By: Nick Gambino
With the 10th-anniversary edition of the Galaxy Note most likely dropping in August, it looks like Samsung is taking a page out of the Apple notebook. Rumors are swirling that the phone will ditch the headphone jack as well as physical power and volume buttons.
These rumors come way of Android Police and a source “familiar with the company’s plans.” In other words, we don’t know if it’s true, but we also don’t know if it’s not true. We’re only two months away from the unveiling of the Galaxy Note 10 so this is officially rumor season, and those rumors are always hit or miss.
It’s not an insane prospect that Samsung would get rid of physical buttons altogether as they have been making moves toward a solely screen-based phone for a while now. Getting rid of a physical button that may experience wear and tear over time, while also taking up valuable real estate inside the phone, just makes sense.
“The Note 10 will have no 3.5mm connector,” Android Police reports. “And exterior buttons (power, volume, Bixby) will be replaced by capacitive or pressure-sensitive areas, likely highlighted by some kind of raised ‘bump’ and/or texture along the edge (i.e., a faux button).”
While removing physical buttons probably won’t be met with any serious outcries, removing the headphone jack is a different story altogether. Remember when Apple removed the 3.5mm jack when they released the iPhone 7 in 2016? iPhone purists lost their minds, while Samsung users sat by and laughed at our pain. They thought their precious 3.5mm jack was untouchable. They were wrong.
Samsung held firm on their intentions to retain the age-old headphone jack, even while others like Google, jumped ship. So here we are, on the precipice of the future, and Samsung has to get with the program or risk being outdated, which in the tech world is akin to death.
When Apple removed the headphone port from their phones, they were looking to the future. They knew, as many of us did, that wireless headphones are that future. And as much as people laughed and derided the AirPods when they were first unveiled, these little guys have become iconic unto themselves. I personally couldn’t imagine going back to wired headphones. I mean, that would be embarrassing.
We’ll have to wait a couple months to see what decisions Samsung makes with the Galaxy 10, but even if it doesn’t happen this year, doing away with the 3.5mm headphone jack is inevitable.
