The 3.5mm headphone jack. You know it, you’re used to it, you probably hadn’t really thought about it until I just mentioned it. The headphone jack has been a part of nearly all our tech for over 20 years now. Your phone probably uses it unless it’s from the past two years (three if it’s an iPhone) , your pc has it , even some tv’s and gaming consoles come with a way to connect it. The port has become such an integral part of our lives that ever since Apple did away with it in 2016, there’s been a pretty vocal sign of resistance to products removing it especially from smartphones, and yet companies do it anyway. Why is that? Two words: Planned Obsolescence.

Ever since 2016 when Apple introduced the iPhone 7, it faced a lot of criticism for the decision. Yet, due to Apple being Apple, its fans persisted, the iPhone 7 wasn’t a flop even if those who bought it complained about the removal of the headphone jack as well. This gave other smartphone manufacturers the exact excuse they needed. After all, “do what Apple does” has been a mantra in the industry ever since the early days of the smartphone wars, and multiple smartphone makers dropped the headphone jack in the following years. Huawei, Google, Sony, Xiaomi, Oppo, Nokia,HTC, ZTE and even previously budget champions OnePlus have all decided to follow Apple’s lead on this and remove headphone jacks from their most expensive flagship phones. The only exceptions to this formula have been Samsung and LG, with the former keeping the jack seemingly as differentiation factor from Apple, and the latter trying to scrape as much as they can of the market from their premium audio DAC(Digital Analogue Converter) technology. But the question has always been quite clear: Why do we need to remove the headphone jack anyway? After all any other approaches to convenient audio connectivity especially to a smartphone are more complicated in comparison. USB-C earphones/headphones are not bad but they actually don’t match the highest end versions from a normal audio jack, while Bluetooth headphones or earphones drain your smartphone’s already precious battery life, along with also not matching typical headphones when it comes to quality issues. This pretty much means most of us have had to give up on the highest possible audio quality and/or battery life unless we are willing to use a USB-C or Lightning to headphone jack converter, which honestly is a sacrifice on convenience as well because not only do those converters look stupid but they are also quite easy to lose.

So again, why does the Headphone jack need to be removed? Well, the answer is the same as the answer to most other questions in the tech world: Money. It turns out with all the stuff manufacturers put in a smartphone these days (Face/Iris/fingerprint scanners, waterproofing, up to terabytes of storage, maybe an SD card slot etc) it’s become increasingly expensive to actually build a smartphone especially on the most expensive flagship side. This means that companies have honestly been waiting for a chance to cut costs while keeping or growing their customer base, as not everyone is willing to buy an upwards of $1000 phone and as such, it turns out that Apple’s removal of the headphone jack gave a lot of these companies the break they wanted. As we said before, Apple has long been a trend setter in the smartphone game, and for better or worse, a lot of companies copy its design principles as it’s largely believed that most common people want an iPhone or something like an iPhone. Hence removing the headphone jack became the natural cost saving measure along with also being a bit of a “fashion trend”. It’s actually become quite common that mid-range or low-end smartphones ranging from $200-500 actually come with a headphone jack, no questions asked, yet their more expensive and probably more capable flagship counterparts do not. It’s almost as if having a more expensive phone means foregoing the headphone jack, which honestly speaking, makes no sense. After all paying for a more expensive phone should mean you get the best amount of features, services and options possible, yet somehow the ability to plug in your really expensive headphones isn’t one of those anymore. Companies even sort of realise that this makes no sense. Google just released the Pixel 3A, a mid-range little brother to the Pixel 3 and yet while it loses a few features from its older sibling it actually retains the headphone jack that the more expensive Pixel 3 lacks. This was obviously to make the 3A more appealing to those who want to enter the Google ecosystem for a cheaper price but it also highlights a feature Google probably knew should’ve been in their devices anyway. And if some of you may debunk that move because the Pixel 3A is a mid-range phone well Motorola just returned the jack on the Moto Z4 flagship phone, after outrage over removing it from last year’s Z3. Simply put, these companies can hold on to the jack if they want to, they just don’t.

And we understand that technology moves forward, and that standards come and go. But if we could look at past shifts in how we use devices such as HDMI or Blu-Ray disks, the removal of the headphone jack makes even less sense. HDMI allowed for much better quality in our DVD/Blu-ray players, Decoders and gaming consoles while also creating a universal port that other devices like laptops projectors and even smartphones could use. Blu-Ray also allowed for much greater quality in video and gaming due to simply larger storage capacities in the discs. Both were shifts that improved things very much for the better. Removing the headphone jack honestly isn’t. Both the standards meant to replace it can’t match up to its convenience, quality or even robustness in some cases, while making people have to lose devices that they have been able to depend on for years in their headphones and speakers.

And that’s the part about all this being planned obsolescence comes into play. You see good quality headphones, earphones and speakers can actually last for quite a while, and all the companies that sell them would prefer to increase their profits, while smartphone companies have always wanted to make more money out of the accessory market. This is why when Apple dropped the headphone jack it introduced the Airpods, or Google introduced the Pixel Buds when it dropped the jack as well on the Pixel 2. Other companies on this list have since followed suit, with OnePlus introducing the OnePlus Bullets and Huawei introducing the (honestly better but still infamous in this case) Freelace wireless earbuds as well. Sony has always had a respectable wireless headphone business which it knows will profit from it also joining the headphone jack killing spree. And of course basically none of these accessories come in the box when you buy the latest flagship from any of these companies , despite being advertised with them , compelling you to buy them anyway. It was moves like these that made Samsung and LG seem like heroes. After all Samsung seemingly kept its jack specifically to adhere to customer demands and LG was now able to at least say it gave the highest audio quality for headphones on its devices. But with Samsung having recently released the Galaxy Buds wireless earphones, it seems leaks of the Galaxy Note 10 show it having no headphone jack either, and who knows how long LG can hold on to it’s coveted DAC technology. Hence, it seems that the headphone jack may truly be coming to an end, and as that happens, you may feel the urge to fight it. I do, and so do other fans around the world. Sometimes the fighting works and companies like Motorola are proof of that. But if after tons of online petitions and twitter and reddit threads all fighting for the jack fail, and we really have to think about when we play music on our wireless headphones because our battery is low, we should remember the headphone jack. Because like a casualty in war, it was well intentioned and kind hearted, but got killed unnecessarily for the benefit of greedier men.