[pdoege]

Yeah, that might not be the best example. Normally you’d want a double seal or really tuned compression to reliably hit IP68. And the o-ring adds a manufacturing step. And you have to design the case to properly compress the oring. And case assembly is harder because screwing up that interface will increase chargeback. And you’ll need to modify the audio test fixtures to add a jack. And the audio test has to include a headphone test. Any failures increases rework, so you gotta budget for that too. Probably need to add a cheap earbud to the box, so you gotta add a packaging step and a bigger box. And once you sell the phone, any failure within the contracted return window will increase chargeback.

Seems like a lot of faf. I tell you what, why don’t we wait for a bigger OEM to remove the darned things, and if it doesn’t hurt there bottom line we’ll just quietly scrap the idea?

And that’s how we got here.

[mitthrowaway2]

You're implying it's because of cost-savings, but OEMs still typically offer 3.5 mm jacks on their lower-end models (even waterproof ones, like the Xperia AceIII). It's the expensive flagships they've removed them from. I think a better explanation is that high-end models are fashion items while lower-end models are functional items, and it's fashionable to copy Apple.