10 ms·

When an industry leader makes decisions that are anti-consumer, other members in the industry have a duty to speak up. Whether we support Apple or not as a cons

by deelowe 10y ago

When an industry leader makes decisions that are anti-consumer, other members in the industry have a duty to speak up. Whether we support Apple or not as a consumer is irrelevant. We also don't have to use IE as a browser, windows as an OS, cisco devices for networking, or anything else. That doesn't mean we won't take issue when a market leader makes a decision that will take the industry in a bad direction. Just like how the industry rallied against IE and pushed for open standards on the web, the hardware industry is calling foul on this decision for the very same reason. We need hardware to remain open and standard in the exact same ways and for the exact same reasons we need our browsers to be. Mark my words, this change is about DRM. It's about music, movies and TV. It's about ensuring that the apple store is able to attract and retain more publishers than everyone else. It's about lock-in and not just hardware lock-in but DRM/licensing lock in. The very first thing we'll see after this is implemented is a protocol to secure audio transition similar to what's been implemented in hdmi. This isn't about thinner phones. If it were, they'ed just implement a smaller analog solution. It's not like the phone is pushing 10 amps through that connector. It would be trivial to make it smaller.

Grishnakh 10y ago
You have to put your money where your mouth is. If you "call foul" on Apple, but continue sending them your money for their new iPhone sans headphone jack, then you're a hypocrite and Apple has no incentive to listen to your complaints. IE (6 mainly, that was what everyone was complaining about the most) finally failed not because of people "calling foul" on it, it failed because people abandoned the thing and used alternatives like Firefox and Chrome. When the marketshare for IE finally dried up enough, web designers stopped targeting it, making it even more useless for web browsing, and MS was forced to attempt to make changes. They still haven't caught up. "Calling foul" on an industry leader is useless, unless you're trying to convince people to abandon that leader and switch to an alternative. You're not going to get the leader to change because it's the "right" thing to do, they'll only change because their profits are in jeopardy. Ditching the headphone jack is the right thing for Apple to do because it'll make them more money: people will buy expensive dongle adapters, or overpriced new Beats headphones. If consumers don't like this, it's their job to not buy the new iPhone, just like Windows users finally wised up and stopped using IE6.
- deelowe 10y ago
  > "Calling foul" on an industry leader is useless, unless you're trying to convince people to abandon that leader and switch to an alternative. This is exactly what these discussions are about.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    They are? They only seem to me to be people complaining about it, while mentioning that they have an iPhone. I don't see anyone saying "I'm not going to buy another iPhone because of this."

by deelowe 10y ago

Grishnakh 10y ago

You have to put your money where your mouth is. If you "call foul" on Apple, but continue sending them your money for their new iPhone sans headphone jack, then you're a hypocrite and Apple has no incentive to listen to your complaints. IE (6 mainly, that was what everyone was complaining about the most) finally failed not because of people "calling foul" on it, it failed because people abandoned the thing and used alternatives like Firefox and Chrome. When the marketshare for IE finally dried up enough, web designers stopped targeting it, making it even more useless for web browsing, and MS was forced to attempt to make changes. They still haven't caught up. "Calling foul" on an industry leader is useless, unless you're trying to convince people to abandon that leader and switch to an alternative. You're not going to get the leader to change because it's the "right" thing to do, they'll only change because their profits are in jeopardy. Ditching the headphone jack is the right thing for Apple to do because it'll make them more money: people will buy expensive dongle adapters, or overpriced new Beats headphones. If consumers don't like this, it's their job to not buy the new iPhone, just like Windows users finally wised up and stopped using IE6.

deelowe 10y ago
> "Calling foul" on an industry leader is useless, unless you're trying to convince people to abandon that leader and switch to an alternative. This is exactly what these discussions are about.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  They are? They only seem to me to be people complaining about it, while mentioning that they have an iPhone. I don't see anyone saying "I'm not going to buy another iPhone because of this."