I still miss the aux port
I have a confession to make. 10 years after Apple first started the trend of removing aux ports from modern phones, I still find myself missing it.
Nowadays, I mostly use an old ipod with Rockbox for listening to music - a device that comes without any form of wireless connectivity. In a way, it has made me realize just how much I actually miss using cables. There's just a certain sense of peace I get in knowing that all I need to do is plug in my earbuds or headphones and boom it works.
My wired earbuds will never run into a bluetooth connectivity issue, require a 20+ second first pairing process, run out of battery, or any of the other downsides to bluetooth devices. And that's not even starting on the entire aspect of longevity, repairability, and of ecological impact in production!
This does lead me into a weird situation. I use these earbuds for everything. Music on the go, my laptop, my keyboard, my nintendo switch, my 3DS - everything, except for my phone that doesn't have a port. The only device other than my phone which doesn't have an aux is my camera, which, tbh, is just fine since I only use it for photos anyways. Why doesn't my phone have this port which exists literally everywhere else?
As much as I wish for it, I very highly doubt that the aux port will return to modern 'smart'phones. Not even Fairphone does it, citing non-arguments such as it being 'better' for repairability due to removing a port (great, now all the strain goes to the same port increasing chance of port failure) while coincidentally releasing their own set of wireless earbuds - at that point, not even repairable ones.
Is this nostalgiaposting? Maybe. But at the same time, maybe not. Earlier today, I went a for a walk to do some street photo with my earbuds plugged into my ipod. By tucking the cable inside my tshirt I never had to worry about it getting caught in anything, and since it's so small and sleek I never even feel it touching my body. Realistically, the only difference it provided was allowing me to take out my earbuds and letting them hang from my shirt whenever I wanted to talk to someone.
Sure, wired earbuds can run into the problem of getting curled up in your pockets. However, I have never ran into this issue as long as I do some very basic coiling and make a somewhat loose lock. Then I can just unwrap my earbuds again and boom. And for me, this also feels like a very small tradeoff compared to the companion apps for data gathering, the battery running out, or any other things I've mentioned.
It's also crazy how good the longevity on these are. I still have both a pair of KOSS Porta Pro headphones (the ones where you traded your hair for music) and Apple earbuds that work flawlessly to this day. Plug em in and they just work, regardless of device. The former might even be older than me.
My airpods pro however died after 3 years, 2 of which were in my use (assuming they were purchased on day of release - I'm not sure since I got them as a gift). 3 years is not a long time for earbuds that cost 2500 NOK, especially not when outlasted by cabled ones for less than a tenth of the price.
I want to use the same audio equipment on all my devices. I want to go somewhere with a stereo and be able to plug my phone into it's aux cable. I want to watch videos without having the firmware on expensive ass headphones get buggy and reset settings only changeable in a spyware-filled app.
I miss having an aux port on my phone. I techologically simpler times.
PS: No, I don't want earbuds with USB C since they don't work on the rest of my devices. And no, I don't want to have to spend money buying a separate fragile dongle that I will have to find somewhere to stash whenever I use my earbuds on any other device.