I never stopped but i wish phones had headphone jacks again
FROM THE COMBOX
This blog post is a collection of my thoughts regarding this trend:
Why Everyone Is Wearing Wired Headphones (again)
The first thing I have to ask is this. Is this really a trend? I suspect that many people didn't take the bait on the wireless headphones but capitulated to the workaround with the dongle while still using wired headphones. I don't have any stats regarding this, so I don't know. I just know that I am not a smartphone owner much less a user of wireless headphones. I do use wired headphones for my Walkman, and their only drawback is the wire when it gets tangled or gets snatched from your ears. Otherwise, wired headphones are pure win. Why would anyone switch to wireless?
The problems with wireless headphones are multiple. They are expensive. They get lost easily which makes them even more expensive. They have to be charged on a regular basis and stop working without the charge. Then, you have to pair them to your device with Bluetooth which has its own headaches. That's a lot of inconvenience and drawbacks for the sake of not dealing with a wire. Why did people switch?
The wireless option was there for a long time, but it got forced on people when they deleted the headphone jack from the smartphones. The iPhone was first followed by the Android phones. The result was that they were suddenly able to sell wireless headphones that no one really wanted. Wireless headphones and the loss of the headphone jack are just a scam to make people buy expensive crap they don't want or need.
If this return to wired headphones is a truly a trend, it is a good thing. It is a return to common sense. It is nature healing itself. I believe that common sense does prevail in the long term, but it can be a long time before that happens. In the meantime, keep that dongle handy.
Why does it matter?
This story is merely a tidbit in the macrocosm of all things tech. The reason I think it matters is because it highlights a pattern that I have seen repeated in the culture and in my own life. This is where a sophisticated solution comes along to solve a problem that isn't really a problem. The new solution persists for a bit until people become fed up and go backwards to the simpler solution they had before. My recent issues with the Kindle is a great example of this. Another example is the story I read about a Gen Xer who bought a personal digital assistant in the 1990s to replace his physical address book. It worked well until the batteries died. When he replaced the batteries, he discovered all of his contacts in the device had been lost. He was better off with the physical address book and returned to that.
Recently, I heard a bit of snark on the radio as they bragged on a promo for the station about how they were providing us with music for free. There was no recurring monthly charge to your bank account like you would get with a Spotify subscription. I am glad that terrestrial radio is slamming back on this subscription streaming crap. Those recurring charges are why SiriusXM has not been adopted more widely outside of the world of long haul truck drivers. This is why I think terrestrial radio will persist like physical books. It is already the best solution for most people.
The simple gets replaced with the sophisticated until people return to the simple once more. I am seeing this beginning in the backlash against touchscreens in cars as people realize that physical buttons are safer and more convenient than tapping on glass with the ensuing distraction that demands. Some car makers are already moving back on this. Even Apple has started adding back physical buttons to its iPhone. I think the headphone jack will also come back at some point in the future. I can't make the same case for flip phones, but I am pleased that they persist in the smartphone era.
