5 ms·

Last weekend I paid $50 - yes, $50 - for a third party adapter at an airport kiosk after realizing I had forgotten the cheap apple adapter and was staring down

by kbos87 9y ago

Last weekend I paid $50 - yes, $50 - for a third party adapter at an airport kiosk after realizing I had forgotten the cheap apple adapter and was staring down a 10 hour flight with incompatible headphones. It also allows charging while listening to audio, which has also been a hassle to not be able to do, so I gritted my teeth and made the purchase. The whole situation is comical. Apple getting rid of the headphone jack was a ridiculous move that leaves me with a really bad taste in my mouth about a company who I otherwise have a very positive impression of.

toastking 9y ago
This is how I feel about the USB C dongles too. I forgot the a adapter at the office the other day and couldn't effectively work from home because of that. It's just a bad experience.
- sebular 9y ago
  I feel your pain here, but at least USB C is on the way to becoming the new standard. Sure, nobody likes a dongle, but it's been a while since someone did a facepalm because they can't use their keyboard since they left their USB to PS/2 converter at home. The transition is irritating, but eventually you buy a new compatible peripheral (or you leave the dongle permanently attached) and life is good again. The unforgivable thing about what Apple has done is insist on keeping that proprietary "Lightning" port around. It was a better design than anything else when it debuted (I've thrown away more broken micro USB cables than I can remember), but now it's just a sad shadow of USB C and it needs to go. When they killed the headphone jack, they had an opportunity to divert everyone's attention away from that loss by sticking a USB C port on the bottom. Instead of people bemoaning the loss of the perfectly good 3.5mm audio jack, they could have been talking about the exciting possibility of a fully-functional USB C / thunderbolt port, and with a "USB C everywhere" approach across all their devices, they might have actually deserved to call themselves brave(ish).
  - junkculture 9y ago
    I might have forgiven them if they had gone USB C. But they launched the 7 without a jack and the latest MacBooks without USB A so their latest phone couldn't connect to the latest MacBook without a single. I know - lightning to USB A makes sense for legacy laptops but still. It was a bizarre decision, one that I doubt Jobs would have made.
Simon_says 9y ago
If you're going to be so salty, why did you buy it?
- Aaargh20318 9y ago
  Probably for the same reason I bought a MacBook Pro with the stupid USB-C ports and no F-keys: there is no alternative.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
    Are you serious? How about just leaving this user hostile ecosystem instead?
    - Aaargh20318 9y ago
      Again, there is no alternative. I need a Mac for iOS development. I also do Android development and I know enough details about how the sausage is made that I don't want to use an Android phone as my daily driver.
      - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
        So not only do you buy hardware for this toxic ecosystem, but you directly contribute to its success, and still complain about it. Nice. Android is fine. At least the sausage recipe is available, iOS is a black box that's probably just about as gross inside. You can choose to use technologies that don't disrespect you as a user and a consumer.
        Aaargh20318 9y ago
        iOS is not a toxic ecosystem, I love the OS they also have far superior hardware. Sure, lacking a headphone jack is annoying, but I can live with that. I can't live with Android phones using inferior CPU's and GPU's. I also wouldn't want to use Google's horribly over-engineered OS.
nightcracker 9y ago
Yet you still bought the phone. What message does this send to Apple?
- verroq 9y ago
  That the missing headphone jack, while unfortunate, was outweighed by other merits of the phone?
  - kbutler 9y ago
    Unfortunately the "vote with $" is very imprecise. With respect to the headphone jack, a purchase of the phone could be anywhere from "I enthusiastically agree" to "I disagree strongly enough that it almost prevented my purchase" or even "I thought it would be OK, but realized after purchase that I will not buy another phone without a headphone jack."
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      "Voting with your wallet" is such an imprecise message that I wish people would stop bringing it up. It doesn't work. Customers choose out of the available options, so the real choice is with those who decide what options are available.
      - mi100hael 9y ago
        In theory if there's a choice missing that consumers would prefer, some other company will step in and fill the void knowing customers will prefer their new offering.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        In theory, yes. And it works for the easy things. But one does not simply walk into expensive electronics sector. Between capital requirements for product development and for marketing, it's really hard to make a viable product. People do try - there have been some bottom-up efforts for creating smartphones with features missing from the mainstream (ranging from security to customizability to openness), but they mostly failed. What I'm saying is - voting with your wallet works for products where it's easy for a random entrepreneur to design a release a new, unique model focusing on unmet market needs. But smartphones are not such a product. Customers always choose out of available options, the difference is in how easy is for the market to iterate on different variants for different market subsegments.
DavideNL 9y ago
I read this as "It's ridiculous, I just bought a Tesla and i can't even fill it with Diesel anymore." in other words, innovation = having to dump old "features".
- simplyinfinity 9y ago
  change =/= innovation
mFixman 9y ago
> at an airport kiosk Here's your problem.

by kbos87 9y ago

toastking 9y ago

This is how I feel about the USB C dongles too. I forgot the a adapter at the office the other day and couldn't effectively work from home because of that. It's just a bad experience.

sebular 9y ago
I feel your pain here, but at least USB C is on the way to becoming the new standard. Sure, nobody likes a dongle, but it's been a while since someone did a facepalm because they can't use their keyboard since they left their USB to PS/2 converter at home. The transition is irritating, but eventually you buy a new compatible peripheral (or you leave the dongle permanently attached) and life is good again. The unforgivable thing about what Apple has done is insist on keeping that proprietary "Lightning" port around. It was a better design than anything else when it debuted (I've thrown away more broken micro USB cables than I can remember), but now it's just a sad shadow of USB C and it needs to go. When they killed the headphone jack, they had an opportunity to divert everyone's attention away from that loss by sticking a USB C port on the bottom. Instead of people bemoaning the loss of the perfectly good 3.5mm audio jack, they could have been talking about the exciting possibility of a fully-functional USB C / thunderbolt port, and with a "USB C everywhere" approach across all their devices, they might have actually deserved to call themselves brave(ish).
- junkculture 9y ago
  I might have forgiven them if they had gone USB C. But they launched the 7 without a jack and the latest MacBooks without USB A so their latest phone couldn't connect to the latest MacBook without a single. I know - lightning to USB A makes sense for legacy laptops but still. It was a bizarre decision, one that I doubt Jobs would have made.

Simon_says 9y ago

If you're going to be so salty, why did you buy it?

Aaargh20318 9y ago
Probably for the same reason I bought a MacBook Pro with the stupid USB-C ports and no F-keys: there is no alternative.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  Are you serious? How about just leaving this user hostile ecosystem instead?
  - Aaargh20318 9y ago
    Again, there is no alternative. I need a Mac for iOS development. I also do Android development and I know enough details about how the sausage is made that I don't want to use an Android phone as my daily driver.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
      So not only do you buy hardware for this toxic ecosystem, but you directly contribute to its success, and still complain about it. Nice. Android is fine. At least the sausage recipe is available, iOS is a black box that's probably just about as gross inside. You can choose to use technologies that don't disrespect you as a user and a consumer.
      - Aaargh20318 9y ago
        iOS is not a toxic ecosystem, I love the OS they also have far superior hardware. Sure, lacking a headphone jack is annoying, but I can live with that. I can't live with Android phones using inferior CPU's and GPU's. I also wouldn't want to use Google's horribly over-engineered OS.

nightcracker 9y ago

Yet you still bought the phone. What message does this send to Apple?

verroq 9y ago
That the missing headphone jack, while unfortunate, was outweighed by other merits of the phone?
- kbutler 9y ago
  Unfortunately the "vote with $" is very imprecise. With respect to the headphone jack, a purchase of the phone could be anywhere from "I enthusiastically agree" to "I disagree strongly enough that it almost prevented my purchase" or even "I thought it would be OK, but realized after purchase that I will not buy another phone without a headphone jack."
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    "Voting with your wallet" is such an imprecise message that I wish people would stop bringing it up. It doesn't work. Customers choose out of the available options, so the real choice is with those who decide what options are available.
    - mi100hael 9y ago
      In theory if there's a choice missing that consumers would prefer, some other company will step in and fill the void knowing customers will prefer their new offering.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        In theory, yes. And it works for the easy things. But one does not simply walk into expensive electronics sector. Between capital requirements for product development and for marketing, it's really hard to make a viable product. People do try - there have been some bottom-up efforts for creating smartphones with features missing from the mainstream (ranging from security to customizability to openness), but they mostly failed. What I'm saying is - voting with your wallet works for products where it's easy for a random entrepreneur to design a release a new, unique model focusing on unmet market needs. But smartphones are not such a product. Customers always choose out of available options, the difference is in how easy is for the market to iterate on different variants for different market subsegments.

DavideNL 9y ago

I read this as "It's ridiculous, I just bought a Tesla and i can't even fill it with Diesel anymore." in other words, innovation = having to dump old "features".

simplyinfinity 9y ago
change =/= innovation

mFixman 9y ago

> at an airport kiosk Here's your problem.