[aaaaaaaaata]

They didn't have one until Apple created it.

Now they should have lower fidelity audio, and/or more shit to carry around and fiddle with, and/or fail unexpectedly when least needed?

You actually can't understand the consumer side of this? Or just like Apple?

[thebigspacefuck]

I understand it. I was annoyed by the removal of the headphone jack at first. I have a pair of Sennheiser headphones with 3.5mm and I previously used the adapter with them. I didn’t notice any lower fidelity audio with them and leaving the tiny adapter on the 3.5mm jack didn’t really feel like I was carrying anything more around. I’ve replaced the headphone cable on my senns twice and it was never through use of the adapter(usually because I’d get up and pull my computer to the floor and it fell on the jack), plus the Sennheiser cables are like $30 vs $9 so I’d rather have the adapter fail. I did a sound test with my wife’s Bose QCs and they sounded the same or better than my wired Senns. Now I have my own pair and I don’t miss fucking around with wires at all.

[joshstrange]

> Now they should have lower fidelity audio

Like most things audiophiles say: I call bullshit.

http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-lig...

> Audio quality of Apple Lightning to 3.5mm adapter (A1749) is almost as good as in-built mobile audio solutions by Apple, though it has slightly worse df-measurements. Mostly due to the higher jitter. But if you listen music you will not hear the difference; it is too subtle to be perceived.

[tanseydavid]

This is a subjective matter. Calling it bullshit is not an accurate way of looking at it (or listening to it).

There are use cases for audio where "good enough" is simply not sufficient. You may never have need for these use cases.

[tzs]

But in those cases you wouldn't want to use a 3.5 mm headphone jack even if your phone or computer had one. You'd want to use a digital interface such as Lightning or USB.

Music on a phone or computer is digital. To get analog output for the headphone jack the device includes a DAC to convert that digital audio to analog and probably analog amplifiers to get the analog signal to the right level. The quality of the DAC and the analog amplifiers chosen by the device maker place an upper limit on the quality of the audio.

To get the highest quality you want to be able to choose the DAC and amplifiers yourself.

[tanseydavid]

I know what my use cases are. Why do you keep trying to tell me what I want or need?

[joshstrange]

> You may never have need for these use cases.

And I'd argue the number of people who actually do have a "need" are stretching the definition of "need" to it's breaking point. Yes, if you need near-zero latency then AirPods might not be for you but that's a tiny segment of the population.

[aaaaaaaaata]

This says the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter doesn't cause meaningful quality loss.

Nothing about Bluetooth, which seems to be buggy, insecure, widely-poorly-implemented..mWiFi's bastard-child.

[joshstrange]

Well I was replying specifically to someone talking about the dongle being lower quality so yeah...

As for Bluetooth, especially when talking about the AirPods, it works just fine for vast majority of use cases normal people have.

[57FkMytWjyFu]

You know these dongles increase your audio latency, right? Fidelity is faithful to both time and space. Latency is temporal distortion.

(it's probably better than BT, but nothing beats a hard line)

[joshstrange]

You know the vast majority of users don't care? No one is saying you should use AirPods as your monitors while you record but for listening to music/calls/podcasts/etc they work just fine.

[aaaaaaaaata]

Now argue the total security of a phone with Bluetooth enabled.

[joshstrange]

Now argue to the risk of stepping outside your house.

Come on, the truth is almost none of us need to worry about this. To each their own and you get to pick what your balance of security and convenience but disabling bluetooth is a little too tin-foil-y for my tastes.

[57FkMytWjyFu]

Do you know that your bluetooth beacon is used to see how long you linger in front of what shelves?

I'm guessing no.

[doubled112]

Do they fail frequently?

I'd bet that many (most?) people would plug their headphones into the adapter and leave it until the headphones or adapter failed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for Apple or the adapter, but I'm not convinced by the adapter hate either. I do wish I could find Bluetooth devices that didn't suck, though.

[aaaaaaaaata]

Do cheap, tiny copper cables fail frequently?

How long have you been sampling the electronics market?, heh

[doubled112]

Haha, I might be unreasonably amused by your rephrasing of the question.

The adapters (cheap, tiny copper cables) seem as sturdy or sturdier than many of the cables attached to headphones and ear buds (also cheap, tiny copper cables).

So maybe the question should have been "do they fail more frequently than the cables would themselves?"

[lillecarl]

I've seen more people with wireless than wired headphones for many years now, there's been a couple of instances since I got my fairphone when I miss the headset jack, mostly in cars with old stereo systems. If I had a car like that I'd buy a Bluetooth DAC probably.