Samsung deleted ads that mocked iPhone for its lack of headphone jack

After years of touting the headphone jack as an important feature on its flagship smartphones, Samsung has finally yielded to the trend and launched the Galaxy Note 10 without the 3.5mm audio connector. 

Samsung told Mashable’s Ray Wong that the reasons for ditching the headphone jack are partially technical, as the company needed more space to spread out the battery cells in the ultra-thin Note 10. The company also claims the majority of Galaxy Note users have switched to wireless headphones, meaning the time was right to make the change. 

It wouldn’t be such a big deal (OK, it is to me, but I’m just one user) — technology evolves, phones get thinner, customers change their habits. Change is natural. But there is one odd thing Samsung has done: As noted by Business Insider, the company deleted its old ads for earlier Galaxy models, which prominently featured the headphone jack. 

In one such ad, now deleted from Samsung Mobile’s YouTube page, but still visible via the Wayback Machine, Samsung openly made fun of Apple’s iPhone and its lack of headphone jack. In one scene, a man is using a two-pronged dongle to plug his earbuds to an iPhone and charge it at the same time. We reported on the ad back in 2017, but since Samsung has deleted it, the embed in our article no longer works.

The ad is still visible on Samsung Malaysia’s YouTube page, so you can see it below, but don’t count on it being available for too long (if it goes away, you can find our video highlights of the ad here). 

Samsung has done something similar on at least one other occasion. When faced with a class-action lawsuit in Australia, over the ads that portrayed its phones as waterproof, Samsung deleted all instances of those ads. We reached out to Samsung for comment then but received no answer; we’ve also sent an email about the freshly removed ads, and will update the article if we hear from them.