← Back to context

Comment by wat10000

5 hours ago

Why would Apple dropping the jack cause other phone makers to drop it, if their customers still want it?

    1. Apple drops the headphone jack.
    2. ???
    3. Google Pixels don't have a headphone jack.

What is the ??? if not "few customers care"?

"few customers care" is not the democratic ideal you make it sound to be.

It's the same as glued batteries, unrepairable phones. Few customers making it an absolute criteria for their phone choice still doesn't make mean the majority sees it as a positive thing nor they agree. At the time on the android side, only Pixel and Samsung's lines were serious about the camera or international NFC support, moving to other phones just for the jack came with huge compromises that had nothing to do with the jack itself.

  • It’s a competitive market. If removable batteries mattered to a lot of people, some company would take advantage of that to make a lot of money.

    Feature combinations aren’t immutable facts of nature. Manufacturers make a conscious choice about what to include. If a good camera and international NFC combined with a headphone jack would attract a lot of buyers, don’t you think Samsung or Google would make a phone like that to better compete?

    It’s nothing to do with “democratic ideal.” It’s about understanding that companies want to make money and if a feature is desirable, they will leverage that in their quest to make money. Some may fail to understand what their customers want, but all of them? It’s not plausible.

The "???" is "hey, Apple are doing it! since we already copy so many ideas from them, let's shave a few cents on the amp and jack receptacle, and if anyone complains, just claim that it's the trendy thing to do now".