Fair enough. I literally do not even mentally consider apple to be a smartphone producer, because the market for apple is “I want a brick that is a slightly smaller status symbol than the last $1000+ brick I paid you for”, while android was a market with competition, open-source development, and hardware selection. When apple removed the headphone jack for a proprietary port, I saw it as just more of apple requiring you to pay $100 for another proprietary cord that would fall apart in 3 months. I remember when google decided to remove the headphone jack, and at that point, I knew that everyone else would follow. that is what I do not forgive. It also happened to occur around the point at which I first read cloud atlas and snow crash, and began to clearly perceive what was coming for our world, so that is one of the primary acts I remember as defining the enshittification of the world of personal computing, as the true death knell of backwards compatibility and flexibility, in favour of a smartphone just being a Propaganda Brick™

Just to clarify, the basic functionality of which I was speaking was “listen to music”

Saying “not only should you have to buy a peripheral, but you should plan to have to replace the port every once in a while, just so you can have basic functionality” is just clearly not an optimal solution. As someone who has seen how >80% of the dongles you buy just fail to function, constantly destroy the ports they’re plugged into, and sometimes just physically self-destruct when you stare at them from the wrong angle like some collapsing wave-function, I think I’ll keep arguing for the added flexibility, redundancy and ease of use without additional peripherals which a second port would provide, with virtually no downside.

That sounds super fun and useful!

Hardly any phones have 3.5mm NOW. Google started this shit, and I do not forgive. I do not forget.

However, there is simply no reason why the manufacturers SHOULDN’T put a second USB port down there, since it would allow for dongle-less use of wired headphones, listening while charging, open up many more niche uses for the hardware, AND it would provide a redundancy for what is, in most cases, the only method of charging and accessing the data on the device

1. using a cumbersome dongle introduces a single point of failure for a port which is required to stay us able for your phone to function
2. using a dongle introduces a single point of failure for your ability to listen to things, so you’d better hope you only have one pair of headphones, or that you never misplace tiny wires.
3. using a dongle is an additional cost to purchasing the phone
4. it’s a matter of principle, as it is a symptom of the continuing enshittification of all modern life.
5. using wireless headphones depletes two batteries at once.
6. Sure, don’t like a 3.5mm jack, despite the backwards compatibility with older headphones? Fine, but there is no good reason I can think of for there not to just be a second USB port down there. Additional data ports are good, and allow the device to be used for even more flexible, niche purposes, beyond being a redundancy against a single point of failure.

Sure, but then you should be pushing for two USB ports per phone, right? Because Bluetooth headphones are shit for both batteries, and a single-port phone requires, at minimum, a weird dongle to charge and listen at the same time, creating a single, cumbersome point of failure for the only extant jack.

It would, if there were more than one port, allowing you to simultaneously charge and use the headphone jack without a fucking dongle.

Does it have more than one usb port, so that you can simultaneously charge and listen to wired headphones without a ridiculous dongle? If not, then I’ll take the jack, thanks. I don’t want to have to keep ANOTHER device charged just so that I can have the privilege of using one of the basic functionalities for which smartphone were originally designed, nor should I have to choose between listening and charging. It’s that simple.

E: FURTHERMORE, not only does a Bluetooth connection require battery-based headphones which quickly lose power when connected, but it ALSO drains the phone’s battery even faster.

Forget 1954. Try 1914. Solar steam generation which can drive a dynamo.

Also, solar thermal generation was viable a hundred years ago, but nobody invested in it.