Google is Turning the Headphone Jack Into a Luxury Feature For Second-Tier Phones
Expensive phones may have ditched it, but for more affordable phones, the headphone jack is indispensable
In the long and stories history of hardware features that have been deprecated to loud public outcry — the floppy disk, the CD drive, and a parade of various ports — few have stuck around as long as the headphone jack. The last iPhone to feature a headphone jack launched in 2015, and in 2016 Google took a shot at Apple for removing it.
It’s a move Google repeated last week with an entire Jony Ive-style ad. Not only did this ad parody Apple’s penchant for hyping up specific design features, but it implied, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, that having a headphone jack is a luxury feature.
Except…it sort of is? But not for actual luxury phones.
The joke that a headphone jack could ever be considered a luxury feature is a bit of an ironic sore spot. Most major high-end phones like the Galaxy S21 or Google’s own Pixel 5 don’t have headphone jacks, and for their part, most phone reviewers couldn’t be happier about it. Editorials celebrating the death of the headphone jack abound, even as readers of tech blogs seem to be pretty into keeping the feature around.
