Life has gone downhill since 2018, the year that Apple removed the headphone jack from all future iPhone models. “But Bluetooth earbuds come with more functionality! They have noise cancellation”. We hear you, we see you, and you’re wrong.
Here are just a few reasons why the headphone jack needs to come back in a big way.
Cost Or Quality?
For starters, wired earbuds used to come free with your iPhone so that you didn’t compromise the sleek aesthetic with a $7 Skullcandy set from CVS. Now, not only are AirPods not included with purchase, they’re an additional investment.
And it isn’t just earbuds. While the case comes free, the charging cable doesn’t. Nor cleaning products, additional ear tips if your AirPods Pro 3 aren’t comfortable, or a lanyard so you don’t lose that tiny case.
While you don’t need a case cover and, unlike some phone cases, they provide little protective benefits, most people like to have an AirPod case. It helps people express themselves and it keeps them from mixing up their AirPods with someone else’s. So add that as an additional expense.
Unless you want a pair of earbuds that will electrocute your ear canal, expect to pay $50-$100 at absolute minimum. The cheapest pair of AirPods Apple currently offers (AirPods Pro 4 minus active noise cancellation) retails for $179. And, you only get five hours of listening time.
That leads us nicely into our next point: you don’t have to charge wired earbuds. Not once, not every few days, not ever! If you listen to music while you work, five hours of listening time isn’t enough for a full day—even without the lunch break. Which would you rather have: auto-translation, or the ability to listen to podcasts for longer than 6 hours.
With every charge, Bluetooth earbuds degrade a little bit. It isn’t just their audio quality, but their lithium batteries, which are extremely bad for the environment and also prone to electrical fires. These batteries will continue to degrade in landfills long after you buy your third replacement pair of AirPods in a decade.
You don’t have to waste time charging wired earbuds, nor do you have to waste time connecting. All you have to do is plug them in and you’re good for as long as your device’s battery lasts. No worries about wandering into a dead zone or arbitrarily disconnecting.
Less For More
Additionally, your average pair of wired earbuds probably have better audio quality than expensive AirPods. All that expensive Bluetooth tech actually works makes your audio quality worse. Don’t let Big Tech tell you otherwise.
Bluetooth earbuds compress their audio signal, leading to larger losses in sound quality. They also have lowered latency, which means there’s a slight delay between the sound playing on your device and the sound playing in your ears.
This may seem like no big deal, but have you ever tried to play a game or watch a movie with the sound slightly out of sync? It’s absolutely aggravating! We don’t even want to think about the problems it would cause for audio engineers, podcast editors etc.
So, the short version is that wired earbuds offer more features, but you have to pay more money for worse quality.
Tech companies, we beg you: lead us out of the digital dark ages and bring back the headphone jack. We’ll take wires snagging on door handles and being yanked out of our ears for a thousand years more if it means we get the headphone jack back.
