Samsung might drop the headphone jack from its flagships next year

Image: Lili Sams/Mashable

A major last stand for headphone jack enthusiasts might be caving in. 

Korean outlet ETnews reports (via Android Authority) that Samsung is planning to drop the headphone jack from its flagship smartphones sometime next year. 

If you’re one of those people (I certainly am) who doesn’t like dongles and thinks wired headphones still have advantages over wireless ones, this is bad news. Ever since Apple “courageously” killed the headphone jack by omitting it in the iPhone 7 in 2016, numerous phone makers followed suit — but not Samsung. 

Instead, Samsung threw jabs at Apple, pointing out that its phones still have this simple, yet useful feature. 

Alas, it might all be over late next year. ETnews’ sources claim the company will remove the headphone jack after fall 2019 and ship a USB-C-to-3.5mm dongle with its phones. 

The good news is that this timeline — if true — means that Samsung’s Galaxy S10 will probably still have the 3.5mm audio jack. 

Progress and change are inevitable, of course, but I don’t think the headphone jack has become any more obsolete in the two years since Apple got rid of it. Yes, wireless headphones have gotten a little better, but the headphone jack is still a dead-simple, fail-proof way to connect a variety of audio accessories to your phone. 

Moreover, there’s still no single standard for headphones makers to switch to: New Android phones typically have a USB-C connector while Apple’s phones have a Lightning connector (ironically, it’s widely rumored that upcoming iPads will have USB-C instead of Lightning, complicating matters further). 

In short, for anyone who owns a bunch of different gadgets, like I do, the headphone jack is a far better solution than lugging a bunch of dongles around. Since the alternative — not having a headphone jack — doesn’t really have any tangible advantages for the end user, I really hope Samsung sticks with it for at least a few more years.