R.I.P. THE AUX INPUT

The aux input is dead and awaiting burial... but managing editor Becky Roberts misses it already

- Becky Roberts

Last year saw the sunset on several technologies. Netflix’s postal DVD service finally gave in to video streaming, Google’s AR glasses were laid to rest (again) following an ill-fated resurrection, and Amazon’s Halo fitness device division met a miserable end having hardly got off the ground. Most significantly perhaps, Apple’s Lightning connector lost its battle against, well, the EU, consequently succumbing to the universal USB-C. But that wasn’t the only port we have had to wave goodbye to in recent months.

Having hung on for dear life ever since smartphones snubbed the headphone jack for Bluetooth (the iPhone 7 was the first to do so in 2016), the once resilient 3.5mm auxiliary input for audio devices is seemingly, finally, dead and awaiting burial. And I would like to propose that its epitaph reads: “In loving and grateful memory of the aux port. Gone too soon. Our lives are poorer without you.”

Sixty years of service