When Apple first announced its decision to let go of the 3.5mm headphone jack from its iPhone 7 and 7 Plus back in 2016, I wrote a post about how this was a premature move. While the piece attracted pitchforks from Apple fans, I still believe the decision was unnecessary at the time since the company didn't offer a proper solution and just handed a dongle to push us all in an era of dongles. Do companies really need to do away with the headphone jack just because the technology is old and wires are messy? Is wireless audio able to replace this technology yet?

Regardless of these questions and concerns, several companies have since followed suitand removed headphone jack from their phones, as it has become a norm in the tech industry. Every move Apple makes - even if it's often not even an original move - is repeated religiously after the Cupertino tech giant. But, it appears Samsung is standing its ground on this one.

The freshly announced Samsung Galaxy S9 features the headphone jack in all its glory. The device doesn't look bulky, ugly or anything that may warrant some to vouch for the port's removal. With its primary competition coming from a jack-less iPhone and Pixel, Samsung has shown to the world that wireless audio isn't yet great and you could still design equally beautiful devices without throwing dongles at your consumers.

Letting headphone jack go just because...

While I understand the removal of headphone jack was in part to push for better wireless audio devices, it still feels unnecessary to put the burden of testing on the end user. Until these companies come up with a wireless solution that can truly replace the wired audio quality, until they stop packaging wired headphones even though the jack has been removed, this removal wouldn't make any sense.

It is inevitable that we will have to eventually do without the headphone jack, but that should happen when the world is ready and not in the testing mode. But while that happens, Samsung has just given its fans another reason to flaunt a notch-less Galaxy S9 that keeps the trusted old headphone jack on.