Couragegate

[DarlaMack]

 

[Nargg]

but I just counted and you have 80 posts and 72 OF THEM ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE JACK.

So you're tracking me? That's creepy.

There comes a point where it becomes nuisance posts. If you were posting hyperlinks it would be considered spamming the board.

Yeah, you should stop being so creepy and posting on a thread you don't care about, and stalking people. A "nuisance post" is usually one that continue to berate the original thread topic, BTW. Manners.

It's my thread, I started it, I will defend it. Get that.

 

[John Yester]

Good read. Please take some time to look over it, let it sink in, and last be open minded.

If you survey Android users about what it would take to get them to switch to iPhone, none of them would say "I want an iPhone without a headphone jack." And if you survey iPhone users about what would tempt them to upgrade, none of them would say they want an iPhone without a headphone jack either. People want more battery life. Or a faster processor. Or a better camera. Or more waterproofing. Or less breakability. Or something. But not the removal of the headphone jack. Nobody wants that.

Personally, I don’t particularly want it either. But to understand Apple’s success over the years, you have to understand that nobody was asking for a teardrop-shaped laptop before the release of the MacBook Air. Nor was anybody saying that the big problem with BlackBerry’s smartphones was that they had a physical keyboard.

You don’t ship great products by doing surveys and giving people want they want. You ship great products by coming up with ideas that are better than what people think they want. Apple has been successful over the years in part because their integrated business model makes them uniquely capable of taking this kind of big crazy risk.

Apple has an advantage that nobody else in the industry does: They know that if they make a new iPhone, a whole bunch of people will buy it. What Apple wants, of course, is a hit product. They want sales to go up rather than down, and they’d like to see sales go up a lot rather than up a little. But they have the luxury of knowing that the absolute number of units sold is going to be enormous — even if for one reason or another people don’t love the product as much as earlier iterations.

That’s in part because Apple has a loyal customer base (fanboys, reality distortion field, etc.) but it’s more fundamentally because only Apple makes iOS devices. If Apple releases several years’ worth of disappointing iPhones in a row, their market share will decline and the company will collapse. But in the short-term, the company is basically disaster-proof because switching away from iOS to Android is enough of a hassle that people won’t do it en masse over one bad iPhone update.

The makers of Android smartphones don’t have this luxury. Even a very mild dissatisfaction with a new Samsung product could cause a cataclysmic loss of market share to HTC or LG or vice versa.

The practical upshot of Apple’s short-term guarantee of sales is that they have the luxury of thinking more about the long-term future of their product line. Competition among Android smartphone makers creates a collective action problem. Anyone who drops a feature of any kind will immediately fall behind the competition in terms of feature lists and lose sales. This means the progress of the platform is essentially limited by consumers’ current view of what they want. Apple, by contrast, can force consumers to change their behavior and adopt a new paradigm. On the PC side, that’s why it was Apple that led the way in terms of dropping CD drives, VGA ports, and Ethernet jacks in favor of smaller, lighter machines.

Apple’s judgment about such matters hasn’t been flawless — neither the FireWire nor the Thunderbolt standards that Apple has pushed over the years have proved all that successful — but they do have the strategic opportunity to try to exercise their best judgment about what people will like best, while competitors are limited to consumers’ current judgment and natural conservatism about technology.

Steve Jobs used to discuss this in terms of a hockey metaphor. Apple would skate to where the puck is going. Competitive pressures force other smartphone makers to skate to where the puck is right now, which means that they’re always a step behind. In this case, Apple is betting that reducing the number of holes in the phone will let them build smaller, more robust, more waterproof devices and people won’t miss their old earphones much once they’re used to going wireless. That, however, merely returns the conversation to the central doubt investors and analysts have raised about Apple over the past several years: Steve Jobs is dead.

Jobs was never all there was to Apple — far from it. But having a unique ability to push platforms forward in ways that consumers don’t even know they want hinges crucially on whether your product people can, in fact, come up with things that consumers don’t even know they want. Jobs’s product vision sometimes faltered — people turned out not to want a perfectly round mouse or a desktop computer that looked like a Kleenex box — but he had enough big wins to more than compensate for the losses.

Apple’s unique strength is that from top to bottom it was — and remains — the kind of company where visionary product thinking can succeed. An equally brilliant product guy embedded in a company with a very different overall structure and business model would have simply failed. But Apple’s structural openness to bold visions didn’t — and doesn ’t — guarantee success. The visions need to make sense. In this sense, the removal of the headphone jack is a crucial test for Apple.
The post-Jobs trajectory of Apple has given fodder for both sides of the argument over the company’s dependence on its founder. On the one hand, they have in fact come out with some pretty exciting and innovative new products. On the other hand, those products haven’t been iPhone-scale hits. But back on the first hand, no other product in human history has been an iPhone-scale hit.

Messing in a fundamental way with the iPhone itself provides a much clearer test. Not so much in terms of how this new iPhone sells, but in terms of how many people buy the iPhone after this one. Apple is unique in its ability to make people go try something that sounds crazy and new. If customers still hate it in a couple of years, it will show that Apple is deeply vulnerable. It will mean that Apple not only lacks a Jobs-like innovator, it lacks the ability to recognize that it has lost its Jobs-like innovator and needs to switch to a more conventional approach. But if people do end up liking a product that it sure seems like people would hate, it will be the best proof possible that Apple still has the old magic.

 

[firstborn80]

Wow! That was absolutely a great read! From the posts in this thread, I wouldn't be shocked if someone said "it's not the same thing."

 

[Evilguppy]

I won't be buying the Airpods right away because I really need to reign in the finances for a while but I'm totally cool with using the adapter, it's all good. Anyone who's ever seen me wrestle with my wired earbuds knows that the designer of the Airpods is probably a giganto klutz like me who has come close to self strangulation just trying to listen to music far too many times, lol.
Now all I need is to make sure I don't drop the Airpods in my coffee...
Better buy a lid. ��

 

[worldspy99]

I won't be buying the Airpods right away because I really need to reign in the finances for a while but I'm totally cool with using the adapter, it's all good. Anyone who's ever seen me wrestle with my wired earbuds knows that the designer of the Airpods is probably a giganto klutz like me who has come close to self strangulation just trying to listen to music far too many times, lol.
Now all I need is to make sure I don't drop the Airpods in my coffee...
Better buy a lid. ��

Just like there are cases to protect the phone, there will be 3rd party gadgets to reign in the Air Pods from falling into your coffee cup.

Keep Calm and Caffeine On.
#nolidrequired

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

The OP is starting to remind me of an old member we had here when Apple introduced Apple Maps without transit directions. He complained about it during the entire beta cycle lol

 

[Highrisedrifter]

Here you go:
How to charge your iPhone 7 and listen to headphones at the same time | iMore

That's awesome. Thank you for the link.

 

[Highrisedrifter]

I won't be buying the Airpods right away because I really need to reign in the finances for a while but I'm totally cool with using the adapter, it's all good. Anyone who's ever seen me wrestle with my wired earbuds knows that the designer of the Airpods is probably a giganto klutz like me who has come close to self strangulation just trying to listen to music far too many times, lol.
Now all I need is to make sure I don't drop the Airpods in my coffee...
Better buy a lid. ��

The sheer amount of times I have put my earbuds in, put my phone down and then walked away and had either my phone fall on the floor or the earbuds ripped from my ears, is staggering.

Wireless/Bluetooth earbuds will be a great upgrade but honestly there is absolutely no way I am ever going to pay $159 for them. Not a chance. I will find a third party solution that does the same thing at a fraction of the cost. It may take time for those to appear but I am not in any rush to go out and buy some anyway.

 

[Rob Phillips]

John, what a great post. To add to that, Apple has always been VERY good at marketing. There's a reason they needed the headphone jack gone even if not immediately apparent. Perhaps they need that space for a bezel-less device in 2017 and don't want to hurt sales of what they believe will be the best selling iPhone ever, so they figured they would remove it this year so that users are over it by the time the 2017 model is released. I can very much see Apple looking into the future with this, and I believe there is a definite reason behind their removal of the headphone jack that we don't know about yet.

Regarding the thought that Apple is merely being selfish in doing this, they would not risk losing iPhone sales simply to make more royalties on their MFi program. From a financial perspective (which I have my degree in, by the way) this is a bit of an absurd idea. Selling more iPhones will always be in Apple's best interests.

 

[Rob Phillips]

The sheer amount of times I have put my earbuds in, put my phone down and then walked away and had either my phone fall on the floor or the earbuds ripped from my ears, is staggering.

Wireless/Bluetooth earbuds will be a great upgrade but honestly there is absolutely no way I am ever going to pay $159 for them. Not a chance. I will find a third party solution that does the same thing at a fraction of the cost. It may take time for those to appear but I am not in any rush to go out and buy some anyway.

Great news is that Apple just gave third party accessory makers a nudge forward in offering affordable Bluetooth headsets when they removed the headphone jack and announced the AirPods. I'm certain we'll start seeing a lot of new products popping up.

 

[robertk328]

Good read. Please take some time to look over it, let it sink in, and last be open minded.

That hockey analogy was from Wayne Gretzky... but heavily used in business and no surprise Steve used it as well

 

[kazp3r17]

150 isn't bad considering I paid 180 when the Jay bird blu buds were announced a few years ago. Been using them ever since I bought them and love them.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Selling more iPhones will always be in Apple's best interests.

You're absolutely right!

 

[Just_Me_D]

Not exactly.

Not exactly? C'mon. It is exactly the same thing.

The "Wireless only" side is bashing on the other even though they lose nothing either way.

Bashing? The "other side" is merely stating that

A) They understand that some people are upset about the removal of the headphone jack.
B) They are not affected by its removal because they can still use their current headphones & earpieces with the new iPhone devices.
C) The removal of the earphone jack is a done deal.

That is not "bashing".

They lose out no matter what at this point.

"They" are not losing out on anything "at this point".

IMHO they have no argument at all in this.

This is not a courtroom, and there is no argument to be made. You created this thread to discuss your disdain for the removal of the earphone jack. Well, a discussion has taken place. Did you expect to only get feedback from those who feel the same as you do? If so, that's was a mistake on your part.

The "Wire" side is on the losing end. They lost a good feature that didn't need to go. I don't get why you don't get that.

Therein lies the problem. The "wire side" is not on the losing end, unless, of course, you're specifically referring to the removal of the earphone jack in and of itself. Both the "wire" and "wireless" sides did not lose the ability to listen to audio via wire or wireless and that is a fact and that fact is indisputable, and I don't see why "you" don't get that!

Unless you are being obstinate and pushy like them. Disrespecting those that are losing out.

If you've been here for a while then you'd know that I'm not like that, but I also don't shy away from stating my opinion, especially when asked.

Not a good place for a moderator. You keep pushing back relentlessly too. orb that to You are no better, IMHO. And, Life? Really? Is it that deep for you? Is other's loss good for your life? Wow.

Because of my inability to be swayed by your deep concern over Apple's decision to remove the earphone jack as well as my attempts to explain to you, as clear as day, that although I understand your disdain, it's the not the end of the world as we know it, I will cease from participating in this conversation. Take care...

 

[reeneebob]

So you're tracking me? That's creepy.



Yeah, you should stop being so creepy and posting on a thread you don't care about, and stalking people. A "nuisance post" is usually one that continue to berate the original thread topic, BTW. Manners.

It's my thread, I started it, I will defend it. Get that.

*sigh* the only reason I 'tracked' you was because I've been here a long time and had never seen your posts before. Suddenly you're everywhere bemoaning the headphone jack. I got curious and took a look at post history and it's essentially all you post about.

The rest of the post was lulz-worthy and I'm not touching it. Not with a ten foot headphone cord.

 

[C6TX6]

I have a Moto Z Force and it does not have a headphone jack. They include a USB C to 1/8" TRS adapter and it works perfectly. TBH I don't see what all the fuss is about. The standard Moto Z is even thinner and it could not be made so thin with that jack. Having the adapter and the requirement of using another adapter to be able to charge and listen at the same time is a shortcoming, but people will adapt. Remember when the 5 came out and they introduced the lightning connector and it made all the charging cables and docks obsolete? That has been more or less forgotten already.

Apple is not the first to do this and the trend will eventually settle in to other devices.

 

[C6TX6]

Here is a charge/listen simultaneously option. I saw one with the 3.5mm jack as well//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160911/7a01cce8aea099183e2e5ed8412019b1.jpg

I hope they come out with a black version to match the black iphone 7!

 

[anon(10000748)]

I've been wanting them to do that with the chargers for years... *le sigh*

 

[Quis89]

You have plenty of options.

Not plenty of "additional" options. We now have fewer options that we had before. I think that is the issue people have. Not everyone enjoys bluetooth.

That said, as vocal as I've been against this, I also understand that it isn't changing and that I'll have no choice but to get with the times. Doesn't mean I like it. But I'm not going to pretend like Apple has solved a problem with this change nor am I going to tell people who have issues with this change that Apple has provided them with plenty of options. Because they haven't. Every wireless option available on the 7 series was previously available on our 6 series devices. But there are also now many options that we previously had available that are no longer going to work (unless we use the adaptor) and a use case (listening and charging simultaneously) that is no longer going to work.

The reality that many of you are willfully ignoring is that we all use our devices differently. And when something like this changes, it hurts a very important and vocal group of people. Empathy would go a long way rather than dismissing people's issues like they aren't important just because YOU use your phones differently.