I’ll go first: Silence Unknown Callers and Filter Unknown Senders on iPhone. No unwanted calls or texts. If someone really needs to reach me but isn’t in my contacts, they can just send a text - it goes into a separate list.
I’ll go first: Silence Unknown Callers and Filter Unknown Senders on iPhone. No unwanted calls or texts. If someone really needs to reach me but isn’t in my contacts, they can just send a text - it goes into a separate list.
But what’s your wired use case? Are you mostly sitting at a desk working or sipping your favorite drink and listening, or are you using those headphones while traveling/out and about?
For a home/desk setup, I ended up buying a small, fairly inexpensive external DAC/amp specifically for high-quality lossless listening. It works great with my iPhone/iPad and my PC. It’s small enough to take with me (fits in the palm of my hand), but it does start to feel inconvenient when you’re traveling.
When I’m out and about and still want wired, I usually just use the USB-C to 3.5 mm adapter. And honestly, once you’re walking around with background noise, the main advantage of lossless is mostly lost anyway. It’s hard to hear the difference between lossless and a good high-bitrate codec unless you’re really in a quiet environment and actively listening.
Also, on the technical side: a 3.5 mm jack is analog, so the “quality” isn’t about the jack itself, it’s about the DAC and headphone amp behind it. Many built-in phone jacks (when phones have them) aren’t that great compared to even a modest external DAC.
If you’re talking about Apple Music “Lossless” (up to 24-bit/48 kHz), the small USB-C to 3.5 mm dongle is typically enough and it’s easy to just leave it attached to the headphone cable.
If you’re talking about “Hi-Res Lossless” (up to 24-bit/192 kHz), a lot of built-in jacks won’t support that full rate, and you generally need an external DAC anyway. So if you’re chasing hi-res playback, the presence of a built-in headphone jack matters less because you still care most about the DAC/amp quality and capabilities, not the hole in the phone.
That’s why I don’t see a built-in jack as a must-have, it takes space inside the phone, and for higher-end wired listening you’re better off with a dongle or DAC/amp anyway.
I mostly use my Beyerdynamic headphones when I’m outside (I often go for walks). I’m not really an audiophile, but they’re decent headphones and most of the music I’ve digitized over the years is in FLAC format anyway. So I use my smartphone as an MP3 player, so to speak, and I have a Sony Xperia 5 IV, which actually still has an audio jack. This means I can continue to use my headphones as usual, and since the device also has a slot for an additional micro SD card (up to 1TB), there is enough space for various albums even in high quality FLAC format.
Basically, I just wanted to continue using my headphones. I didn’t choose my smartphone solely because of the headphone jack, but it’s nice that it has one, even if I may not be getting the highest possible audio quality - it’s good enough for me.