Look at the sheer volume of hate Apple has received today, on Slashdot alone...
Hey man, that's NOTHING!
In ONE DAY, have been Punish-Modded from "Excellent" to "Positive" Karma ON MODS FROM COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE ALONE.
And BTW, that is now the FOURTH time in my Slashdot History that that has happened when I went to bat for Apple. I've dug myself back up from "Poor" to "Excellent" three times now.
And yet, you know what? When I get mod points, I ALMOST NEVER downvote ANYONE, and I NEVER post Anonymously.
Are you a dedicated troll, or do you really treat Apple like a religion? Even if you were a major shareholder - which I doubt - you would still offer criticism where needed. But it's like you have this kneejerk need to defend a corporation's every move, showing your fealty right down to the "macs4all" nick.
My curiosity makes me want to understand people like you. You're part of the complex tapestry of humanity, but a part that doesn't really make sense.
No, I just happen to agree with Apple on this point, and am willing to defend them on it. Too bad if you can't stand dissent.
Courage is what others can judge you to have shown.
Ego is when you call your own decision "courage".
If they had a good reason they should have said it. Self-claiming courage is a coward move.
E
It's not egotistical when you have a multi-decade PROVABLE record of being a trend-setter in the industries of interest. It's called "bragging rights".
REALLY?!? Is THIS REALLY WORTH A DOWNMOD?!? Someone has gone and DOWNVOTED EVERY ONE OF MY POSTS.
So, Apple regularly adds and/or removes tech. It's part of their DNA. They've radically moved computing forward and sometimes they're the first to cut ties to an old past. Whether you like them removing it or not, doesn't mean it's a "hey they're GREEDY" everytime they change something. Remember that soon, your iOS9 phone will become an iOS10 phone and do more things. They're not charging you for that. For free, your mac will do more new things. The headphone jack is long, the headphone jack is thick, and the headphone jack makes it harder to waterproof. Why is everyone complaining? because bluetooth headphones suck. Well, here's Apple designing a future to make them suck less.
THIS, THIS; a thousand times THIS!
REALLY?!? Is THIS REALLY WORTH A DOWNMOD?!? Someone has gone and DOWNVOTED EVERY ONE OF MY POSTS.
LOL. You give 4 examples to support a claim for lack of "vendor lock-in", but 3 of them are proprietary, and none have the quality of a simple analog jack. What flavor Kool-aid did you get?
Since unless you were at the "Event" today, you haven't even heard the W1 wireless phones OR the Lightning ones, you're so full of shit it's running out of your mouth and onto the keyboard.
And only 2 of the methods are proprietary; since Apple "opened" the system with the SUPPLIED Lightning to 3.5mm adapter, that no longer counts as "proprietary", since you can hook any old headphones/earbuds to that, and it would be senseless for Apple to make it any other way.
You know, mods, systematically marking ALL of my posts as "-1 Troll" is NOT in the spirit of the mod purpose. I don't do it to others. But look at EVERY post of mine to this Article. They have ALL been marked "Troll", NO MATTER WHAT.
Courage is a strange way to spell profit. I'll assume that these $159 wireless earplugs don't have replaceable batteries, and it seems they're proprietary, so it's just another recurring profit stream. Since users aren't as willing to upgrade their phones every 2 years (although thinner phones might make them break more easilly, which helps), Apple is searching for a way to get them to upgrade the accessories on a regular basis. There's no benefit to the user, unless they'd like a lighter wallet.
To quote Jobs: that's brain-dead.
If you don't like the $160 AirPods, then don't buy them! You can now get audio out (and in) to the iPhone in any one of FOUR ways (5 if you count WiFi): Lightning; Lightning with supplied 3.5mm adapter; W1-format Wireless; Standard Bluetooth Wireless.
I don't know about how you figure it; but that SURE doesn't spell "vendor lock-in" to me!
You know, mods, "Disagree" is NOT a reason to mark something "-1 Troll".
Eh, that's not the real issue. To listen to my existing headphones and charge the phone at the same time, I'd have to buy a Lightning splitter. Neither the earbuds nor the adapter has an extra Lightning port, and they take up the only Lightning port on the device.
That's the only semi-legit reason for disliking the Lightning solution; however, I think that it will be about 5 nanoseconds before someone comes up with an adaptor/splitter combo cable. And quite frankly, the iPhone lasts long enough on batteries (my 6+ typically lasts about 4 days), that I could deal with the occasional inconvenience. It just means you have to be a little more diligent about not going out of the house with 20% of battery left. Meh.
You know, mods, "Disagree" is NOT a reason to mark something as "-1 Troll".
Even if, hypothetically, the act of removing the 3.5mm headphone jack was actually considered "courageous" the fact remains that they didn't even do that. As multiple people have pointed out they are including it in the box and have a fully-supported path for it going forward. Exactly what is the act here that you think is courageous? Making it slightly more of a pain in the ass to use by moving it from built-in to accessible and supported via an extra accessory?
So, you have exactly pointed-out what Apple's dilemma was: They were damned if they did, and damned if they didn't. But they're kind of used to that whining, and know from experience of removing BOTH the Floppy AND the Serial Ports from the original iMac (and that at a time when they didn't DARE "get it wrong"), and releasing a smartphone without a physical keyboard (at the height of Blackberry's success), and releasing a laptop without an Optical Drive (the original Air), and releasing a Tablet computer when market analysis would have predicted that the entire category was a non-starter, and then seeing ALL of those COURAGEOUS decisions not only "work out", but actually change the way that ALL their competitors ALSO designed their products and become "the new normal", They decided that "now" was a good time to "take another leap of faith" on the headphone jack.
And all YOU can do is whine that they made it as painless as possible for YOU to transition to the new method as easy as possible. After all, Apple never included a USB to Serial converter with the original iMac, and ya know what? People not only "got over it", but in about two short years, you would have been hard-pressed to find ANY peripheral that still used "legacy" ports exclusively.
Eh, that's not the real issue. To listen to my existing headphones and charge the phone at the same time, I'd have to buy a Lightning splitter. Neither the earbuds nor the adapter has an extra Lightning port, and they take up the only Lightning port on the device.
That's the only semi-legit reason for disliking the Lightning solution; however, I think that it will be about 5 nanoseconds before someone comes up with an adaptor/splitter combo cable. And quite frankly, the iPhone lasts long enough on batteries (my 6+ typically lasts about 4 days), that I could deal with the occasional inconvenience. It just means you have to be a little more diligent about not going out of the house with 20% of battery left. Meh.
LOL. You give 4 examples to support a claim for lack of "vendor lock-in", but 3 of them are proprietary, and none have the quality of a simple analog jack. What flavor Kool-aid did you get?
Since unless you were at the "Event" today, you haven't even heard the W1 wireless phones OR the Lightning ones, you're so full of shit it's running out of your mouth and onto the keyboard.
And only 2 of the methods are proprietary; since Apple "opened" the system with the SUPPLIED Lightning to 3.5mm adapter, that no longer counts as "proprietary", since you can hook any old headphones/earbuds to that, and it would be senseless for Apple to make it any other way.
There are some other little niche devices that used the headphone jack as well, for example some company made a diabetes tester that did so, which meant it could be compatible with other smartphones. But now they're making a lightning port version to replace it.
Though based on my own experience on logging health stats from another (non diabetes) chronic condition, I have to say that I've found smartphone based devices to be overall less convenient than using traditional devices combined with my own custom Google Sheets based logging system.
The issue isn't the interfaces for those devices; it's the fact that they all contract the App Development out to the lowest bidder Chinese coders.
I have a OneTouch USB Glucometer and a top-of-the-line Bluetooth Omron BP meter. The software for both of them sucks balls.
"[Schiller said] the company can't justify the continued use of an 'ancient' single-use port."
There is nothing at all that would prevent the simultaneous use of the head phone check and of bluetooth.
Except SPACE, which, in a device where every square mm counts, is a pretty compelling reason. They were able to repurpose a jack that every iPhone was carrying around all day; but which was going completely unused 99% of the time, while simultaneously eliminating a relatively huge connector, which not only gave them more space to move stuff around so they could do things that weren't possible without making the "Pkus" versions too large to fit comfortably in A shirt pocket (which they surprisingly do). And along the way, then also picked up an easy way to get to IPx7 water resistance, which is undeniably a very nice thing to offer.
IMHO the 4s was the best iphone and it has been going downhill ever since. They made the phone more difficult to hold and got rid of a perfectly good connector. I never had the old style connector wear out but I have thrown out more lightning cables then I can count. Now I need to plugin my headphones into it? I've always felt locked into apple because of the investment in apps and music, but now with this latest move I believe iphone won't be my next phone. Looking forward to Xiaomi.
I have a 4s and a 6 Plus. You are delusional if you think the 4s is a better phone of the two. And as for 30-pin vs Lightning, again you're delusional. I have never broken either, and very much enjoy the agnostic orientation feature of the Lightning connector. But perhaps you will enjoy the Micro USB connector of an Android phone better. I for one would have been LIVID if Apple had adopted that POS connector. Both orientation sensitive AND fragile?!? That's micro USB's great legacy.
Geez people - if a 3.5mm analog jack built into the phone is so important, buy any one of the many, many, Android devices on the market - or any other iPhone that Apple still sells, or just use the stupid adapter that comes with the phone.
The term to 86 something comes from Warner Bros in the 1930's. Stage 86 was a unused studio at the far end of Warner's lot. It was used to store old bits of scenery and props.
Switching from PowerPC to Intel was a bigger deal. Fortunately, Rosetta made it work. Now, sadly, that's gone so a handful of still useful yet defunct programs are relegated to old machines.
That was a DECADE ago; let it go, FFS! There's a lot of useful PDP-11 programs, too; but most people can't run them, either.
And you aren't licensing this tech to literally everyone yet? I mean, sure you can cram it in your only remaining flagship product and take an extra 50 bucks on the sale price, then another 160 bucks per unit for the earbuds... well, okay per unit sold only through you, its less through others who you will be allowing to sell official products since they need their cut of course. So that 210 bucks per customer times a few million....
What extra 50 bucks? Not only has the price remained the same as the last model; but they doubled the storage at the same price point; and then went back to that previous model (which they have now reduced the price for) and doubled its storage, too!
What extra $160 bucks? I won't pay $160 for a pair of earbuds, and if you don't want to, then neither should you. After all, it's not like that's the only thing that will work with the iPhone 7. It's called "freedom of choice"; something that almost all Slashdotters profess to cherish above all. And besides, you conveniently forgot to mention the several Beats headphones and earbuds announced at the same time, one set boasting a gargantuan 40 HOURS of battery life, that also take advantage of the W1 wireless chip. And from what I have read, the Beats products are going to be much less expensive than the flagship AirPods.
So, it sounds like your math is quite a ways off; since it is likely that almost no one will buy the AirPods for their phone that costs exactly the same as last year's model.
This move is to get $$$ of every lightening(R) connected peripheral sold, and to eventually force DRM down our throats good and hard.
Courage my ass. IS is courage to sell a pair of crappy headphones for $159, that ONLY get 5 freakin hours of use per charge? My wired headphones can last years with ZERO charge.
Liars!
That's why Apple supports at least two different methods of audio transfer (3.5 mm adapter and regular Bluetooth) that are absolutely NOT Apple -controlled. And before you go off on some tinfoil-hat rant about the 3.5mm adapter, think about what you are about to say, and how unbelievably paranoid it will make you sound; even by Slashdot standards...
they are getting the hate for the Bullshit explanation. It takes Arrogance not courage to do something like that and not provide an explanation why you are screwing everyone over.
Courage is what others can judge you to have shown.
Ego is when you call your own decision "courage".
If they had a good reason they should have said it. Self-claiming courage is a coward move.
E
It's not egotistical when you have a multi-decade PROVABLE record of being a trend-setter in the industries of interest. It's called "bragging rights".
Slashdot Mirror
Look at the sheer volume of hate Apple has received today, on Slashdot alone...
Hey man, that's NOTHING!
In ONE DAY, have been Punish-Modded from "Excellent" to "Positive" Karma ON MODS FROM COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE ALONE.
And BTW, that is now the FOURTH time in my Slashdot History that that has happened when I went to bat for Apple. I've dug myself back up from "Poor" to "Excellent" three times now.
And yet, you know what? When I get mod points, I ALMOST NEVER downvote ANYONE, and I NEVER post Anonymously.
But I think that might change...
Are you a dedicated troll, or do you really treat Apple like a religion? Even if you were a major shareholder - which I doubt - you would still offer criticism where needed. But it's like you have this kneejerk need to defend a corporation's every move, showing your fealty right down to the "macs4all" nick.
My curiosity makes me want to understand people like you. You're part of the complex tapestry of humanity, but a part that doesn't really make sense.
No, I just happen to agree with Apple on this point, and am willing to defend them on it. Too bad if you can't stand dissent.
You're really delusional...get help.
So sez the ANONYMOUS COWARD.
REALLY?!? Is THIS REALLY WORTH A DOWNMOD?!? Someone has gone and DOWNVOTED EVERY ONE OF MY POSTS.
Good job.
Courage is what others can judge you to have shown.
Ego is when you call your own decision "courage".
If they had a good reason they should have said it. Self-claiming courage is a coward move.
E
It's not egotistical when you have a multi-decade PROVABLE record of being a trend-setter in the industries of interest. It's called "bragging rights".
REALLY?!? Is THIS REALLY WORTH A DOWNMOD?!? Someone has gone and DOWNVOTED EVERY ONE OF MY POSTS.
Good job.
So, Apple regularly adds and/or removes tech. It's part of their DNA. They've radically moved computing forward and sometimes they're the first to cut ties to an old past. Whether you like them removing it or not, doesn't mean it's a "hey they're GREEDY" everytime they change something. Remember that soon, your iOS9 phone will become an iOS10 phone and do more things. They're not charging you for that. For free, your mac will do more new things. The headphone jack is long, the headphone jack is thick, and the headphone jack makes it harder to waterproof. Why is everyone complaining? because bluetooth headphones suck. Well, here's Apple designing a future to make them suck less.
THIS, THIS; a thousand times THIS!
REALLY?!? Is THIS REALLY WORTH A DOWNMOD?!? Someone has gone and DOWNVOTED EVERY ONE OF MY POSTS.
Good job.
LOL. You give 4 examples to support a claim for lack of "vendor lock-in", but 3 of them are proprietary, and none have the quality of a simple analog jack. What flavor Kool-aid did you get?
Since unless you were at the "Event" today, you haven't even heard the W1 wireless phones OR the Lightning ones, you're so full of shit it's running out of your mouth and onto the keyboard. And only 2 of the methods are proprietary; since Apple "opened" the system with the SUPPLIED Lightning to 3.5mm adapter, that no longer counts as "proprietary", since you can hook any old headphones/earbuds to that, and it would be senseless for Apple to make it any other way.
You know, mods, systematically marking ALL of my posts as "-1 Troll" is NOT in the spirit of the mod purpose. I don't do it to others. But look at EVERY post of mine to this Article. They have ALL been marked "Troll", NO MATTER WHAT.
STOP IT!
Courage is a strange way to spell profit. I'll assume that these $159 wireless earplugs don't have replaceable batteries, and it seems they're proprietary, so it's just another recurring profit stream. Since users aren't as willing to upgrade their phones every 2 years (although thinner phones might make them break more easilly, which helps), Apple is searching for a way to get them to upgrade the accessories on a regular basis. There's no benefit to the user, unless they'd like a lighter wallet. To quote Jobs: that's brain-dead.
If you don't like the $160 AirPods, then don't buy them! You can now get audio out (and in) to the iPhone in any one of FOUR ways (5 if you count WiFi): Lightning; Lightning with supplied 3.5mm adapter; W1-format Wireless; Standard Bluetooth Wireless. I don't know about how you figure it; but that SURE doesn't spell "vendor lock-in" to me!
You know, mods, "Disagree" is NOT a reason to mark something "-1 Troll".
Eh, that's not the real issue. To listen to my existing headphones and charge the phone at the same time, I'd have to buy a Lightning splitter. Neither the earbuds nor the adapter has an extra Lightning port, and they take up the only Lightning port on the device.
That's the only semi-legit reason for disliking the Lightning solution; however, I think that it will be about 5 nanoseconds before someone comes up with an adaptor/splitter combo cable. And quite frankly, the iPhone lasts long enough on batteries (my 6+ typically lasts about 4 days), that I could deal with the occasional inconvenience. It just means you have to be a little more diligent about not going out of the house with 20% of battery left. Meh.
You know, mods, "Disagree" is NOT a reason to mark something as "-1 Troll".
The dongle comes with the phone.
I still think the idea is stupid, though... but I'm not in the market for a new phone, in any case.
So just use the SUPPLIED Lightnng headset, or buy a third party set. There are already several, and sure to be more in 3...2...1
You know, mods, "Disagree" is NOT a reason moderate something "Troll".
Even if, hypothetically, the act of removing the 3.5mm headphone jack was actually considered "courageous" the fact remains that they didn't even do that. As multiple people have pointed out they are including it in the box and have a fully-supported path for it going forward. Exactly what is the act here that you think is courageous? Making it slightly more of a pain in the ass to use by moving it from built-in to accessible and supported via an extra accessory?
So, you have exactly pointed-out what Apple's dilemma was: They were damned if they did, and damned if they didn't. But they're kind of used to that whining, and know from experience of removing BOTH the Floppy AND the Serial Ports from the original iMac (and that at a time when they didn't DARE "get it wrong"), and releasing a smartphone without a physical keyboard (at the height of Blackberry's success), and releasing a laptop without an Optical Drive (the original Air), and releasing a Tablet computer when market analysis would have predicted that the entire category was a non-starter, and then seeing ALL of those COURAGEOUS decisions not only "work out", but actually change the way that ALL their competitors ALSO designed their products and become "the new normal", They decided that "now" was a good time to "take another leap of faith" on the headphone jack.
And all YOU can do is whine that they made it as painless as possible for YOU to transition to the new method as easy as possible. After all, Apple never included a USB to Serial converter with the original iMac, and ya know what? People not only "got over it", but in about two short years, you would have been hard-pressed to find ANY peripheral that still used "legacy" ports exclusively.
So yeah, "Courageous".
Eh, that's not the real issue. To listen to my existing headphones and charge the phone at the same time, I'd have to buy a Lightning splitter. Neither the earbuds nor the adapter has an extra Lightning port, and they take up the only Lightning port on the device.
That's the only semi-legit reason for disliking the Lightning solution; however, I think that it will be about 5 nanoseconds before someone comes up with an adaptor/splitter combo cable. And quite frankly, the iPhone lasts long enough on batteries (my 6+ typically lasts about 4 days), that I could deal with the occasional inconvenience. It just means you have to be a little more diligent about not going out of the house with 20% of battery left. Meh.
LOL. You give 4 examples to support a claim for lack of "vendor lock-in", but 3 of them are proprietary, and none have the quality of a simple analog jack. What flavor Kool-aid did you get?
Since unless you were at the "Event" today, you haven't even heard the W1 wireless phones OR the Lightning ones, you're so full of shit it's running out of your mouth and onto the keyboard.
And only 2 of the methods are proprietary; since Apple "opened" the system with the SUPPLIED Lightning to 3.5mm adapter, that no longer counts as "proprietary", since you can hook any old headphones/earbuds to that, and it would be senseless for Apple to make it any other way.
You're really delusional...get help.
So sez the ANONYMOUS COWARD.
So either they hook up through the analog adapter or they design a Lightning version.
...and pay royalties to Apple.
Ka-ching!
Or go Bluetooth, and pay royalties to someone else.
There are some other little niche devices that used the headphone jack as well, for example some company made a diabetes tester that did so, which meant it could be compatible with other smartphones. But now they're making a lightning port version to replace it.
Though based on my own experience on logging health stats from another (non diabetes) chronic condition, I have to say that I've found smartphone based devices to be overall less convenient than using traditional devices combined with my own custom Google Sheets based logging system.
The issue isn't the interfaces for those devices; it's the fact that they all contract the App Development out to the lowest bidder Chinese coders. I have a OneTouch USB Glucometer and a top-of-the-line Bluetooth Omron BP meter. The software for both of them sucks balls.
"[Schiller said] the company can't justify the continued use of an 'ancient' single-use port."
There is nothing at all that would prevent the simultaneous use of the head phone check and of bluetooth.
Except SPACE, which, in a device where every square mm counts, is a pretty compelling reason. They were able to repurpose a jack that every iPhone was carrying around all day; but which was going completely unused 99% of the time, while simultaneously eliminating a relatively huge connector, which not only gave them more space to move stuff around so they could do things that weren't possible without making the "Pkus" versions too large to fit comfortably in A shirt pocket (which they surprisingly do). And along the way, then also picked up an easy way to get to IPx7 water resistance, which is undeniably a very nice thing to offer.
IMHO the 4s was the best iphone and it has been going downhill ever since. They made the phone more difficult to hold and got rid of a perfectly good connector. I never had the old style connector wear out but I have thrown out more lightning cables then I can count. Now I need to plugin my headphones into it? I've always felt locked into apple because of the investment in apps and music, but now with this latest move I believe iphone won't be my next phone. Looking forward to Xiaomi.
I have a 4s and a 6 Plus. You are delusional if you think the 4s is a better phone of the two. And as for 30-pin vs Lightning, again you're delusional. I have never broken either, and very much enjoy the agnostic orientation feature of the Lightning connector. But perhaps you will enjoy the Micro USB connector of an Android phone better. I for one would have been LIVID if Apple had adopted that POS connector. Both orientation sensitive AND fragile?!? That's micro USB's great legacy.
Something like aptX (but sadly, likely to be proprietary)?
Not hardly. More like what's supposedly coming with BT 5, but not for at least another year.
Geez people - if a 3.5mm analog jack built into the phone is so important, buy any one of the many, many, Android devices on the market - or any other iPhone that Apple still sells, or just use the stupid adapter that comes with the phone.
This phony outrage is ridiculous.
No shit.
The term to 86 something comes from Warner Bros in the 1930's. Stage 86 was a unused studio at the far end of Warner's lot. It was used to store old bits of scenery and props.
Thanks for the trivia bit!
Switching from PowerPC to Intel was a bigger deal. Fortunately, Rosetta made it work. Now, sadly, that's gone so a handful of still useful yet defunct programs are relegated to old machines.
That was a DECADE ago; let it go, FFS! There's a lot of useful PDP-11 programs, too; but most people can't run them, either.
And you aren't licensing this tech to literally everyone yet? I mean, sure you can cram it in your only remaining flagship product and take an extra 50 bucks on the sale price, then another 160 bucks per unit for the earbuds... well, okay per unit sold only through you, its less through others who you will be allowing to sell official products since they need their cut of course. So that 210 bucks per customer times a few million....
What extra 50 bucks? Not only has the price remained the same as the last model; but they doubled the storage at the same price point; and then went back to that previous model (which they have now reduced the price for) and doubled its storage, too!
What extra $160 bucks? I won't pay $160 for a pair of earbuds, and if you don't want to, then neither should you. After all, it's not like that's the only thing that will work with the iPhone 7. It's called "freedom of choice"; something that almost all Slashdotters profess to cherish above all. And besides, you conveniently forgot to mention the several Beats headphones and earbuds announced at the same time, one set boasting a gargantuan 40 HOURS of battery life, that also take advantage of the W1 wireless chip. And from what I have read, the Beats products are going to be much less expensive than the flagship AirPods.
So, it sounds like your math is quite a ways off; since it is likely that almost no one will buy the AirPods for their phone that costs exactly the same as last year's model.
This move is to get $$$ of every lightening(R) connected peripheral sold, and to eventually force DRM down our throats good and hard.
Courage my ass. IS is courage to sell a pair of crappy headphones for $159, that ONLY get 5 freakin hours of use per charge? My wired headphones can last years with ZERO charge.
Liars!
That's why Apple supports at least two different methods of audio transfer (3.5 mm adapter and regular Bluetooth) that are absolutely NOT Apple -controlled. And before you go off on some tinfoil-hat rant about the 3.5mm adapter, think about what you are about to say, and how unbelievably paranoid it will make you sound; even by Slashdot standards...
they are getting the hate for the Bullshit explanation. It takes Arrogance not courage to do something like that and not provide an explanation why you are screwing everyone over.
They did; you just weren't listening.
Courage is what others can judge you to have shown.
Ego is when you call your own decision "courage".
If they had a good reason they should have said it. Self-claiming courage is a coward move.
E
It's not egotistical when you have a multi-decade PROVABLE record of being a trend-setter in the industries of interest. It's called "bragging rights".