Skanky Sylveon

That's not true - they quite clearly said they needed to remove it to "save space", so they could add things like the humidity sensor. That doesn't mean saving space was the only reason that they gave. It wasn't. There were multiple reasons.
 
The primary actual reason though is because they own Beats and they want to make lots of money by selling more Beats or AirPods than they otherwise would.
You've been doing that yourself quite a bit.

The headphone jack is pretty universal in terms of it's one of the only times in history where a technology was replaced with one that isn't inherently superior, that also has massive downsides.
 
Wireless is great. But you seem to be under the impression that to have good wireless, you need to remove the jack. That is simply incorrect.
 
In every other instance of a new technology, it was phased in side by side with the older technology (or the new technology was simply better in every single way - which isn't the case with Bluetooth vs wired). Take USB: USB 2.0 is still on many devices to this day, despite USB 3.0 being superior on paper. There are reasons for this, though - such as USB 3.0 being touchy with many legacy devices (USB drives in particular).
 
Take Parallel Port vs USB - most computers had both for quite some time as people slowly replaced their parallel printers with USB printers.
 
Take PATA vs SATA - again, same thing. Most computers had both for quite some time while people slowly switched to the new tech.
 
For those who want cutting edge, it's there. For those who don't feel like (or can't afford to) replace every single perfectly working peripheral with one that has a different plug on the end of it? They get to use the legacy stuff.
 
Quite simply, the removal of the headphone jack is kind of a unique aberration in tech evolution.

@food158 I think that wireless makes a very good compliment to wired, and can be a good replacement in certain instances.  Emphasis on certain. 
 
The removal of the headphone jack is part subjective and part objective. 
The subjective part is that many people perfer certain headphones over others, and most of the better sounding headphones (subjectively speaking of course) tend to be wired. 
 
The objective part is that apple removed functionality that doesn't have a proper replacement, and that wireless audio has a lot of disadvantages as well, many of which are convenience related. 
 
The problem with OP's logic is that he's assuming that wireless audio is competing with wired, which is far from the truth. 
 
Many wired speakers are geared toward the outdoorsman, having features like water resistance and portability, while a wired pair will focus on sound quality and ease of integration.  While there is overlap they are largely geared towards separate audiences.  One isn't inherently better than the other, it's purely dependent on the individual's needs whether or not wireless is more valued then wired technology.  Apple shoving what they think is best down everyone's throats is what people largely have a problem with. 
If apple cared about this planet then they would be in support for right to repair, and I'm not even talking about legislation, I'm talking about supporting independent repair technicians repairing what would normally be trashed by apple.  E-waste is a rather large problem. 
@mr moose
While phones are hardly a good device when it comes to backwards compatibility I would like to see some kind of standard across the board such as the ATX standard on desktops.  Don't need a headphone jack?  Great, populate that module with more storage or RAM.
 
I've seen a few single board computers that have an EMMC slot for adding whatever amount of storage fits your budget. 
 
I would imagine that a slot with simaler dimensions could be used as a PCIe slot for phones of sorts, perhaps only an x1 connection, but that would still provide an insane amount of flexibility and customization to one's mobile device. 

What the hell does them being a brand have to do with them pushing technology forward?
All that I can see is that you are defending a choice that apple made which heavily inconvenienced thousands of people.  People have a right to be mad about that decision, and to be frank, I don't give a damn what apple is.  All I care about is if they make products that I'm interested in.  Nothing more, nothing less.
If you saw the ifixit teardown image that I linked you, you would see that the apple watch actually uses less adhesive. 
https://www.permabond.com/technical_support/temperature-effects/
 
https://www.hotmelt.com/blogs/blog/how-temperature-changes-can-affect-hot-melt-adhesivbuy-1080-gtx
A quick Google search will give you the information on the stability of certain adhesives at various temperatures. 
 
Furthermore, the anecdotal evidence strawman can be taken apart due to the fact that adhesive performance can and has been understood for decades.  It doesn't matter on what device the adhesive is applied to, they will perform the same if they are in identical environments. 
A gasket design isn't real thin, but if you actually had any experience with taking electronics with you when diving you would know that pretty much every waterproof (not water resistant, actually water proof) camera case uses gaskets and screws with a specific torque specification. 
 
Gasket designs are also particularly expensive, phone manufacturers didn't remove screws because they were inferior to plastic clips, they were removed due to them adding thickness and price to the final product.  
 
Also,calling me a kid when you are using "u" instead of "you".  Priceless. 
No, we wouldn't be waiting forever, take firewire for example. 
Don't group the entirety of humanity in the same relm as your line of thinking.  Doing so is an insult to just about everyone who isn't a shill for their favorite company. 
 
Also, apple isn't even a century old, so no, we wouldn't be a century behind if your favorite company didn't exist. 
 
I REALLY hope that apple is paying you good money to spout your nonsense, because if not, you're a rather sad individual. 

He also doesn't factor in people's bank account balances.

Now that you mention it, it kinda does.  I feel that at this point arguing with OP is pointless though.  He clearly just wants to live in an echo chamber. 
Samsung still makes phones with headphone jacks, but we are talking about Samsung here, they aren't exactly the saving grace of the smartphone industry. 
 
Honestly, after my discussion with @mr moose I really want a phone that has a 40 pin GPIO connector on the back.  That design would actually be easy to make water resistant with some epoxy over the exposed PCB and having the phone detect a short like my note does.
 
It would make a very large amount of peripherals available for the phone on the get go, and no shortage anytime soon.
 
Thoughts on that idea?

On a side note, I'm done with mainstream. My next phone is going to be a Chinese one, because no mainstream manufacturer was kind enough to leave me a headphone jack (they left me infuriating dongles instead). Can't wait to have night vision, though  

I think that the main reason why previous designs failed was due to the lack of any standards.  The ATX form factor for example is a standard that the vast majority of motherboards use.  That allows pretty much mostly universal compatibility for PCIe peripherals. 
 
For a modular phone design to gain any traction there will need to be a widely accepted and adopted motherboard standard that several phone manufacturers must agree on.
 
I actually discussed a simaler concept with @TopHatProductions115 a few months ago in regards to laptops.
 
This is unfortunately unlikely to happen due to the vast changes in phone motherboard design due to the desire to make phones thinner among other things.  Not to mention the challenges of making a design like that water resistant.
 
It's just a shame, I see many addons available to the raspberry pi via the 40 pin GPIO, and I have thought to myself many times "damn, I really wish that there was something like that for my phone" several single board computers also have identical GPIO pinouts simaler to that of a raspberry pi, so it's becoming somewhat of a standard in the single board computer realm. 
 
I went off on a tangent tbere didn't I?

@food158 I think that wireless makes a very good compliment to wired, and can be a good replacement in certain instances.  Emphasis on certain. 
 
The removal of the headphone jack is part subjective and part objective. 
The subjective part is that many people perfer certain headphones over others, and most of the better sounding headphones (subjectively speaking of course) tend to be wired. 
 
The objective part is that apple removed functionality that doesn't have a proper replacement, and that wireless audio has a lot of disadvantages as well, many of which are convenience related. 
 
The problem with OP's logic is that he's assuming that wireless audio is competing with wired, which is far from the truth. 
 
Many wired speakers are geared toward the outdoorsman, having features like water resistance and portability, while a wired pair will focus on sound quality and ease of integration.  While there is overlap they are largely geared towards separate audiences.  One isn't inherently better than the other, it's purely dependent on the individual's needs whether or not wireless is more valued then wired technology.  Apple shoving what they think is best down everyone's throats is what people largely have a problem with. 
If apple cared about this planet then they would be in support for right to repair, and I'm not even talking about legislation, I'm talking about supporting independent repair technicians repairing what would normally be trashed by apple.  E-waste is a rather large problem. 
@mr moose
While phones are hardly a good device when it comes to backwards compatibility I would like to see some kind of standard across the board such as the ATX standard on desktops.  Don't need a headphone jack?  Great, populate that module with more storage or RAM.
 
I've seen a few single board computers that have an EMMC slot for adding whatever amount of storage fits your budget. 
 
I would imagine that a slot with simaler dimensions could be used as a PCIe slot for phones of sorts, perhaps only an x1 connection, but that would still provide an insane amount of flexibility and customization to one's mobile device. 

What the hell does them being a brand have to do with them pushing technology forward?
All that I can see is that you are defending a choice that apple made which heavily inconvenienced thousands of people.  People have a right to be mad about that decision, and to be frank, I don't give a damn what apple is.  All I care about is if they make products that I'm interested in.  Nothing more, nothing less.
If you saw the ifixit teardown image that I linked you, you would see that the apple watch actually uses less adhesive. 
https://www.permabond.com/technical_support/temperature-effects/
 
https://www.hotmelt.com/blogs/blog/how-temperature-changes-can-affect-hot-melt-adhesivbuy-1080-gtx
A quick Google search will give you the information on the stability of certain adhesives at various temperatures. 
 
Furthermore, the anecdotal evidence strawman can be taken apart due to the fact that adhesive performance can and has been understood for decades.  It doesn't matter on what device the adhesive is applied to, they will perform the same if they are in identical environments. 
A gasket design isn't real thin, but if you actually had any experience with taking electronics with you when diving you would know that pretty much every waterproof (not water resistant, actually water proof) camera case uses gaskets and screws with a specific torque specification. 
 
Gasket designs are also particularly expensive, phone manufacturers didn't remove screws because they were inferior to plastic clips, they were removed due to them adding thickness and price to the final product.  
 
Also,calling me a kid when you are using "u" instead of "you".  Priceless. 
No, we wouldn't be waiting forever, take firewire for example. 
Don't group the entirety of humanity in the same relm as your line of thinking.  Doing so is an insult to just about everyone who isn't a shill for their favorite company. 
 
Also, apple isn't even a century old, so no, we wouldn't be a century behind if your favorite company didn't exist. 
 
I REALLY hope that apple is paying you good money to spout your nonsense, because if not, you're a rather sad individual. 

I think that the main reason why previous designs failed was due to the lack of any standards.  The ATX form factor for example is a standard that the vast majority of motherboards use.  That allows pretty much mostly universal compatibility for PCIe peripherals. 
 
For a modular phone design to gain any traction there will need to be a widely accepted and adopted motherboard standard that several phone manufacturers must agree on.
 
I actually discussed a simaler concept with @TopHatProductions115 a few months ago in regards to laptops.
 
This is unfortunately unlikely to happen due to the vast changes in phone motherboard design due to the desire to make phones thinner among other things.  Not to mention the challenges of making a design like that water resistant.
 
It's just a shame, I see many addons available to the raspberry pi via the 40 pin GPIO, and I have thought to myself many times "damn, I really wish that there was something like that for my phone" several single board computers also have identical GPIO pinouts simaler to that of a raspberry pi, so it's becoming somewhat of a standard in the single board computer realm. 
 
I went off on a tangent tbere didn't I?

I think a uniform set of slots along the bottom of the main board (like a row of phone number stubs on an ad) could be used in a modular way for, jack, ram, sd card, industry specific connector, more battery, actual usb or hdmi port (no need for an adapter) or anything really is a good idea.   It's just a shame that previous modular phone designs weren't so well thought out and thus not popular.

@food158 I think that wireless makes a very good compliment to wired, and can be a good replacement in certain instances.  Emphasis on certain. 
 
The removal of the headphone jack is part subjective and part objective. 
The subjective part is that many people perfer certain headphones over others, and most of the better sounding headphones (subjectively speaking of course) tend to be wired. 
 
The objective part is that apple removed functionality that doesn't have a proper replacement, and that wireless audio has a lot of disadvantages as well, many of which are convenience related. 
 
The problem with OP's logic is that he's assuming that wireless audio is competing with wired, which is far from the truth. 
 
Many wired speakers are geared toward the outdoorsman, having features like water resistance and portability, while a wired pair will focus on sound quality and ease of integration.  While there is overlap they are largely geared towards separate audiences.  One isn't inherently better than the other, it's purely dependent on the individual's needs whether or not wireless is more valued then wired technology.  Apple shoving what they think is best down everyone's throats is what people largely have a problem with. 
If apple cared about this planet then they would be in support for right to repair, and I'm not even talking about legislation, I'm talking about supporting independent repair technicians repairing what would normally be trashed by apple.  E-waste is a rather large problem. 
@mr moose
While phones are hardly a good device when it comes to backwards compatibility I would like to see some kind of standard across the board such as the ATX standard on desktops.  Don't need a headphone jack?  Great, populate that module with more storage or RAM.
 
I've seen a few single board computers that have an EMMC slot for adding whatever amount of storage fits your budget. 
 
I would imagine that a slot with simaler dimensions could be used as a PCIe slot for phones of sorts, perhaps only an x1 connection, but that would still provide an insane amount of flexibility and customization to one's mobile device. 

You know that a different opinion to yours is not misinformation.  In fact if anything most of what you are trying to claim as hard fact is little more than your opinion and logically speaking  most of it doesn't hold any water, thus you are the one guilty of misinformation.
 
When companies push technology forward for the greater good of consumers they do so leaving every option open and no consumer without a choice.  Floppy disk coexisted with ODD for decades, ODD coexisted with USB for decades, Sata and PATA co existed for almost decades.  All these dead technologies did not cease to be a thing until basically there where no consumers left using them.  FDD disappeared well after everyone had moved to USB drives,  In fact it was hard to find shops selling floppy disks when they were phased out, we still have more wired headphones and adapters on the market than wireless, ergo it is not an old standard that people no longer use.  Removing it on all products is not forcing anything except revenue driven business practices upon consumers.

Yes we can keep it. You can have both wired and wireless, it's not one dimensional lol.
 
It's not amazing. Airpods are upsold junk and pure marketing genius, along with some memes sprinkled that boost sales.
 
That would be true if Steve Jobs was still alive. The industry wouldn't be behind a decade either. Apple doesn't invent much.
 
There's a few things off about this statement. The premise was that the jack did not take up as much space as Apple claims it does. Then why would you say that the "extra space" was a plus?
This statement is a very nice example of, a nice big statement that I'd like to see you back up.
Ironic.
Blind assumption that everybody has the capability to just "bite the bullet" and go bluetooth. Blind assumption that it's a good thing. Yes, I want to use my jack style headphones, is that so much to ask for that you make me buy it separate? Either way it's cheaper to buy an adapter than decent sounding bluetooth headphones, so it's a money grab. You have not proven that Apple has not included the adapter for the sake of cheaping out.
 
They could be both cheaping out and pushing towards a wireless future. Why they would want to push towards that wireless future is also up for contention. Price is not a surface level factor that "everyone always has an opinion on." They are a company. They need to make money to please the board of directors and investors. It'd be nice if every company was driven only by philosophy and able to ignore such futile things like money hehe.
That's real idealistic. Apple is not a god that wants to save the planet. By selling technology products and pushing the boundary, sorry following other companies that do, Apple inherently damages the planet by an absurd proportion. They even offer battery replacements to everybody, it's not like they're trying to save landfills from toxic batteries. If they really wanted to, Apple would have stuck by the whole slowing phones down thing and not doing anything to change it.
 
Do you have an electrical engineering degree? Can you prove batteries are shit and need to be fixed ASAP? How is fast charging not a solution to... faster charging times...?
I didn't think a Commodore 64 could do fast charging. Wowie, why didn't they have this before? It would've revolutionized the market! Oh, they couldn't. Oops.
Yes they do. They already do. That's what airpods are for.
It's not bullshit though. It works and it's great. You literally just acknowledged that the investors push Apple to get more money, which squeeze some extra dollars buy making fast chargers separate.
 
WHAT?! This is borderline humor. This statement: A. Acknowledges Apple isn't good at inventing and innovating. B. Says that Apple is not for enthusiasts, but for average people. But, I thought you said that Apple doesn't want the average idiot as a customer.
 
Overall, your points don't make sense at all. They view Apple as some higher, god tier philosophical company.
 
Yes we can keep it. You can have both wired and wireless, it's not one dimensional lol.
 
It's not amazing. Airpods are upsold junk and pure marketing genius, along with some memes sprinkled that boost sales.
 
That would be true if Steve Jobs was still alive. The industry wouldn't be behind a decade either. Apple doesn't invent much.
 
There's a few things off about this statement. The premise was that the jack did not take up as much space as Apple claims it does. Then why would you say that the "extra space" was a plus?
This statement is a very nice example of, a nice big statement that I'd like to see you back up.
Ironic.
Blind assumption that everybody has the capability to just "bite the bullet" and go bluetooth. Blind assumption that it's a good thing. Yes, I want to use my jack style headphones, is that so much to ask for that you make me buy it separate? Either way it's cheaper to buy an adapter than decent sounding bluetooth headphones, so it's a money grab. You have not proven that Apple has not included the adapter for the sake of cheaping out.
 
They could be both cheaping out and pushing towards a wireless future. Why they would want to push towards that wireless future is also up for contention. Price is not a surface level factor that "everyone always has an opinion on." They are a company. They need to make money to please the board of directors and investors. It'd be nice if every company was driven only by philosophy and able to ignore such futile things like money hehe.
That's real idealistic. Apple is not a god that wants to save the planet. By selling technology products and pushing the boundary, sorry following other companies that do, Apple inherently damages the planet by an absurd proportion. They even offer battery replacements to everybody, it's not like they're trying to save landfills from toxic batteries. If they really wanted to, Apple would have stuck by the whole slowing phones down thing and not doing anything to change it.
 
Do you have an electrical engineering degree? Can you prove batteries are shit and need to be fixed ASAP? How is fast charging not a solution to... faster charging times...?
I didn't think a Commodore 64 could do fast charging. Wowie, why didn't they have this before? It would've revolutionized the market! Oh, they couldn't. Oops.
Yes they do. They already do. That's what airpods are for.
It's not bullshit though. It works and it's great. You literally just acknowledged that the investors push Apple to get more money, which squeeze some extra dollars buy making fast chargers separate.
 
WHAT?! This is borderline humor. This statement: A. Acknowledges Apple isn't good at inventing and innovating. B. Says that Apple is not for enthusiasts, but for average people. But, I thought you said that Apple doesn't want the average idiot as a customer.
 
Overall, your points don't make sense at all. They view Apple as some higher, god tier philosophical company.

My problem with understanding you is that your sentence structure was rather lacking.  I have debated people in the past that had far more reasonable arguments then you and came to the conclusion that the removal of the headphone jack isn't that big of a deal due to the widespread adoption of wireless charging and dongles.  While I still would perfer that the headphone jack be replaced with something like a second USB port for what should be obvious reasons. 
 
My argument with you stems from you stating that apple is pushing new technology (when bluetooth is over 20 years old mind you) when they have created nothing substantial in regards to wireless headphone standards.
 
Apple has innovated in the past, that much I can agree with.  Android phones would probably be non existent if it weren't for the iPhone, but apple isn't the forefront in innovation when it comes to everything, they have done their fair share of bullshit in the past and continue to do so.
I'll agree with you halfway.  Apple definitely wants to push the tech onto people, but they are doing nothing towards making innovations towards bluetooth technology in order to make it a proper replacement. 
Everything else I pretty much agree with. 
You're right that it's a crappy system, but not nessacarlly in the ways that you mention. 
The adhesive used breaks down due to fluctuations in temperature, this is why you use a heatgun to heat up the adhesive to break it's bond.  Furthermore, the apple watch uses adhesive to keep itself together as well, as can be seen from this teardown pic from ifixit.

 
That's not to say that apple's claims are false, but they are using the same system more or less then everyone else.
 
In normal operating environments, this adhesive should last for several years.
I opened my galaxy s9, there was no rubber gasket, the USB port detects when there was a short in the connectors (which it assumed was from water) and disabled the port until the short stopped.
 
So, why is adhesive a bad idea?  Because it makes it much harder to repair the phone, you have to use a fucking heat gun to remove the back plate, which is not only dangerous to the electronics and casing, but dangerous to the end user if they are inexperienced, those things get over 1000 degrees.  Rubber gaskets would be fine for water pressure if the torque specification was high enough. 
Samsung did not do that, I already told you, they detect a short, and disable it until the short is gone.
Let's use your logic against you.  Wireless power is a thing, so let's remove AC power outlets from all future housing and replace it with wireless power. 
Until the technology is mature enough to fully replace the older technology (which in some cases it will never be) we should still have the option to use old technology.  But, dongles do exist, so you can still use old technology with the phones without headphone jacks. 
Your argument has the serious flaw that we should throw out perfectly functional technology because it's old, hell, wireless audio is nothing new either, have you ever heard of the FM radio?  That's decades old, still being used, and is the basis of bluetooth headphones.  If everyone used your logic we would be in the stone age.

Don't kid yourself here, OP. Apple removing the headphone jack was purely a profit-driven move, plain and simple.

It's not about "pushing technology forward" at all. It's about increasing ecosystem control and therefore profits.

"This prevents the program from spending a large amount of time saving to a slower drive"
 
To be frank, I have better things to do then arguing with someone who is acting like Sheldon from the big bang theory.  Have a nice day.
 

From my understanding write commands are sent to system RAM and get sent to the external storage drive when the PC isn't busy doing something else, correct?
 
Wait, I said drive instead of PC, didn't I?  Oops, I'll correct it so it's less confusing. 
I've known about it for a few years.  Is Microsoft changing the default setting for removable devices to "quick removal" correct though?

Alright, then this thread was pointless.  Sorry about that.
That's what I said.
"write commands are sent to system RAM and get sent to the external storage drive."
Let me re phrase that.  Instead of photoshop saving directly to the flash drive, it will be sent to system RAM and be stored until Windows decides that it's a good time to send it to the drive.  If multiple things are being saved to the drive in a short amount of time, the operating system may store the saved data for a prolonged period, then send it all at once.
 
This prevents the program from spending a large amount of time saving to a slower drive, thus making the system more responsive when it comes to saving data, especially if it's multiple saves during a short amount of time.
I never stated that transfer speeds themselves would be faster, I made a few typos and worded it in a way that someone could think that though, so I corrected it.

"This prevents the program from spending a large amount of time saving to a slower drive"
 
To be frank, I have better things to do then arguing with someone who is acting like Sheldon from the big bang theory.  Have a nice day.
 

UPDATE:  Soooo, Windows already defaults to "Quick removal" when it comes to removable USB drives.  So the article is wrong, and I'm dumb for not knowing that.  Sorry.
 
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/microsoft-changes-how-windows-10-disconnects-usb-storage-devices/
This has been a setting that I've known about for a while, but let's have the article explain it for us.
First off, you'll probably still get corrupted data if you remove the USB device when it's in the middle of a write, but I largely believe that this is a good change (as long as Microsoft doesn't mess it up that is).
 
The article tells you how to switch individual drives back to performance mode, which is reccomended for anyone who is responsible enough to click "safely remove hardware", or if you have an external USB hard drive hooked up to your PC long term, but the vast majority of people just pull their drives from their computer without clicking the safely remove hardware button, and while the chance is real small, it's still possible to corrupt data if your computer was caching your data, as it wasn't quite on your drive yet.  This happens most often with large file transfers on a slower drive, but if you pull it at the right time (or wrong time in this case) it can happen with pretty much all drives that are set to "better performance".
 
Whether this will affect your PC depends on sevral factors, how fast your drive is, how fast your connection speed is, how powerful your CPU is, etc.  But performance shouldn't be affected too much, although prolonged writes on a slow drive while doing something intensive (like video rendering) could cause performance to drop slightly, especially if you're using an older CPU.
 
Again, I think that this is largely a good change, but the people on these fourms are a bit more tech savvy than your average consumer, so I can see this change irritating some here.

I actually had to check the date of the article to see if this was posted from April Fool's Day. Surprisingly, it is not.
 
This feature was introduced back in Vista, and yes it was the default for USB flash drives. The worst part is that the article noted that this feature was a coming up one in the May 2019 Update, only to post an update that it is the current version of Windows 10, despite comments noting that it was always there even one saying that it is in Windows 7.

The default has always been "quick removal" for USB drives.
 

UPDATE:  Soooo, Windows already defaults to "Quick removal" when it comes to removable USB drives.  So the article is wrong, and I'm dumb for not knowing that.  Sorry.
 
https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/microsoft-changes-how-windows-10-disconnects-usb-storage-devices/
This has been a setting that I've known about for a while, but let's have the article explain it for us.
First off, you'll probably still get corrupted data if you remove the USB device when it's in the middle of a write, but I largely believe that this is a good change (as long as Microsoft doesn't mess it up that is).
 
The article tells you how to switch individual drives back to performance mode, which is reccomended for anyone who is responsible enough to click "safely remove hardware", or if you have an external USB hard drive hooked up to your PC long term, but the vast majority of people just pull their drives from their computer without clicking the safely remove hardware button, and while the chance is real small, it's still possible to corrupt data if your computer was caching your data, as it wasn't quite on your drive yet.  This happens most often with large file transfers on a slower drive, but if you pull it at the right time (or wrong time in this case) it can happen with pretty much all drives that are set to "better performance".
 
Whether this will affect your PC depends on sevral factors, how fast your drive is, how fast your connection speed is, how powerful your CPU is, etc.  But performance shouldn't be affected too much, although prolonged writes on a slow drive while doing something intensive (like video rendering) could cause performance to drop slightly, especially if you're using an older CPU.
 
Again, I think that this is largely a good change, but the people on these fourms are a bit more tech savvy than your average consumer, so I can see this change irritating some here.

The SnapOnAir PCB allows your Raspberry pi zero (or zero w) to become a portable Linux PC of sorts.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fossbytes.com/turn-your-raspberry-pi-zero-into-a-portable-linux-pc-with-this-10-pcb/amp/
I would like to add to this.  You need adapters for the Raspberry pi zero.  You need a micro HDMI to HDMI cable/adapter, and a USB OTG adapter, as well as possibly needing a USB hub due to having only one USB data port. 
You trade convenience for the tiny form factor.  But for the price, and form factor, it's great, so great that Adafruit limits to only one raspberry pi zero per purchase, or else they would be bought out.  There is no shortage in demand for these tiny computers. 
While attaching a small display to a raspberry pi is nothing new, a PCB that has a keyboard and screen would make for a very versatile little device, while you may question the usefulness for such a device when we have smartphones, the android operating system isn't really good for getting actual work done.  It's great for content consumption, and you can use it as a word editor, that's really about it.  Having a PDA like device running  raspbian could be useful for several people.
3.5mm jack?  I guess they're brave enough to not mimic Apple ?.  Ok, petty jokes aside, an nRF24 board is a wireless 2.4GHz audio streamer, you can read more about it here.
https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Low-power-short-range-wireless/nRF24-series
So this board has some robust options when it comes to audio and audio transmission.  You could possibly use these as a walkie talkie, or perhaps a radio of sorts.
The PCB itself, yes, but keep in mind that the screen, keyboard, and anything else is not included, so it's going to be a decent amount more to set this up.
While ot would be possible to strap this onto a phone charger, that would be less then elegant, so in built battery support would be nice. 
Yes, from the looks of it, there will be a lot of surface mounted soldering, which is a lot more difficult then through hole soldering, although this could make a decent soldering project that's not too expensive (so if you mess it up, it's not the end of the world).
 
And now some of my personal thoughts, there has been a lot of neat little projects involving the raspberry pi zero, from the mintypi to a hidden compact surveillance camera, to even a projector.  That in itself has proven that the pi zero is extremely versatile, and is the right price for DIY projects.  While I would consider the SnapOnAir board rather niche, it has its place, although the pi zero is rather slow, so don't expect this to be the snappiest of portable PCs.