&quot;The 3.5mm headphone jack is one of the elder statesmen of the personal tech world, having become ubiquitous with the rise of mp3 players, smartphones, and other mobile devices&quot; - maybe the author is too young to remember that, but I think the &quot;mobile device&quot; that really helped make the 3.5mm headphone jack ubiquitous was the Sony Walkman back in the eighties.