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It’s really simple: 1. It’s impossible for Apple to make a device that perfectly pleases everyone 2. Not all feature sets are possible 3. Apple constantly ma

It’s really simple: 1. It’s impossible for Apple to make a device that perfectly pleases everyone 2. Not all feature sets are possible 3. Apple constantly makes decisions about which trade-offs to make Sometimes you’re just not the target market for a device a company makes. That’s ok, and it isn’t necessarily the fault of the company that such is the case, they just opted for a different feature set than the one you would have preferred.

CaptSpify 9y ago
Theres also nothing wrong with criticizing that decision, especially when they are clearly using it to push you to buy a new device
wwweston 9y ago
It's kindof interesting that everything in your comment is true, and yet it's not clear that most of it is relevant in this case. No one has introduced the standard of perfect pleasure here. The standard that has been introduced is one of both ability and ease in regards to what I'd think anyone would agree is a fundamental feature for a personal mobile device: getting audio to route from that device to common output devices or even arbitrary output devices. If anyone thinks that standard is unreasonable or even not relevant to Apple's market, I'd be interested to hear about that. As far as feature sets and tradeoffs go -- yeah, that's an argument that I find compelling in a lot of product discussions. But it really loses its power when we're talking about a feature that's been present in every. smartphone. ever. up until the iPhone 7 and non-Apple smartphones since. It's hard to take seriously the argument that keeping it just wasn't possible. Tradeoffs? Maybe. But good tradeoffs mean you gained something worth as much or more as what you traded away. I haven't come across any credible explanation of compelling features (let alone market-distinguishing features) the iPhone gained that required shedding the 1/8" audio jack. If you're in the know on this one, by all means, explain. Overall, it seems more credible that maybe, just maybe, Apple underestimated the broad "just works" utility of the feature they removed here and actually got this one wrong. Or, possibly, "just works" wasn't a functioning value when it came to this decision.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  Apple likes to set trends which means doing away with the past. The headphone jack is a 19th century invention and Apple feels that the time has come to make way for new tech as it has always done. Add to the fact that they obsess over making their devices beautifully engineered by making them slimmer and lighter to increase portability. The more portable your hardware is, the more you are likely to use it and recommend it to others. Portability helps Apple sell more devices. This has been Apple's focus since Job's return. A few examples: 1. They were one of the first laptop makers to do away with integrated CD/DVD drives because they saw that fewer and fewer people were using them. The tradeoff here is obvious: they figured that Internet speeds would improve to the point that it would eventually replace 4.7GB DVDs as the standard means of distributing software for most of their customers (read: people with high disposable income). This has happened. 2. Apple was the first to ship a mainstream device (iMac) that supported the USB standard (which they didn't invent). USB adoption helped obsolete older tech: serial, parallel and PS/2 ports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History 3. The iPhone obsoleted keyboard-centric phone designs from BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung etc which were widespread prior to 2007 to a more natural touch-centric interface. Apple had previously launched the failed Newton device but this time they made several complementary investments in the user experience that made them feel confident that touch interfaces had matured enough to become mainstream. Remember that the first iPhone didn't even have copy&paste, regardless, their bet against old tech paid off :).
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    The big difference that you are missing is that those other technologies that they got rid of had ready and working replacements. The headphone jack does not have a ready and working replacement yet.
    - sah2ed 9y ago
      So you consider wireless headsets/ear phones utilizing BLE as an unworthy replacement for the headphone jack? That's fine. I'm not Apple or its representative, merely trying to help the grandparent see why Apple would do what they did.

CaptSpify 9y ago

Theres also nothing wrong with criticizing that decision, especially when they are clearly using it to push you to buy a new device

wwweston 9y ago

It's kindof interesting that everything in your comment is true, and yet it's not clear that most of it is relevant in this case. No one has introduced the standard of perfect pleasure here. The standard that has been introduced is one of both ability and ease in regards to what I'd think anyone would agree is a fundamental feature for a personal mobile device: getting audio to route from that device to common output devices or even arbitrary output devices. If anyone thinks that standard is unreasonable or even not relevant to Apple's market, I'd be interested to hear about that. As far as feature sets and tradeoffs go -- yeah, that's an argument that I find compelling in a lot of product discussions. But it really loses its power when we're talking about a feature that's been present in every. smartphone. ever. up until the iPhone 7 and non-Apple smartphones since. It's hard to take seriously the argument that keeping it just wasn't possible. Tradeoffs? Maybe. But good tradeoffs mean you gained something worth as much or more as what you traded away. I haven't come across any credible explanation of compelling features (let alone market-distinguishing features) the iPhone gained that required shedding the 1/8" audio jack. If you're in the know on this one, by all means, explain. Overall, it seems more credible that maybe, just maybe, Apple underestimated the broad "just works" utility of the feature they removed here and actually got this one wrong. Or, possibly, "just works" wasn't a functioning value when it came to this decision.

sah2ed 9y ago
Apple likes to set trends which means doing away with the past. The headphone jack is a 19th century invention and Apple feels that the time has come to make way for new tech as it has always done. Add to the fact that they obsess over making their devices beautifully engineered by making them slimmer and lighter to increase portability. The more portable your hardware is, the more you are likely to use it and recommend it to others. Portability helps Apple sell more devices. This has been Apple's focus since Job's return. A few examples: 1. They were one of the first laptop makers to do away with integrated CD/DVD drives because they saw that fewer and fewer people were using them. The tradeoff here is obvious: they figured that Internet speeds would improve to the point that it would eventually replace 4.7GB DVDs as the standard means of distributing software for most of their customers (read: people with high disposable income). This has happened. 2. Apple was the first to ship a mainstream device (iMac) that supported the USB standard (which they didn't invent). USB adoption helped obsolete older tech: serial, parallel and PS/2 ports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#History 3. The iPhone obsoleted keyboard-centric phone designs from BlackBerry, Nokia, Samsung etc which were widespread prior to 2007 to a more natural touch-centric interface. Apple had previously launched the failed Newton device but this time they made several complementary investments in the user experience that made them feel confident that touch interfaces had matured enough to become mainstream. Remember that the first iPhone didn't even have copy&paste, regardless, their bet against old tech paid off :).
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  The big difference that you are missing is that those other technologies that they got rid of had ready and working replacements. The headphone jack does not have a ready and working replacement yet.
  - sah2ed 9y ago
    So you consider wireless headsets/ear phones utilizing BLE as an unworthy replacement for the headphone jack? That's fine. I'm not Apple or its representative, merely trying to help the grandparent see why Apple would do what they did.