Originally Posted By: tfabris
In all fairness, Apple had, essentially, the same restriction at first. It took Apple until version 2 of their own iPhone before they allowed you to use someone else's headphones without an adapter dongle.

The recessed socket is to support the headphone plug so you don't have the issues that tonyc had with his Treo. I guess too many people complained and Apple went with the flush mounted socket this time around. I wonder if they fixed the broken socket issue or just hoped it wouldn't be too bad...