There's an extreme minority of Bluetooth audio devices which have apps. And even in those extreme outliers, the app is optional. The headphones still pair to Bluetooth devices without issues, or else it is not using Bluetooth. I've used >50 different bluetooth audio devices over the years, 0 ever needed some kind of app to pair. Suggesting Bluetooth has some baked-in spyware is absolutely untrue; There's no baked-in spyware to the Bluetooth audio stack. The Bluetooth audio stack has no built-in way to enforce the app.
It really shows your extreme biases though stating such wild untruths like Bluetooth has baked-in spyware and DRM.
I never said that. If you actually read what I wrote, you'll see that I specifically mentioned that only some do that, and that they require an app to pair or access special features. That is the opposite of saying the spyware is baked into the Bluetooth audio stack. Not to mention, there isn't just one stack, there are numerous different implementations. Either you're arguing in bad faith or you don't understand the technology and how apps work, or both. If you want to actually have a productive conversation, you need to stop the straw manning and pearl clutching and address the arguments (of which there several more that you're conveniently ignoring).
And the attempt at accusation in a mirror[1] of "extreme bias" further demonstrates bad faith on your part. I think it's best to just go our separate ways on this one.
> Bluetooth headphones didn't, those require special hardware, have to be charged (battery), have higher latency, reduced sound quality (lower fidelity), packet loss, and spyware built in, and DRM capable.
Here you're not stating that some extreme minority (read: probably <0.001%) have an entirely optional app which might possibly have spyware. You're stating Bluetooth headphones have spyware built in. Where's the limitation that its only some of them? Sure, later you walk back your extreme position, but you make yourself known off the bat in your original comment.
Thinking that Bluetooth headphones, as an overall concept, has spyware baked in isn't grounded in reality. The only way I can imagine you pushing that idea, which you 100% did in your original post, is an extreme aversion to it. Which its funny you then accuse me of not knowing how Bluetooth audio works, when you're the one arguing spyware is inherently baked into it. Which please, point to me any standard Bluetooth Audio spec (A2DP, LE Audio, etc) which has spyware baked in like you originally claimed.
Please, show me one pair of headphones which represent themselves as Bluetooth headphones but will not pair without an app installed. That somehow use the Bluetooth protocol to enforce DRM and enforce spyware. Or else get otta here with claims like "Bluetooth has spyware built in". Maybe its not me that doesn't understand the technology.
Ah, but I'm the one arguing in bad faith and doesn't understand technology. Not the one who makes non-factual statements like "Bluetooth has spyware built in" and later argues they didn't say it.[0] Its not straw manning to address something you literally did write. Its not pearl clutching to point out when someone says something untrue like "Bluetooth has spyware built in".
If you usually have a network connection, then most of the time streaming is fine. However, not everybody does. About 50% of the time I'm not home, I have little to no service, and even sometimes when I have a strong signal, it will randomly just stop working unless I toggle airplane mode off and on to reforce a handshake with the tower. If we all lived in a big city then sure we could probably make that assumption, but some people live in Wyoming. With local storage I can download high quality FLACs from Bandcamp and get higher quality without having to even think about whether I'll have service. Offline playback of music is a feature the original iPod had!
> Why keep your entire photo and personal movie collection on your portable device which can get lost and broken when you can just connect back home and access even more storage with higher reliability anytime, anywhere?
I would guess most people have more than 100GB in personal photos and videos, so even for the average use case this seems wrong, but especially for people that record much 4K video, you'll run out of space very quickly. Those files can easily get multiple GB in size. If you're on a vacation where you have little or no network connection, you'll have to downgrade your video quality or limit what you record. How is that better? If there were an SD card slot, this is a non-issue because you can bring as many SD cards as you need, and swap them out as they fill up. Can you do that with onboard storage? Then it's not a replacement/obsolescence, it's just a feature removal.
> I don't understand what you mean about "spyware built in" for Bluetooth headphones. All my Bluetooth devices do not have any other kinds of network connectivity, they don't phone home or anything like that. There's no app or anything like that needed for them.
That's great, I'm really happy for you. But some bluetooth headphones do have spyware (especially some of the best ones in some people's opinions). If it requires you to use a special app to pair and/or access features, then it (probably) has spyware in it. Bose is a great example (or at least was, maybe things have changed). With a physical head phone jack, there's no pairing required and there's no way to force you to use their software. That's a hell of a feature IMHO.
That you don't personally have a use case for a headphone jack, doesn't mean it's obsolete. There isn't a replacement for a physical headphone jack, only alternatives with different pros and cons. If that were the criteria, then the M3 macbook would be considered obsolete because I don't personally have a use for it.