Why removing the headphone jack from your phone is a bad idea

Main points

• The reason for removing the headphone jack is that tech companies want to sell more wireless headphones for profit, not just innovation.
• Bluetooth headphones have a shorter lifespan due to their built-in batteries, making wired headphones a more durable option.
• Buying wireless headphones creates environmental problems by increasing electronic waste and using rare earth minerals.

When Apple announced it was removing the 3.5mm jack from its phones, audiophiles didn’t take it well. With this important port removed, you either have to use a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter (for iPhones) or USB-C (for Android phones), or you have to switch to Bluetooth entirely. Dongles are cumbersome, cost extra money, and are easy to lose, while switching to Bluetooth means lower music quality, more latency, and shorter headphone life. The shift from 3.5mm to forcing us toward adapters and wireless feels like the death knell for wired headphones, at least for a while.

The shift from 3.5mm to forcing us toward adapters and wireless feels like the death knell for wired headphones, at least for a while.

But now we’re seeing an increase in interest in wired headphones again. Part of this can be attributed to fashion trends, with platforms like Pinterest and TikTok showing more and more people wearing wired headphones and earbuds, while celebrities like Jenna Ortega have also made it fashionable to wear wired earbuds girl.

Additionally, increased awareness of lossless audio and audio quality seems to be helping. So now people might start caring about the missing 3.5mm jack again – and I really, really hope they do.

So I think it’s important to think about why the headphone jack was removed from so many devices in the first place, what doing so accomplished for tech companies, and what’s going to happen in the future.

The death of the headphone jack

Apple was the first phone maker to do away with the headphone jack, publicly wanting to do away with it for several reasons. In 2016, with the release of the iPhone 7, former Apple senior vice president of product marketing Phil Schiller said it had to do with making room for other components inside the iPhone and pushing Apple to make audio better. Good goals, saying the move comes down to “having the courage to keep doing something new that makes us all better.”

The technology behind ports has been around since 1877 with 1/4-inch ports, while 3.5mm ports haven’t really changed since the 1950s. This is not a standard you can abandon – it is the standard.

Of course the lightning adapter works great for audio, it doesn’t reduce the quality at all, it’s still an analog signal. Yes, the lack of a headphone jack frees up space inside the phone for other stuff, and I guess you could say it takes “courage” to remove an important port from what is basically an important piece of technology in this day and age.

But those who liken it to removing the VGA port or floppy drive from the computer are missing why the 3.5mm port is so important (plus, maybe they shouldn’t remove the VGA from the computer). The technology behind ports has been around since 1877 with 1/4-inch ports, while 3.5mm ports haven’t really changed since the 1950s. This is not a standard you can abandon – it is the standard.

Indeed, this feels like an excuse for Apple and companies that follow suit to make more money by selling wireless earbuds and headphones. Apple has a huge market share with AirPods and Beats. Google now makes headphones, and so does Samsung. Each of these companies stands to gain greatly by converting consumers to wireless headphones, especially those that are most compatible with their ecosystems.

Wireless headphones aren’t really the best choice for everyone

But aren’t wireless headphones a great technological feat that we should be celebrating? Sure, they’re great in many ways, but they can’t beat wired headphones when it comes to sound quality, since we don’t yet have the ability to listen to lossless audio over Bluetooth. Some might say wireless headphones are better because they’re more convenient, you don’t have to deal with tangled cables, and there are no wires to get in your way when you’re moving around or fiddling with your phone.

But consider that you can theoretically use wired headphones until they start to break down in your hands, whereas Bluetooth headphones have a much shorter lifespan due to the battery inside the headphones. According to Wirecutter, that could be as little as two years or longer depending on how often you use them and charge them. Also, I found a big inconvenience – having to charge my earbuds.

What if you forget to charge before commuting? Plus, they can easily be lost or damaged. What if you lose one because you don’t have anything to connect one earbud to the other? What if it falls and breaks? These issues don’t really exist with wired headphones, and for these reasons, as well as audio quality reasons, I personally think wired headphones will win.

While truly wireless headphones are convenient, that convenience actually comes at a price. As I said before, wireless earbuds and headphones don’t last very long, while wired earbuds and headphones can last for decades. Bluetooth devices inevitably lose battery capacity after repeated charging, and since you can’t simply replace the battery on any Bluetooth device, you’ll inevitably have to buy another pair of headphones.

Having to buy wireless headphones usually means you’re buying a technology that uses rare earth elements, whose over-extraction is rampant, adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the Earth’s atmosphere and contaminating water and soil.

This leads to the e-waste problem. Having to buy wireless headphones usually means you’re buying a technology that uses rare earth elements, whose over-extraction is rampant, adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the Earth’s atmosphere and contaminating water and soil. Many of these minerals also come from conflict zones, which leads to further ethical issues when you are forced to over-consume what is essentially a disposable technology.

When you have to rebuy wireless earphones over and over again because your batteries keep draining, you not only create more demand for products that use rare earth minerals from potential conflict zones that pollute the planet; E-waste, some of it is recycled, but certainly not all. Companies like Apple claim to care about the environment, but create these wasteful cycles by doing things like removing headphone jacks from their phones.

Wired headphones may be returning in a bigger way, and hopefully with them comes the return of the headphone jack.

Move forward by taking back

So, based on what we know about the impacts of mining and e-waste, what happens here? Unfortunately, there aren’t many. Whether we like it or not, companies like Apple, Google, and Samsung will likely continue to make phones without headphone jacks because people are buying wireless headphones.

But as a consumer, You can vote with your dollars. The next time you need a phone, you have the option of buying one with a headphone jack, and now, you can use an adapter and a pair of wired headphones. Showing that you’ve chosen the analog option and not demonstrating any need for wireless headphones or earbuds at least shows your friends and passers-by that wired headphones are still relevant, and that your actions as an individual may have a ripple effect. Wired headphones may be returning in a bigger way, and hopefully with them comes the return of the headphone jack.