We used to have earbuds that don't need to be charged because they had a headphone jack, didn't get lost so easily because they had a cord attached to a headphone jack, never lost the bluetooth connection because they had a headphone jack, and they cost less because they had a headphone jack. https://bsky.app/profile/daisyfm.bsky.social/post/3l3mfjc6sn62k
These jacks are still in every other audio device. They were removed from phones to force BT usage, which Google needs for their profiling telemetry network and Apple for their Find my Device thing. God forbid someone turns BT off or even decides they would prefer a phone without BT entirely. There is no other reason and how people prefer to listen to music has nothing to do with the subject.
Waterproofing is very difficult with a headphone jack. You'll notice virtually every single phone with a headphone jack is 'splash resistant' while many without are able to survive being submerged. It also saves a relatively large amount of internal space, for something that easy to move external with an adapter.
If we're talking about adding back in older communication standards, I would personally prefer an am/fm receiver and IR blaster; it would be cool to use my phone like a universal remote.
Something I have heard in the past but is a headphone jack that much harder to waterproof vs a USB-C port? I'm genuinely curious because I don't know. It feels like the two would be of a similar difficulty.
Yeah, also Samsung made it work in the S active phones, and Nokia has started carrying the torch with their XR line. That's Def not the reason for them being removed.