Many wired headphones have a little control thingy with buttons on the wire. Four pin aux connectors support control signals. If your headphones have a detachable aux cable I suppose you can just replace it with cable with controls.

The touch functionality is useful until it isn't. My Pixel Buds will activate touch controls randomly and unnecessarily all the time when I'm trying to use them in bed, from the contact with the pillow or sheets. Drives me nuts.

But also, I don't think it's either/or for most people. I use both wired and wireless headphones all the time depending on the use case. Wired sounds far better and is more reliable, wireless is more mobile. Different use cases.

You are right, in the past we never skipped a song or adjusted volume, just went with what came out of the factory and what was playing at the time. Those buttons on the device itself were for show.

Hah, just shows how out of touch I am. Has ANC disappeared as a wired earphone feature? I keep meaning to shop for a new all-purpose pair with ANC, duplex audio, and either USB-C input or an adapter for that. But, I keep procrastinating. I don't have any headphones that work with my phone since the analog port disappeared.

I can point to the shelf with my Sony wired ANC ear buds, which I bought years ago specifically for ANC during air travel, in the era when I would use my iPod and later an iPod Nano. The ones I have are the second pair, bought after the first was accidentally left on a plane. I think they were different product generations, a few years apart. These are so old, they are purely stereo headphones. Microphones for duplex audio hadn't become pervasive yet.

These stick in my ear with little silicon flanges and have a part that sits outside with the microphone. Then there is a small control module sitting at the junction of left and right ear wires, which holds a AAA battery and has a power switch and a pass-through audio button (which always seemed more gimmick than utility to me). In their active mode, they also don't demand much of the source device.

> I just wonder if wired fans just never skip forward a song, or adjust the volume.

This has been a thing in wired headphones since at least 2007 lol

Tons of wired headphones have little controllers on them to change songs and pause.

Other advantages: for music production, wired studio headphones don't have lag - also wired with mic is crucial for video games for same reason

by definition you're literally within 2 feet of the device playing the music; how hard is it to use your device to do any of that and more?

if the phone is in your pants pocket then its fairly trivial to change the volume just by using the buttons on the phone

even some of the cheapest in-line remotes that only have a single button will let you change the track by double tapping it

if you dont have an in-line remote then theres also the option of using a key remapper app (probably not on iphone) to let you change track by long pressing the volume buttons

I bought a tiny lapel clip Bluetooth receiver that has buttons and a headphone socket. Charge over USB, pair with phone, turn any headphones into Bluetooth. If the battery runs out, plug the headphones straight into the phone.

However, the noise cancelling gap is real. I'd kill for wired IEMs with an inline battery + buttons, and noise cancelling mic & circuit in the earpieces.

Closest is the Sony cans, which have wired mode (ie: they have a tiny jack, so you can use them passively) but I don't think they cancel noise when using them that way

Probably an exaggeration? But I hope that tapping for pause isn't critical for anyone's daily life.

I use wireless headphones and in fact never use this feature (I have it disabled). Too unreliable when there's a large screen with a big pause and skip button within reach.

Or ever do anything in parallel with listening. I’ve been working in my garden and went to a shed that’s like 15 meters away from my home only to notice that I’ve forgotten to take my phone with me - music never stopped.

I just tap a button on the thing the headphones are plugged into. The cable isn't so long that it's ever out of reach.

Many wired headphones have buttons and wheels too. We've been adjusting things via them for so long lol.

Many have a small box on the cord with those controls, and you could argue that's handier since it's closer to where your hands naturally are at any given moment.