Slashdot Mirror
The iPhones of the Future May Be Wireless, Portless and Buttonless (cnet.com)
The first iPhone to shed its headphone jack was the iPhone 7, which launched in late 2016. Now it seems like the Lightning port may be the next to go. CNET reports: Apple has considered removing the Lightning port on the iPhone X, according to Bloomberg, citing unnamed "people familiar with the company's work." While earlier rumors suggested that Apple would remove the Lightning port in favor of USB-C, Apple's goal may be to remove all ports entirely.
Bloomberg's report is about the challenges that Apple faces with its AirPower wireless charger, but it also shares some details about Apple's vision for a wireless future. The report says: "Apple designers eventually hope to remove most of the external ports and buttons on the iPhone, including the charger, according to people familiar with the company's work. During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn't feasible at the time because wireless charging was still slower than traditional methods. Including a wireless charger with new iPhones would also significantly raise the price of the phones."
Bloomberg's report is about the challenges that Apple faces with its AirPower wireless charger, but it also shares some details about Apple's vision for a wireless future. The report says: "Apple designers eventually hope to remove most of the external ports and buttons on the iPhone, including the charger, according to people familiar with the company's work. During the development of the iPhone X, Apple weighed removing the wired charging system entirely. That wasn't feasible at the time because wireless charging was still slower than traditional methods. Including a wireless charger with new iPhones would also significantly raise the price of the phones."
The most visited post on my website is instructions for rebooting a crashed iPod.
I can't imagine the iPhone is any better at not needing constant resets. Just today I had to force-reboot an iPad that had frozen on the home screen. I vaguely recall having to look up how to reboot someone's crashed iPhone X because they changed the method.
The point being that Apple's hardware is nowhere near stable enough not to have a method to force a reboot. I guess "wait for the battery to die" is going to become standard practice in the near future. I guess we finally learned why Apple refuses to put all-day batteries in their devices.
You're either a liar, or extremely unlucky.
I am left speechless and powerless by their decisions to go portless, buttonless.
- They will surely go speakerless and mic-less (this will make the phones analog hole-less)
- Battery-less (no more battery fires, hurrah !)
- Use-less
- Price-less (how much does it cost? How much have you got? Or as they prefer in England, how much can you afford to pay ?)
- Screen-less was already mentioned.
- Case-less (the most lightweight phone, lighter than air)
This reminds me of a story about trains:
"When a train derails it is usually the last carriage that causes the derailment. Therefore, to address this problem we will remove the last carriage from all trains."
Problem solved.