Apple and OnePlus announce bad news for fans of modest headphone jack

If you are a fan of the modest headphone jack, turn away now: it was not a good week for you.

The Cupertino company unveiled Wednesday brilliant objects, mainly in the form of phones and watches. In front of the millions of people who wait, Apple surreptitiously drives the knife into the old headphone socket.

First, Apple has quietly stopped selling the iPhone SE and the iPhone 6s – the latest iPhone devices to contain a 3.5mm round headphone hole. Then, without flinching, he decided to sell the new iPhones without the free dongle provided with previous iPhones without jack. You can still buy the adapter for $ 9 if.

A day later, OnePlus, the Chinese company behind the "affordable" high-end smartphone of the same name, revealed that it had finally succumbed to a desire to get rid of the headphone jack when it fell. Indeed, the OnePlus 6T – assuming this is what it will be called – will not have a dedicated headphone port when it is launched later this year.

Song and dance

To go back a little bit, OnePlus always comes to a little fanfare when it comes to making design decisions, especially regarding the inclusion of a headphone jack. At least one previous OnePlus launch event, the company teased the audience with a 'H'Do not they?Cascade who momentarily deceived the crowd into believing that she had dropped the headphone jack.Co-co-founder, Carl Pei, said last year at an assembled audience that the OnePlus 5 "has no headphone jack, "with additional evidence posted on the giant presentation slide." After allowing the crowd to process this information through chirps of disbelief, he added "… just a joke" to a series of relieved laughs.

Later in the year, when the company was preparing to launch OnePlus 5T tracking, CEO Pete Lau went to great lengths to explain why the company was firmly holding the headphone jack.

"Every feature, removed or added, is based on our understanding of user needs," he said. "At the moment, we think it's better to stick to the headphone jack. When we surveyed the OnePlus community, 70% of users told us that their priority was sound quality. All in all, wireless headphones are not there yet to provide the same audio quality. "

A few months ago, OnePlus was content with the 3.5mm headphone jack for the launch of the OnePlus 6, but this will be its last device to use the port – unless the company changes its mind, of course.

Yesterday, OnePlus once again played with the emotions of the public by announcing that at the end of the year, it would sell USB-C headphones, which suggested that the headphone jack would be lost, but this is not conclusive proof. Then the bomb came.

Speaking to TechRadar, Pei confirmed that the OnePlus 6T would not feature a headphone jack, and he explained why.

You need to make decisions that optimize the user experience and understand that sometimes the elements that bring value to the user can also add friction.

We also had to think about the negative side [of removing the headphone jack] for our users. We found that 59% of our community already owned wireless headsets earlier this year – and that was before the launch of our Bullets Wireless Headsets.

If we had to do it [remove the jack] Two years ago, the percentage [of wireless headphones owners] would have been much lower and this would have caused a lot of friction to our users.

This decision means that OnePlus has more space to carry a bigger battery in its next device, but, as with other handset manufacturers who have decided to drop the headphone jack, the compromise may not be worth it.

Old road

The arguments against removing the headphone jack are not new, but they are repeated here.

Affordable and quality Bluetooth headphones are not as prevalent as wired incarnations. Plus, they are just one device in your life to recharge.

Oh, but OnePlus will also bundle an adapter with the smartphone so you can use your wired headset (or you can pay for the company's USB-C Bullet headphones) – except that means you can not charge your phone and listen to music at the same time. This seems like a simple hurdle to get around via an additional splitter adapter (at extra cost …), but there is not really a reliable system.

Plus, many people have multiple headsets for different scenarios – I have a small pair of in-ear gear to listen to podcasts in bed, a pair of round ears for running and a heavy pair of interviews and meetings. Although I can use the same adapter for each scenario, the reality is that I know I will not always remember carrying the dongle with me. It's more complicated than the consumer needs, and I'll end up buying more than one adapter. Personally, I would prefer that my phone has a shorter life span than handling adapters or that my wireless headset is empty.

According to Pei, 59% of users in the OnePlus community now have a wireless headset. Taking these numbers at face value means that 41% are not, which is still a lot. And of these 59%, many probably also have wireless headphones, like me, for different situations. Plus, anyone can use a Bluetooth headset with a smartphone with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The current situation is therefore a win-win situation for everyone.

In addition, OnePlus investigated only its own user community, which is not necessarily representative of other markets. New potential customers of OnePlus could be influenced by competing companies that have kept this 3.5mm headphone jack – Samsung, the world's largest manufacturer of Android phones, has kept the small round port of its latest flagship mobile devices. For the moment, at least.

Will the Earth continue to spin in a world of missing headphone jacks? Absolutely. Will we all overcome this and realize that there are much more important things to worry about? May be.

It is clear that the market is only moving in one direction. It will not be long before boycotting these smartphone companies so that their design decisions are unsuccessful. But I still think that OnePlus may alienate more users than with this latest move. Apple is Apple – it's a small ecosystem in itself, so its decisions about headphone connectivity pose less of a problem. The main selling point of OnePlus has always been that its phones were "premium with no premium". However, its price has evolved over the years to make phones less competitive than before. percentage more expensive than the equivalent OnePlus 6.

This means that a seemingly standard design decision, such as dropping the headphone jack, could divert consumers to competing brands. I can not help but think it's a bad decision from OnePlus.