And the problem is that this happens regularly unless you never switch any device, which in reality doesn't happen, because nobody wants to buy nice headphones for every audio source. Bluetooth is a mess, and I'm glad I stayed with headphone jacks so far.

Thing is, anything that literally takes more than 3 seconds is a disaster.

In 2008, Apple introduced iPhone and promised us a future where everything "just works," and where the user and UX are paramount. Taking stock of the last decade, we're basically back to The Inmates are Running the Asylum.

http://a.co/d/59GsyEk

I think it's cyclic. The rejected "IBM guy" in the short sleeved shirt portrayed in the Steve Jobs biopic was once the innovative young turk. Now, the typical mobile and web app developer are that "IBM guy," just with a different set of subcultural aesthetics and a different over elaborated UX language which has left ordinary users behind.

It's very telling that about half the time, I start getting hidden contempt from developers when I give them feedback. They're never wrong. I'm obviously deficient and dim. Never mind that I'm a programmer, and I'm pretty darn good at predicting how fellow engineers think. About half the time, that's where the developer starts from. No questions. No curiosity. It's just like in the old days when the command line was the fancy new easier interface. It's the same as long after GUI interfaces hit a wider public and the public started grousing about computer help desks.

(Directed to the 3rd party reader: Don't be that programmer. Seek not so much to be understood, as to understand.)

And just to add onto this, the problem isn't that Bluetooth pairing takes three seconds, per se.

The problem is that we already had an instantaneous, reliable, and universal solution. In it's place is an option that may be better in some ways (namely, wires are gone), but is worse in many others. And for what? A tiny sliver of extra volume within the phone?

Seriously? Both OSes knew the version of the bluetooth protocol they needed to use to communicate, and it still doesn't work? Never had that problem with a headphone jack.

I second that. I use my Bluetooth headphones on three devices. But I can only save two connections. So one device I always use via jack to avoid having to repair several times a day.

No wireless technology is a replacement for the headphone jack. It will probably be decades before we have anything decent (though I'm not hopeful).

If they were a pain, I would stop using them, but they are much less hassle than the many pairs of corded headphones I have. This said, other Bluetooth headphones are much more hassle.

That's an extremely narrow use-case. If that was the only thing people used the headphone jack it wouldn't have been the big travesty that it currently is (and will be for the foreseeable time).

Am I missing something? There's still a headphone port on phones, it's just not dedicated. People can still plug headphones in to their phones right? I'm asking because the tone of these comments makes it seem like new phones have removed the ability to listen to music without bluetooth.

Not that it matters, I still didn't have it with me half of the times it turned out I needed it.

I actually considered buying like 10 of them. Now we are talking about 100 USD of the crap and a MASSIVE and daily inconvenience just because the manufacturer decided to save a couple of cents. This shit is just ridiculous.

And that's even if you only use one pair of headphones.

I hardly use the Sonys but if I do, I will just borrow the adaptor from my Apple buds in my laptop bag. For listening to my Grados I use an amp with a headphone socket.

If I wanted to plug them into my phone I would need the Apple lightning adapter and also one to the smaller headphone jack! This doesn’t bother me. If I want to do that, I’ll just do it.

I’ll even spend another £9 on an adapter to leave connected if I do it often enough.

None of this seems terrible to me and I’m not sure how unique this set of circumstances is. What are the tons of situations where this gets tricky?

2. Since I had to constantly borrow my adapter from my regular headphones it happened that I forgot them connected to another headphones. So I often had my headphones with me but missing the adapter. Wasn't frustrating, promise.

3. I don't know when I'm gonna need it. I made a long trip by train and thought that some nice bluetooth noise cancelling phones would be nice. Well, at my destination we took a drive and I was asked to play some music. Ooops, no adapter.

4. At work my bluetooth headphones lost battery, no worries, you can still drive them with a headphone jack. Ooops, no adapter.

5. I dance, one day when arriving to practice the people responsible for it were running late. No worries, just connect your phone! Ooops, no adapter.

6. If your going social gathering with friends to a cottage you might not think to bring your headphones. But while there some music would be kind of nice. Ooops, no adapter.

Situations like that happens all the time, and it's nothing one thinks about because it's just a given that everything works. Well, was... So now I actually did bring my adapter even in cases when I didn't need my headphones. Which was another source of (2).

The above inconveniences all assume that it works as expected when you do have your adapter. But it doesn't. You can not charge and listen to music at the same time and while I love USB-C to bits it is way too clunky to be used while in your pocket. The connector did actually start to show signs of wear from having the adapter connected while walking. Luckily I had no issues charging my device but I actually don't know if data still worked.

Think about it, that alone is also completely unacceptable.

And that's all assuming that it would be kind of okay to even have an adapter at the end of your cord, even that just isn't.

See (1).

I think OP was talking about people plugging between the headphone socket of their phone and the AUX input of the car stereo - not wearing headphones in the car.

Don't get me started on the cryptic pairing manual in the glove compartment.