Apple’s ‘courageous’ headphone change is actually anything but
Apple’s move to eliminate the headphone jack could have been courageous, but the company didn’t go far enough
Apple launches Airpods with iPhone 7 PHOTO: REUTERS
If today’s press event is any indication, there’s one word that Apple wants associated with its controversial ditching of the headphone jack in the new iPhone 7: courageous.
Apple senior VP Phil Schiller made it explicit during the event: “I’m going to give you three [reasons we removed the headphone jack], but it really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on, do something new that betters all of us. And our team has tremendous courage.”
This isn’t courage, though. Apple’s move to eliminate the headphone jack could have been courageous, but the company didn’t go far enough. As it stands, the lightning headphone jack isn’t courageous, it’s just a crass money-grab.
What is, and what could have been
To be clear, Apple has some genuinely good reasons for removing the old headphone jack. In principle, the lightning jack is just better. It takes up less space, and because it can send power as well as audio, it allows for some cool plug-in devices that won’t need external power (like the batteryless noise-cancelling JBL headphones Apple showed off at its event).
Apple unveils new iPhones, waterproof smartwatch
But there are, of course, two main problems with removing the headphone jack as Apple has:
Using any older headphones now requires you to carry around an adapter. There’s no way around it, this is inconvenient, and the entire point of having a mobile phone is to carry less stuff around, not more.
You can no longer use headphones while charging. As numerous people have pointed out, this breaks lots of people’s habits and workflows. Even my old iPhone 3G would let me charge it up while watching Netflix
Apple’s answer to the first problem is pretty simple: deal with it or buy new headphones. This makes sense since Apple owns a headphone company. But it also makes sense because “buy new headphones” is also Apple’s answer to the second problem. You can listen with headphones while charging your phone if you grab a pricey new pair of Beats or Apple’s newly-announced Airpod earbuds.
The Airpods were presented at today’s event as Apple’s vision of the future. This, Apple said, is how things will look in the wireless world we’re building by killing off the headphone jack.
Oh, and by the way, these’ll cost you an extra US$160.
(Sure, you could use a cheap pair of bluetooth headphones, but those won’t magically auto-connect the way the Apple ones do. Plus, I doubt Apple’s vision of the future entails you having to buy some other company’s product to fully enjoy theirs). This is Apple's vision for music on the iPhone 7, right? So why aren't they part of the core iPhone 7 experience?
Cowards!
That price is where Apple’s courage apparently failed. The company took away the iPhone’s headphone jack and said “Look, we have the courage to make this futuristic wireless-first phone.” But Cook and company didn’t really have the courage to present consumers with that vision. They didn’t want to walk all the way out onto that limb. So instead, the iPhone 7 comes with an adapter and a pair of wired earbuds that’ll be useless whenever your phone is charging. If you want a taste of the future, that’ll cost you an extra US$160.
What iPhone 7's new features are like, according to Twitter
You know what real courage would have been? Throwing in those wireless Airpods for free.
Doing that would have been a huge risk. It would hurt Apple’s profitability in the short term. That, in turn, would probably knock the company’s stock price down. Corporate suits would say it’s not a good idea, even if the company could afford it (which it clearly could; the iPhone has ridiculous margins and Apple has ridiculously huge cash reserves anyway).
Instead we got weak sauce. But it would have been great. It would have been Apple saying “Here’s our new idea, we want to sell everyone on it. Because with the iPhone 7, wireless isn’t an upgrade, it’s the core experience.” That would have been courageous. That would have been the kind of “revolutionary” move that Apple was once famous for.
Of course, Apple didn’t do that. Instead we got more of what Apple’s been providing lately: weak sauce. Half measures. If you buy an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, you won’t actually get to experience Apple’s wireless vision unless you pony up and buy another overpriced product on top of that. And without the wireless headphone experience, the single-lightning-port iPhone is just straight-up inferior to basically every other phone out there.
I mean, say what you will about the “totally redesigned” home button (which is still a circular button that does all the same things). But even my old iPhone 3G would let me charge it up while watching Netflix.
I was never a huge fan of Steve Jobs, nor do I believe that he’s responsible for as much of Apple’s success as he’s often given credit for. But I think the company sorely missed him on the iPhone 7. Because whatever else you could say about Jobs, no one would deny that when he had a vision he stuck to it. Stubbornly. Unflinchingly.
I think Jobs would have embraced the iPhone 7’s vision of a default-wireless audio experience, even at the cost of making old headphones incompatible. But shipping a product where users (by default) couldn’t experience that wireless audio vision? I can’t imagine Jobs would have been on board with that.
Super Mario's iPhone surprise fuels hopes for Nintendo
Apple’s vision of a wireless-headphone world? That’s courageous (although not very original). It’s just a shame that instead of giving that vision to us with the iPhone 7, Apple decided it would rather hawk extra headphones on the side.
This article originally appeared on Tech in Asia.
Apple senior VP Phil Schiller made it explicit during the event: “I’m going to give you three [reasons we removed the headphone jack], but it really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on, do something new that betters all of us. And our team has tremendous courage.”
This isn’t courage, though. Apple’s move to eliminate the headphone jack could have been courageous, but the company didn’t go far enough. As it stands, the lightning headphone jack isn’t courageous, it’s just a crass money-grab.
What is, and what could have been
To be clear, Apple has some genuinely good reasons for removing the old headphone jack. In principle, the lightning jack is just better. It takes up less space, and because it can send power as well as audio, it allows for some cool plug-in devices that won’t need external power (like the batteryless noise-cancelling JBL headphones Apple showed off at its event).
Apple unveils new iPhones, waterproof smartwatch
But there are, of course, two main problems with removing the headphone jack as Apple has:
Using any older headphones now requires you to carry around an adapter. There’s no way around it, this is inconvenient, and the entire point of having a mobile phone is to carry less stuff around, not more.
You can no longer use headphones while charging. As numerous people have pointed out, this breaks lots of people’s habits and workflows. Even my old iPhone 3G would let me charge it up while watching Netflix
Apple’s answer to the first problem is pretty simple: deal with it or buy new headphones. This makes sense since Apple owns a headphone company. But it also makes sense because “buy new headphones” is also Apple’s answer to the second problem. You can listen with headphones while charging your phone if you grab a pricey new pair of Beats or Apple’s newly-announced Airpod earbuds.
The Airpods were presented at today’s event as Apple’s vision of the future. This, Apple said, is how things will look in the wireless world we’re building by killing off the headphone jack.
Oh, and by the way, these’ll cost you an extra US$160.
(Sure, you could use a cheap pair of bluetooth headphones, but those won’t magically auto-connect the way the Apple ones do. Plus, I doubt Apple’s vision of the future entails you having to buy some other company’s product to fully enjoy theirs). This is Apple's vision for music on the iPhone 7, right? So why aren't they part of the core iPhone 7 experience?
Cowards!
That price is where Apple’s courage apparently failed. The company took away the iPhone’s headphone jack and said “Look, we have the courage to make this futuristic wireless-first phone.” But Cook and company didn’t really have the courage to present consumers with that vision. They didn’t want to walk all the way out onto that limb. So instead, the iPhone 7 comes with an adapter and a pair of wired earbuds that’ll be useless whenever your phone is charging. If you want a taste of the future, that’ll cost you an extra US$160.
What iPhone 7's new features are like, according to Twitter
You know what real courage would have been? Throwing in those wireless Airpods for free.
Doing that would have been a huge risk. It would hurt Apple’s profitability in the short term. That, in turn, would probably knock the company’s stock price down. Corporate suits would say it’s not a good idea, even if the company could afford it (which it clearly could; the iPhone has ridiculous margins and Apple has ridiculously huge cash reserves anyway).
Instead we got weak sauce. But it would have been great. It would have been Apple saying “Here’s our new idea, we want to sell everyone on it. Because with the iPhone 7, wireless isn’t an upgrade, it’s the core experience.” That would have been courageous. That would have been the kind of “revolutionary” move that Apple was once famous for.
Of course, Apple didn’t do that. Instead we got more of what Apple’s been providing lately: weak sauce. Half measures. If you buy an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, you won’t actually get to experience Apple’s wireless vision unless you pony up and buy another overpriced product on top of that. And without the wireless headphone experience, the single-lightning-port iPhone is just straight-up inferior to basically every other phone out there.
I mean, say what you will about the “totally redesigned” home button (which is still a circular button that does all the same things). But even my old iPhone 3G would let me charge it up while watching Netflix.
I was never a huge fan of Steve Jobs, nor do I believe that he’s responsible for as much of Apple’s success as he’s often given credit for. But I think the company sorely missed him on the iPhone 7. Because whatever else you could say about Jobs, no one would deny that when he had a vision he stuck to it. Stubbornly. Unflinchingly.
I think Jobs would have embraced the iPhone 7’s vision of a default-wireless audio experience, even at the cost of making old headphones incompatible. But shipping a product where users (by default) couldn’t experience that wireless audio vision? I can’t imagine Jobs would have been on board with that.
Super Mario's iPhone surprise fuels hopes for Nintendo
Apple’s vision of a wireless-headphone world? That’s courageous (although not very original). It’s just a shame that instead of giving that vision to us with the iPhone 7, Apple decided it would rather hawk extra headphones on the side.
This article originally appeared on Tech in Asia.