Quote from: drspychology on January 16, 2020, 05:20:47
I wonder how long it will take before these phone companies start noticing that the loss of sales from no headphone jack starts to outweigh their wireless earbud business. Every phone and headphone manufacturer has created some sort of wireless earbuds or headphones to the point that I doubt that many people buy wireless headphones from the same manufacturer as their smartphone. It worked with Apple, because there was only 1 solution to the problem that they created. But now, the market is completely saturated with headphones from everyone, it feels like a better decision to return the headphone jack to increase sales.
I've stopped buying high end phones due to the whole headphone jack fiasco. I use my phone for social media and music, and I don't want to stop listening to music halfway through the day because the battery didn't last. The audio quality and latency is awful in comparison to traditional headphones and I'm not getting a second pair of headphones just for my phone, I want to use them on my PC as well!
You know what, despite the new players I don't think the market is near saturation. They created a problem with a decidedly flawed solution in which those exact flaws generate sustained demand.
Think TWS, how many times more likely is it to lose one than to lose a pair of regular wired earphones?
And batteries charging batteries, none of the three batteries in a pair of TWS is replaceable and when it doesn't hold enough charge that's when you're forced to repurchase. Some large wireless headphones allow a wired connection, but at the integration level of TWS there's absolutely no way around the battery issue, and I doubt if many people are going back from earphones to headphones just because it's inconvenient to use the 3.5mm.
I would certainly appreciate it if somebody chooses to release a model based on removable batteries--and it's far from impossible, most hearing aids are essentially TWS with replaceable batteries, though those batteries are single-use--but I don't think any company would be decent enough to do their customers a favor like that, maybe a few years later on kickstarter?
Also with wireless comes a huge price bump, the cheapest wired option is less than $1, I know a guy who goes through a pair of these every few weeks, and most people have access to <$5 options, but the cheapest BT is...as far as I can tell $10, and the options that most people have access to are >$30, so even if they only sell a fraction of previous wired(and that's a far more saturated market) as wireless, they still profit.
Sound quality remains entirely unsolved, but I don't think they're worrying themselves over lack of quality though, they're willing to throw away the market that sometimes need to pair decent earphones with smartphones because feeding the masses more planned obsolescence is that much more lucrative.