In the early years, 3.5mm headphone jacks could be said to be the standard for smartphones, and at that time, no one even imagined what would happen to a mobile phone without a 3.5mm headphone jack.
In 2016, the iPhone 7 canceled the 3.5mm headphone jack, which was highly controversial at the time.
Although Apple is not the first manufacturer to cancel the 3.5mm headphone hole, but since the iPhone 7, the rest of the major manufacturers have followed suit, and now even the price of 2000 yuan above basically can not find a mobile phone equipped with a 3.5mm earphone hole, even if it is 2000 yuan with a 3.5mm headphone hole models are not many.
Compared with TWS wireless headphones, 3.5mm wired headphones are cheaper, have lower latency, have more advantages, and do not need to consider battery life.
But why do mobile phone manufacturers want to cancel the 3.5mm earphone hole?
Mobile phone manufacturers cancel the 3.5mm headphone interface, mainly based on the following considerations.
First, because TWS wireless headphones are more profitable than 3.5mm wired headphones
3.5mm wired headphones have been rolled up to no profit a few years ago, cheap 9 pieces 9, 19 pieces 9 can be bought, and most of the better quality is in the 100-500 yuan range.
Compared with 3.5mm wired headsets, the starting price of TWS wireless Bluetooth headsets is already around 100 yuan, and the expensive price directly soars to around 2000 yuan.
Compared with 3.5mm wired headphones, TWS wireless headphones are significantly more profitable.
When the iPhone 7 canceled the 3.5mm headphone hole, Apple gave the reason at that time to free up internal space and improve waterproof and dustproof, but in fact, after canceling the 3.5mm headphone hole, Apple launched AirPods wireless headphones, selling 14 million units in 2017 alone, and soaring to 35 million units in 2018, grabbing huge profits for Apple.
Since Apple has taken the lead and achieved very good market performance, the rest of the mobile phone manufacturers, as well as mobile phone accessories manufacturers, have also fallen.
Taking the 2016 iPhone 7 cancellation of the 3.5mm headphone hole as the dividing line, TWS wireless headphones entered an exponential growth stage from 2017 (as shown in the figure below, data source Counterpoint), shipments in 2016 were only 9.18 million units, and by 2020 it had soared to 233 million.
However, although the TWS market share soared wildly, Apple still occupies the lion's share, taking 2022 as an example, Apple still occupies 31.8% of the market share, you must know that the lowest price of AirPods also starts at 900 yuan, and the rest of them have no shortage of 100-yuan TWS headphones, which is still quite terrifying.
Second, the cancellation of the 3.5mm earphone hole can further improve the waterproof and dustproof effect of the mobile phone.
Although this is Apple's excuse to explain the iPhone 7 canceling the 3.5mm headphone hole, it is indeed one of the main reasons.
The 3.5mm earphone jack goes straight to the internal space of the phone, and if it falls into the water, or in a harsh environment with a lot of dust, it is indeed easy to get water into the ash.
Speaking of which, there may be some questions... Why not cancel the charging interface? After all, the charging port is larger than the 3.5mm earphone hole, and it is easier to get dust and water.
Feel relieved... But whenever mobile phone wireless charging is popularized to a certain extent, canceling the wired charging interface will become a high probability event (and it is likely that Apple will still lead this trend).
As consumers, we are honestly okay with these behaviors of manufacturers.
But fortunately, the replacement cycle of mobile phones is getting longer and longer, a mobile phone can even be used for 3-5 years without much lag, mobile phone manufacturers are increasing the profit point of a single product, and we can reduce the frequency of mobile phone purchases to offset.
Third, the 3.5mm earphone hole is canceled, also because the internal space of the mobile phone is limited
You can look at the disassembly video or graphic unlocking, the inside of the mobile phone can now be said to be arranged without the slightest gap (even some chips or parts will be stacked together), of which the camera module, heat dissipation module, battery, fast charging module will occupy a lot of internal space, cancel the 3.5mm earphone hole, can indeed make a little space for other parts.
If you restore the 3.5mm headphone hole, you will have to shrink in other ways.
Are you willing to put up with no 3.5mm headphone jack?
Or are you willing to put up with smaller batteries? Or is the heat dissipation worse? Or charging slowdown? Or maybe the image size is reduced?
For models above the 2K price segment, the latter are indeed more important than the 3.5mm headphone hole, and if the above listed these, as well as the 3.5mm headphone hole, are wanted, then the phone is bound to be larger, thicker and heavier.
Within the 2K price segment, there are many models with 3.5mm headphone holes, such as iQOO Z6x, Redmi Note12, Redmi Note11T Pro, OnePlus Ace Racing Edition, OPPO K10.
These models not only have a 3.5mm headphone hole, but also carry a large battery of no less than 5000mAh, but the corresponding trade-offs are made in terms of body thickness/weight, heat dissipation, imaging, and fast charging.
The above are the three reasons why mobile phone manufacturers have canceled the 3.5mm earphone hole, not only to tap more accessories profits, but also to improve the waterproof and dustproof effect of the mobile phone, and improve the utilization rate of the internal space of the mobile phone, why not?
But for us ordinary consumers, in addition to buying mobile phones, if you often listen to songs, you have to pay extra money to buy TWS wireless headphones. And while paying attention to the battery life of the mobile phone, you also have to pay attention to the remaining power of the TWS wireless headphones, which is really a little helpless...