.
  Dedicated DACs for phones started taking off right as the 3.5mm jack was getitng killed anyways. All the hardcore audiophiles I know that listen to music on their phone use one of those because they can actually drive good headphones. It was kinda perfect timing.

that space could be used for a bigger battery

This is the truly bizarre part. Removing thr 3.5mm port is about thinness.

It is the antithesis of increasing battery life.

Yes, optimizing thinness is the antithesis of increased battery life.

Dafuq kind of take is this?

notices what sub we're in

oh, I see. Carry on.

A 3.5mm AUX jack takes up a significant amount of space just to connect a few wires that could be connected through USB-C anyway, that space could be used for a bigger battery.

The USB-C is unavailable because its being used to keep the phone powered. Is your solution to force everyone to carry yet another dongle in the form of a splitter?

How often are you really charging your phone while also using headphones, and do you really think that usecase is widespread enough to warrent an extra connection?
- Literally daily
- It's >0, which is all that matters IMO.
- If you’re using an older battery (which we should be as much as possible) then plugging in is needed more frequently. Upgrading every two years is not good for the environment, and certainly not good for the child slaves mining the parts for our batteries.
- This seems to be the common reason which really baffles me. I just replaced my 5yr phone with a refurbished phone. My battery was at 75% health and I would just charge in the morning or night. I feel like charging devices when not being used is pretty easy, though I guess if someone is chained to their phone 24/7 it may be a bit harder to accomplish.
- Now that's what's up. Was thinking the exact same thing. Non-issue.
- A bad cable and entirely useless for the given scenario. Nice.

I disagree. My phone has perfectly acceptable battery life and a 3.5mm jack, I use it all day and get home with over 40% left every day. I need the jack to use my earbuds at work, and to listen to music in my car - and I'm gonna be honest with you something as small as an adapter WILL get lost by me. Everyone's got a different use case, and it might not be important for you, but your use case isn't everyone's.

Yeah.. I disagree. One only thing that I got to give to bluetooth headphones is dealing with the cable - sometimes it's just more preferable to have no wires, especially during sport activities.

I'm still on the lookout for the next phone with a headphone jack. I was so hoping for it to be the next fairphone, but sadly that's not it. (Old small ZenFone was perfect but software support of Asus is ass)

I ended up bying a phone without a jack. I got 2 dongles that split into a jack and a charging port, so i can charge in bed while watching videos. One of the jacks has static noise and whine, the other has i think some kind of digital to analog interface that cuts the sound conpletely when the audio is too low.

So i hear static or when i watch a video or listen to an audiobook, when there is a pause in speech i hear the sound cut out completely, or if a video has soft background music on it, it might not pick up on it at all.

It's very distracting.

And if you go online to buy a dongle, they dont really say what they have in them, or you dont know how your phone handles the conversion etc.

So I don't think "just buy a dongle" is the solution. It works but now i have all these problems i didnt have with my old phone that had a jack...

My dongle that supports charging and analog audio for my car has a whine that changes pitch with the motor speed (guessing it's very sensitive to the voltage or frequency of the alternator or something). Though at least it's low enough that it's almost unnoticeable when actual audio is playing.
It also requires the phone be unlocked to start sending audio through the USB interface. And maybe about 10% of the time whe I get it all set up and music/podcast playing, the motion of hitting the lock button on my phone to turn the screen off also bumps the usb port enough for it to briefly disconnect, which stops my audio and forces me to unlock my phone again to get it playing through the cable.
The phone needs to have a DAC anyways if it wants to drive its speakers. I could live with a smaller analog jack, but hate having to use a separate device with its own DAC that is probably way cheaper than the one already in my phone plus they probably don't even isolate the audio signal from the charging signal because the main selling point is just the ability to play audio and charge at the same time.
- Clip a ferrite core filter around the audio cable, that should get rid of the whine. You can find them pretty cheap on Amazon or your favorite electronics store.

I don't understand how people like Bluetooth earbuds.

You have to constantly clean them because of ear wax for starters, and they're much more uncomfortable if you're sweaty. Not to mention all the years of doctors saying don't use Q-tips because it pushes ear wax into your ears just for everyone to start shoving buds in there anyway. To bad the younger generation didn't get to learn about wired clip-ons or flat cables. Wish they still make them but I suppose bonephonesoike Shokz are safer for when cycling.

Then there's the battery issues. That just feels like a downgrade. Not only is it yet another thing you have to remember to charge, but they can run out of battery. Aux version literally never runs out of battery. Maybe if we had a new gen of battery that lasted months sure, but we don't yet.

And lastly battery on phone isn't an issue. I have an Xperia 1 V and can easily use the phone all day without running out of battery, and it has a headphone jack.

Not all Bluetooth earbuds are in-ears.
And I prefer charging than having to deal with a cable all the time and the jack is a real dirt magnet.
- Idk how you're getting your jack dirty. I guess if you go mudding outdoors, but then your USB C port would have the same issue.
  Also, if the earbuds aren't in-ears, aren't they just clip-ons or headphones? I think buds by definition go inside your ears
Yo I love my bonephones
Compared to what?
Corded earphones that go in the ear would give you the same problem. You can buy over ear Bluetooth headphones, and the ones I use for work have a charger where one battery is in and one is charging.
Shokz batteries last forever and still let you hear surroundings, so they are go-to for leaving the house. And for just audio, phone battery doesn't matter either.
No cables for Bluetooth, and I wouldn't wear earbuds anyway.
Additional bonus: my wife and I used to dance before kids and we can connect TWO sets of headphones for same audio without having to be touching, or we can listen to same audiobook while walking.
Of course, no cable snags or tangles either.
Depends on what you're doing with them. If I'm listening to music and want fidelity, I use wired headphones (also with my Xperia 1 v), but if I'm at the gym I much prefer my Bluetooth headphones as they're generally easier to keep in my ears for long periods of time. Just a point of reference though, I'm not recommending the airpods style of Bluetooth headphones, I'm talking the older style wired connecting the two earpods and when you're not using them, they magnetically join together around your neck. They're actually pretty decent with Bluetooth 5.2, can get a couple of days of battery life and charge quickly over USB c if they're low.
- Yeah the sports clips make more sense to me than the buds tho. Or in general, because they have at least better battery life

Wouldn‘t a second USB-C outlet make sense? One for charging, one for audio/data/external devices. Or is that still too much space wasted?

There are "gaming" phones that have two USB-C ports for the purpose of not obstructing the hands while gaming, but they can also be used as you describe (iirc). It would be a nice feature on mainstream flagships.
Now I’m picturing a docking station!
Even when I had a phone with audio output, I almost never connected more than one wire. The only likely use case is charging and listening at the same time, but there’s already a lot going wrong if that has to happen…
- Idk I often forget to charge my phone in the evening, so plugging it in 1x and still having an UsB-C connection for headphones or a controller would be cool. Also imagine running linux on your phone and having an external monitor.

STRING THEM UP, FELLAS

But the space for 3.5 jacks don’t take space away from bigger batteries? In most devices, the two are not directly adjacent to one another. And if anything, the removal of the jack is said to make the device thinner, which would mean a longer battery, if anything. Keeping the device thicker would allow for true bigger batteries since the space is there for the jack.

In Samsungs (I repared a lot of those) for instance the Audiojack had always been a small component that clicked into the casing and connected to the sub board or on the S10 onto the mainboard (doesn't have a sub). Also, it didn't take much more space compared to the USB connector. The battery wouldn't get to be any bigger because of the lack of an audiojack. You also need other stuff there like speakers, which take up way more space.

Anyone who claims they can hear the difference between an aux jack and USB-C is lying.

I can hear the difference. See, my headphones were bought in the 80s. So they have a 3.5mm jack. If I tried plugging it into a usb-c jack, it would sound AWFUL!
If the dac on the USB c adapter is cheap you can absolutely tell the difference. However, even apples USB c dac is decent, so that's not really too much of the main problem.

I feel this is a very good unpopular opinion, as I think a lot of the annoyance about the fair phone not having a headphone jack is that they bill themselves as a sustainable phone maker who prides themselves as reducing waste and increasing repairability of their devices, something that dongles kinda fly in the face of from an ewaste perspective.

The same target group that they are aiming at generally likes stuff like expandable storage (so that they don't have to upgrade devices just to hold all their photos and stuff) and having a dead simple headphone jack so they can use one of the oldest standard ports in the world to use their headphones.

Since most newer phones have multiple days worth of battery life, I'm more than willing to sacrifice a few hours worth of runtime (maybe even a days worth) just to have a headphone jack. And you could say that I am in the minority of phone users, which is apparently true, however I'd argue I am pretty solidly in the target demographic for a fairphone, which I'm not getting due to the lack of a headphone jack. I instead, got a Sony Xperia 1 V (stupid name for a very nice phone) which offered a 3.5 mm, expandable storage, and decent repairability.

Same. Also on the feature list was the smallest screen I could find

I like having a separate connector for audio because it gets a lot of use and this lots of wear from the constant plugging and unplugging, and I'm often moving around with the headphones plugged in. I don't want to have to worry about breaking something from doing this.

Small USB connectors tend to be the first point of failure in most of my devices, and a broken USB port would render a phone completely unusable. I don't want to take that risk.

This is a great unpopular opinion and while I hate you for saying this, I do have to agree with you.

Cool...so I wanna listen to my headphones and charge my phone. Should I just get fucked then?

The ONLY compromise I would find acceptable, if is they had 2x usb-c ports that could handle data/audio, and one of them dedicated for charging...but guess what, that's more expensive for them compared to a 3.5mm

~~https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006520633408.html~~
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007424092888.html
- First one flat out says does not support charging.
  Second one says charging, then they also say it doesn't support Samsung, apple, and laptops. Whatever the hell that means. It also states 'so you can enjoy music while charging. Note: does not support music control.
  I just wouldn't trust the 2nd to function as I want, with the really weird description.
- Do not use those to charge, ever:
  https://hackaday.com/2025/04/07/why-usb-c-splitters-can-cause-magic-smoke-release/
I bought a y-shaped cable for exactly this the other day.
Usb c on one end, aux and usb a on the other end.
- But does it charge the phone while you listen?
Wireless charger. Or use Bluetooth headphones, that way you aren't tied to wall waiting for your phone to charge while listening to audio.

I’ve taken apart a phone for the purposes of replacing a battery. While everything is very compact as you can imagine, there is also a surprising amount of unused space. I’ll admit I’m not an engineer, so I don’t know if this space is error margin for manufacturing tolerances or something, but there is certainly enough room for a jack to be installed were this space tightened up just a little.

Aux jack is much more reliable than usb-c and can be plugged into any orientation. It is a superior connector. The size difference is negotiable and phones should be made a few mmm larger anyway to fit peoples hand better.

no

No.

This is something only the nerds complain about. The general public prefer Bluetooth buds. If there was significant demand for phones with AUX, someone would build them.

These companies don't give a shit what the public demands. The public just gobbles up the newest model regardless of what features it offers.
The general public is full of morons. Demand has nothing to do with it, most people just follow like sheep and have no idea what is going on around them.

last time i bought a phone, the store had models with and without jack, i like choices, no reason to want them sell units with only the features i need

My 2yo phone is still virgin on his aux jack port.

S-tier

If i were in my mid 20, I probably disagree but not anymore. Wireless earbuds sound quality is good enough for me. Plus, not having wire dangling around me is major convenience. I'd trade a lesser sound quality for no wire in a heartbeat. The first day i went jogging without wired earbud is liberating. Even on treadmill is godsend. I can move around my house easier.

Plus, anyone that is an audiophile probably have a dedicated audio player.

it should be 2.5mm Aux and not the usual 3.5

true

that space could be used for a bigger battery

for what? for like 10 minutes of extra time?

Even if it's 1% that adds up.
10x 1% increases is a big jump
- Where does it add up? I've never let my phone battery fall under 30 min of remaining battery life before charging. I'm pretty sure that's the case for almost everyone. Extending the battery by an hour isn't going to meaningfully change how I use my phone. Extend it for an extra day and that's when it starts getting interesting.

I'm with you.

Bluetooth 5 is 50Mbit/s it's perfectly fine even more so past 5.4 for latency and 6.x. even better. So personally for me it's good enough now. The battery life on my WF Sony earbuds has been enough to not annoy me at all. So, it's better than a tangling cord.

I hate how small the USB-C connector is though! They're fragile and wear out pretty quickly. Everybody discounts the round barrel jack size as if it's a bad thing, i think it's the exact opposite. It's large and the internal contacts are similarly large which keeps them working forever lol

Usb C is far more resilient than the micro B connectors it replaced. What are you doing to your type C ports that makes them wear out? Could just be dust stuck in there, easy to scrape out with a toothpick
- I'm comparing it to ports larger ports like 3.5 and USB-A. The ports in the phone are fine, but the plugs on the headphone end wear out like crazy. Carrying a phone in my pocket with a USB-C header sticking out for a while day of work causes it to wiggle around no matter what I do. Eventually I realized it was a losing battle 😐

Yah, I couldn't give a fuck about aux, and up until last year I always had one. I moved on to Bluetooth once it started working properly.

RING RING

Bah. Where is it? It was right here. I just have to

RING RING

find the fucking adapter. It was right in my bag in the side. Why

RING RING

is it not in that pocket? It's always there. Could

RING RING

it have fallen out? Into genpop where

RING RING

my gym clothes were? Why doesn't it fit in the winder with

RING RING

the earbuds anyway? I always lose it. Aw shit. It's Steve from

RING RING

confidential, and he is under 60 so he hates voicemail. But so do I so..

RING RING

I guess I'll have to wait until he can leave the secure area and turn on his phone and send me an SMS.

Been waiting a while, though. How long is this gonna take? I have to drive home before the sitter leaves.

Look. He's not calling me back. He's probably pissed because I was so insistent and now it looks like I flaked. And now, we've been idling in the parking lot for 10 minutes and so we gotta go before Laurie's mom comes.

Okay. Onto the freeway. Home in 30.

RING RING

I'm not dure I understand this scenario: What exactly is keeping you from just answering the phone without headphones?

Used for a bigger battery? Lol. OP has never taken a phone apart. Aux port might get you another 20mah. Out of that 4,415mah battery.

I have seen so many people say the 3.5mm port takes up room, and it is such a crock of shit. The space it takes up is practically non existent and it costs almost nothing implement.
Like literally if I'm making a custom circuit board, or even bread boarding, with a microcontroller of all the IO currently on phones a 3.5mm jack is probably the cheapest and easiest thing to implement. It's a hell of a lot less of both than say a finger print scanner and I don't see anyone calling for those to be removed despite the fact that many people don't use that feature.
- I don't use the fingerprint scanner cause cops can force you to unlock your phone by fingerprint, but not by pin or pattern.
Analog ports all the way.

I want my preamp back too, goddammit. Take my rage vote for doing this right.

I suspect this is unpopular in the tech community, but if this were truly an unpopular opinion, then phones without a headphone jack wouldn't sell, and they would be replaced in the next generation. Instead, it seems like I get fewer and fewer options each time I look for a phone at the intersection of qualities that matter to me (unlocked bootloader, sd card, headphone jack).

I'm still rocking a 7-year-old Galaxy S9+. A few years ago my headphone jack wore out and the gapped hole no longer retains my earbud cable. Since then, I've been using a USB-C adapter, but the combined earbud and charging use is starting to take it's toll and the port is beginning to feel loose.

Adapter use seems more abusive to the USB port than just charging, as it occurs when the phone may be in a tight place (like a pocket), with torque applied to the adapter body. I'm convinced that if I was limited to USB-only over the full life of this phone, I would have lost wired headphone and wired charging capability a long time ago.

Upvote. Upvote for a 2.5mm too.

Everybody gangster until they lose an Air Pod.

Admittedly I was very stuck in the 'I hate phones not having Aux' camp because I preferred wired headphones for the longest time.

I was given some fairly poor wireless headphones and was pleasantly surprised by those, so I bought a good quality set myself. Now I've gotten so used to being untethered from my phone while listening to music, or podcasts, etc that I don't think I'd go back to wired headphones while mobile.

That just leaves stereo systems, portable speakers, vehicles and the like. All of those, instead of carrying around or leaving an aux-aux cable, swap that for a usb c to aux cable.

Or even one of these:

As OP said, more space for battery. It's also one less opening to waterproof. It took me a good long while, but I've come around to agree a headphone jack just isn't worth the extra space it takes up. It's not worthless, but there's better ways to use the space.

I agree, fwiw

What needs to happen is the underlying direct feed path needs to still exist, but a modernized connector to bridge it. Because you are right, people don't understand just how much area the connector port requires.

I have no idea what it takes to bring such a thing to market, but I know that from a hardware perspective you're looking at two wires.

People don't forget you can buy usb-c earphones and they are just as good as 3.5 jack and are widely available now. USB-C earphones come with a DAC integrated in them so you can get a proper sounding pair that may sound better than any 3.5mm you may have used.

Bluetooth still sounds meh

Also mp3 is way overdue for a replacement please check out .opus compression vs mp3

Counterpoint: I haven't ever plugged my phone in to charge. The USB C port is now full of lint and crud. It definitely wouldn't work for headphones with an adapter. A headphone jack would still work if I had one. If it didn't work a toothpick could clean it out. I have a stylus inside my phone instead which I use once every few months.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think phones should have any ports. A micro SD card spot next to the SIM card inside is everything necessary. Wireless charging doesn't require you to hold the phone and cable at the right angle for the charging to happen. Just drop it on the charger and forget about it. Hell, they build wireless chargers into couches and tables now. I have a portable speaker that does wireless charging. That's true wireless charging. I could charge my phone in a hurricane.

I know this is unpopular opinion but using the charging port for anything but charging or the occasional data transfer is unnecessary wear. I could never deal with "hold the charge cable at juuust the right angle" again. It starts going bad and you get to see it getting worse until you can't trust it charging and you buy the new phone you've been thinking about for months now. The USB C port in my phone is where I keep my collection of pocket detritus and I wouldn't miss it if it was gone.

I 90% agree, I swapped to wireless earbuds about a decade ago when my aux port on whatever phone I had then broke, and I immediately preferred it. I went from buying £10 wired earphones from a supermarket what sounded shit and broke every month to £25 wireless earphones that sounded shit and broke every 6 months, so for me it was am improvement. I was also a chronic "catch headphone cable on every handle" victim, to the point that I immediately preferred the wireless solution. Another thing is when my wireless headphones break, they fucking break; I go with one earbud for about a month then inevitably buy a new pair. When my wired headphones started to degrade, I always fought it, ending up in a losing battle of finding that perfect way to hold them to make them still work. The only downside I have nowadays is when I'm listening to music or a video and realise I've misplaced my phone, which isn't really an issue, just that it was impossible when it was tethered to my ears.

But I'm probably part of a very small minority when it comes to my preference. I carry a compact camera any day I leave the house intending to take photos, so my ideal phone would have one rear camera that prioritises efficiency over quality. I'd have no headphone port, and to be honest, I could live with no ports and wireless charging and data transfer. I've had two smartphones in the last that had their USB-C ports fail as chargers (both galaxy S8s), and I could go years without needing to use the port for anything else. My dream phone would have no ports, one rear camera without a bump, no front camera, minimal tactile side buttons, be pretty slim, have a swappable battery and run a FOSS OS and mostly FOSS apps.

I respect the voices that want a smartphone equivalent to a ThinkPad a lot, but I don't really think it's anywhere near as necessary as a ThinkPad would be, because for most tasks that need something like that, I'd just use that.

That being said, there's two reasons I don't 100% agree. The first is to do with the fairphone specifically. More battery space and better waterproofing don't really apply to a phone where I can swap the battery and it comes apart so much that it's not really competitively waterproof. The second is larger, which is that I can just not use a headphone jack if I prefer wireless, while people who prefer wired are having increasingly few options available on the market.

I was very pissed when they took the aux from us. But I think its fair now that everything and everyone is being forced onto USBC.

Except it's fucking broken on Pixel phones
- I'm on a pixel with GrapheneOS and it works fine for me.

What does AUX stand for? Or do you just like shouting "aux?"

All 'Aux' stands for is auxiliary, which could technically mean a lot of different things depending on context; but we're talking about phones, so it's pretty commonly known to mean the auxiliary audio/headphone port. Ie; the 3.5mm TRS/TRRS socket used for audio output/input.
- I know what "aux" is short for, but what does the acronym AUX stand for? Auxiliary Useless Xenophobes?
Aux means the auxiliary port.
- I know what "aux" is short for, but what does the acronym AUX stand for? Auxiliary Utility Xylophone?

I can't wait for fucking 3.5 mm connector to finally leave our collective consciousness. It has it's uses in analogue world, and it should stay there, or maybe go away even there and be replaced with 5mm entirely like god intended.
I hate this never working dirt accumulator and all the cable hustle associated with it.

I agree with the fact that I don't need one anymore. Bluetooth connections (MULTIPLE simultaneous connections) is great for me.

Why are you guys still using corded headphones on mobile? Is everyone an audiophile but somehow also using mobile phone as a primary media device? Allergic to charging? Too cheap to upgrade your gear? What is the use case that makes this an unpopular opinion? I'm not saying use USB C instead, I'm saying ditch the physical connections altogether.

Edit: If the answer is "I don't have the money" that's a reasonable answer. If it's "wired is just better" that's a questionable statement.

Because my car requires an expensive trip to the dealer to update the Bluetooth to be compatible with my phone.
I would love to ditch the wires. But I can't afford to.
- If your stereo has an aux port, I use one of these in my car: https://a.co/d/gvwFs9y
- So more specifically then the perspective is that if you had to choose between new phone and car Bluetooth you choose new phone yes?
  Not being judgey but rather trying to understand.
  I brought my stereo in the car with me back in the day that I couldn't do the upgrade from cassette built in to new CD player but we all have different preferences for sound I suppose.
Sorry, but that comes off as a bit arrogant. There's still plenty of use cases for wired connections.
Older cars that either have aux or still need a tape deck adapter, that don't have Bluetooth.
Until recently, you couldn't use wireless headphones on planes.
On top of that, there's vanishingly few USB C to headphone adapters that also allow you to charge your phone, so if you're using wired headphones, and you need to charge your phone, you have to stop listening, in order to plug in to charge.
There's a lot of compromises and trade offs.
I'm not saying that one is definitely better or not, there's a thousands of ways to connect everything that works. Not every solution is going to work for every person and every use case.
I get what you're saying, but no. Just no.
- It seems to me that it is ALL tradeoffs but it's hard for me to see why people would have a preference for wired connection (EDIT: FOR MOBILE PHONES) except for financial constraints. If that's the motivator, the odds that you have an old, really nice pair of wired headphones that came with the stereo adapter for airplanes seems small. OR you fly so much that you bought the adapter to use your own headphones which also seems like not in the spirit. I suppose latency could be an issue in some cases, but that is constantly improving as bluetooth improves.
  It seems like middle-man adapters (just like the tape deck adapter) and wireless charging are the answers here. Nobody wants to be the adapter guy, but the groups that we are talking about in these wired cases are becoming a minority position.
  You can't still buy new cars with 8 track players, or with cassette decks, or for some makes even CD players. Not everyone can afford to make the upgrades, but does that mean we keep putting accessibility options for these things in new cars for the people who still use them? For a little while yes, but eventually no. And I think we're on the cusp of that. Outside of vinyl, it is strange to me to see vociferous opinions about phasing out particular technologies.
- Wireless charging exists, but i still agree with you because that's still not a fully standard feature.

Downvoting, not a unpopular opinion. I have never ever heard anyone outside of lemmy/the other place complaint about the jack...

Actually, most people love BT buds.

I also suspect the whole jack thing is a "I am a special snowflake" thing.

I have an old car that I can only connect to via aux cable 🤷‍♀️
I didn't get my current phone cause it has an aux jack, but I'm glad it does have it
- I have an old car and recently spent 60 EUR on a simple radio that has DAB and Bluetooth. Should have made that upgrade way sooner.
- Totally legit use case, but do not changes my answer, it is a still a not super common problem, even "old" cars (starting mid 2000) have BT.
  There is still a lot of pre 2000 cars around, but still not enough for a company like FairPhone to even consider an AUX (imho)
  Also, there are BT recicers that connect to an 3.5.Jack.
No, it's a I want to play audio from my phone to my car thing. Or I want to watch a movie without audio delay.