Now they should have lower fidelity audio, and/or more shit to carry around and fiddle with, and/or fail unexpectedly when least needed?
You actually can't understand the consumer side of this? Or just like Apple?
Like most things audiophiles say: I call bullshit.
http://soundexpert.org/articles/-/blogs/audio-quality-of-lig...
> Audio quality of Apple Lightning to 3.5mm adapter (A1749) is almost as good as in-built mobile audio solutions by Apple, though it has slightly worse df-measurements. Mostly due to the higher jitter. But if you listen music you will not hear the difference; it is too subtle to be perceived.
There are use cases for audio where "good enough" is simply not sufficient. You may never have need for these use cases.
Music on a phone or computer is digital. To get analog output for the headphone jack the device includes a DAC to convert that digital audio to analog and probably analog amplifiers to get the analog signal to the right level. The quality of the DAC and the analog amplifiers chosen by the device maker place an upper limit on the quality of the audio.
To get the highest quality you want to be able to choose the DAC and amplifiers yourself.
And I'd argue the number of people who actually do have a "need" are stretching the definition of "need" to it's breaking point. Yes, if you need near-zero latency then AirPods might not be for you but that's a tiny segment of the population.
Nothing about Bluetooth, which seems to be buggy, insecure, widely-poorly-implemented..mWiFi's bastard-child.
As for Bluetooth, especially when talking about the AirPods, it works just fine for vast majority of use cases normal people have.
(it's probably better than BT, but nothing beats a hard line)
Come on, the truth is almost none of us need to worry about this. To each their own and you get to pick what your balance of security and convenience but disabling bluetooth is a little too tin-foil-y for my tastes.
I'd bet that many (most?) people would plug their headphones into the adapter and leave it until the headphones or adapter failed.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not for Apple or the adapter, but I'm not convinced by the adapter hate either. I do wish I could find Bluetooth devices that didn't suck, though.
How long have you been sampling the electronics market?, heh
The adapters (cheap, tiny copper cables) seem as sturdy or sturdier than many of the cables attached to headphones and ear buds (also cheap, tiny copper cables).
So maybe the question should have been "do they fail more frequently than the cables would themselves?"
