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USB is a good counterexample, though. They started pushing USB for all peripherals before anybody else, and before there was a good market for peripherals that

USB is a good counterexample, though. They started pushing USB for all peripherals before anybody else, and before there was a good market for peripherals that supported it. The market emerged soon thereafter, though, and other companies were ditching their parallel ports, etc., within a year or two.

slg 10y ago
Except USB was a standard. Lightning isn't and it doesn't appear that the W1 chip is either.
- jakobegger 10y ago
  They say that the Airpods work with Macs too, so I assume they use bluetooth? W1 could just be their custom Bluetooth chip
  - thesimon 10y ago
    But they probably can't be paired with any other device than Apple's.
    - ubernostrum 10y ago
      Now that people are actually reviewing them, it seems very clear that you can pair AirPods with anything that does Bluetooth audio. Would you like to revise your priors concerning Apple products?
      - thesimon 10y ago
        Reports at the keynote were saying they were not pairable with other devices. But it indeed seems they are.
        ubernostrum 10y ago
        Not really; people who had preconceived notions of what they thought Apple would do were reporting this. And those people were wrong, and perhaps their preconceived notions are in need of revision.
- apendleton 10y ago
  Right, I'm not defending this decision, specifically. Just offering a counterpoint to the parent's: > the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move This was not the case when Apple pushed hard on USB as compared to other peripheral standards with the iMac in the late '90s.
strictnein 10y ago
USB isn't a good counter example, unless they were switching to USB-C. But they're not, they're sticking with their proprietary port.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  OP is talking about the controversial original iMac launch in 1998: http://www.macworld.com/article/1133334/original_imac.html http://www.macworld.com/article/1133334/original_imac.html "Considering all these amenities, the most shocking part of the iMac isn’t what it offers, but what it lacks. The iMac has no floppy drive, which might be forgivable if there were a Zip drive or other removable-media option, but there isn’t. And most dramatically, this new consumer offering has no SCSI port, no standard serial ports, and no ADB ports. Apple has opted to replace these familiar connections with USB, a high-speed serial architecture that has suffered from slow adoption on the Wintel platform despite its technical advantages (see the sidebar “USB: Ready for Prime Time?”). Currently, no USB devices exist for the Mac."
  - strictnein 10y ago
    But that was a standard open to all and everyone understood it was the future, even in 1998. Lightning isn't any of that.
    - compiler-guy 10y ago
      Lightning isn't the future, but some sort of wireless is. Lightning is just a stop-gap.
    - BurningFrog 10y ago
      Standardized, yes. But it was not at all clear that it would become a dominant force. Far from all standards do. Many think it was the iMac that made it into the success it has become.

slg 10y ago

Except USB was a standard. Lightning isn't and it doesn't appear that the W1 chip is either.

jakobegger 10y ago
They say that the Airpods work with Macs too, so I assume they use bluetooth? W1 could just be their custom Bluetooth chip
- thesimon 10y ago
  But they probably can't be paired with any other device than Apple's.
  - ubernostrum 10y ago
    Now that people are actually reviewing them, it seems very clear that you can pair AirPods with anything that does Bluetooth audio. Would you like to revise your priors concerning Apple products?
    - thesimon 10y ago
      Reports at the keynote were saying they were not pairable with other devices. But it indeed seems they are.
      - ubernostrum 10y ago
        Not really; people who had preconceived notions of what they thought Apple would do were reporting this. And those people were wrong, and perhaps their preconceived notions are in need of revision.
apendleton 10y ago
Right, I'm not defending this decision, specifically. Just offering a counterpoint to the parent's: > the biggest difference is that those technologies were all on the downward slope of their popularity when Apple made the move This was not the case when Apple pushed hard on USB as compared to other peripheral standards with the iMac in the late '90s.

strictnein 10y ago

USB isn't a good counter example, unless they were switching to USB-C. But they're not, they're sticking with their proprietary port.

BurningFrog 10y ago
OP is talking about the controversial original iMac launch in 1998: http://www.macworld.com/article/1133334/original_imac.html http://www.macworld.com/article/1133334/original_imac.html "Considering all these amenities, the most shocking part of the iMac isn’t what it offers, but what it lacks. The iMac has no floppy drive, which might be forgivable if there were a Zip drive or other removable-media option, but there isn’t. And most dramatically, this new consumer offering has no SCSI port, no standard serial ports, and no ADB ports. Apple has opted to replace these familiar connections with USB, a high-speed serial architecture that has suffered from slow adoption on the Wintel platform despite its technical advantages (see the sidebar “USB: Ready for Prime Time?”). Currently, no USB devices exist for the Mac."
- strictnein 10y ago
  But that was a standard open to all and everyone understood it was the future, even in 1998. Lightning isn't any of that.
  - compiler-guy 10y ago
    Lightning isn't the future, but some sort of wireless is. Lightning is just a stop-gap.
  - BurningFrog 10y ago
    Standardized, yes. But it was not at all clear that it would become a dominant force. Far from all standards do. Many think it was the iMac that made it into the success it has become.