There were some errors in my last post! I was unaware of some facts. However, reality is actually even more in my favour than I realised.
I said you could purchase a headphone adapter for $9, but I have since been informed that the iPhone 7 comes with one for free. So if you buy the phone you get a new pair of headphones with a lightning connector, and you get an adapter so that you can use your old headphones too. Win-win!
Yes, if you lose the headphones or the adapter you must purchase new ones. This is how physical objects work in the universe in which we live. I too resent Apple for not having cloning facilities that can replicate matter at zero cost and usher in fully automatic luxury communism, that would indeed be swell.
But you worry that $9 to replace it is “not particularly cheap”! The phone itself costs over $1000 you fucking walnut, so if you have a habit of losing small electronic items you might want to reconsider purchasing one in the first place.
When I said that anyone can make Bluetooth headphones I didn’t mean that you are capable of doing this. But Bluetooth is an open standard and you can buy compatible headphones from wherever you like. Personally not a fan of the wireless, but standards are good.
(The lightning connector being proprietary is bad, and is a genuine knock against Apple, one that I have pointed out in numerous posts, and something actually worth complaining about if you are someone who dislikes capitalism).
But let’s zoom out a little. By myopically focusing on a few trivial inconveniences you are missing the opportunity cost of not making the change, and the future potential for innovation that it unlocks. This attitude will not age well, and the fuss over the headphone jack will seem laughable in the future.
More generally, why so much outrage? No one is obliged to purchase an iPhone and suffer the terrible consequences of having to use wireless headphones or need an adapter for the aux cord. This is an entirely voluntary choice, and as has been pointed out Apple has around 15% market share.
If anything this could be seen as an indirect tax on the wealthy, charging them more for overpriced phones and giving them reduced functionality, while the poor enjoy the benefits of cheap convenient Android devices. How could a leftist possibly oppose soaking the rich?
From a design point of view it is entirely consistent with Apple’s ethos going back to the very founding of the company, so it should not be surprising at all, just Apple being Apple as they have every right to be. One button mice, amirite.
There are ways of reacting to this product announcement that make sense:
“I personally require a 3.5mm headphone jack on my phone, so I will not be purchasing an iPhone 7 for this reason.”
“I would prefer to have a headphone jack but the benefits of owning an iPhone outweigh the disadvantage, so I will simply register my disappointment.”
“Haha by removing the headphone jack Apple has made a foolish decision and will lose ground to their competitors.”
Any of these is a perfectly reasonable reaction! But the sense of aggrieved outrage on behalf of imagined iPhone owners compelled by the Man to upgrade to an expensive new model and then suffering the travails of needing to use an adapter to plug in old audio equipment is just baffling.
Has anyone told you what they’ve done to the home button, btw? You’re going to hate it.
“hey brah, u kno that standard that’s compatible with almost literally every headphone on Earth, as well as indirectly with a variety of hobby, semi-pro, and pro audio equipment?”
“yeah bro?”
“let’s break it in order to sell shtty AirPods that are actively inferior to both wired and wireless headphones, are expensive, get lost easily, and require their own charger lol”
“but brah what r we goin to tell the customers”
“that it takes courage to practice innovation lololol”
Argumate, buddy, pal, the reason they’re pissed off is that 1) the rest of the industry might follow Apple in destroying a valuable, highly-interoperable, non-DRMed standard, and 2) the arguments being made basically everywhere in favor of doing so are transparently bullsht, and as such, insulting. The phone isn’t even too slim for a headphone jack, some lunatic managed to add a functioning one after spending like $1,600 on equipment, and competitors make water-resistant phones with headphone jacks.
As the iPhone is a status object, the way to prevent losing important functionality on other phones and losing the ability to know headphones will be compatible with things without having to think about it, the correct thing to do is lower its, and Apple’s, status by attacking them over this bullsht “lolcourage” decision.
The backlash is therefore quite rational.
Edit: Oh, and keeping track of one small electronic item larger than a dongle is, in fact, much easier than keeping track of two, which is part of *why* smartphones are so popular in the first place.
