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I consider this one of the more egalitarian moves Apple made, and naturally they made a robust profit on it as well. Apple invented the modern slab-of-glass sm

I consider this one of the more egalitarian moves Apple made, and naturally they made a robust profit on it as well. Apple invented the modern slab-of-glass smartphone industry, and always shipped a high-quality charger and headphones with the iPhone, something which started with its ancestor the iPod. As a result, everyone else had to sell... some kind of earbuds and charger. These didn't have to be good, but they did have to be in the box. Apple had the margin to make these quality: you can get better earphones but not better chargers. Their competitors had to put the same type of object in the box, cutting into already slim margins and often shipping something which sounds bad, and that makes the iPhone look better. But as the market leader, they had the ability to say "The best phone in the world (reality distortion field!) no longer comes with earbuds or a charger. We figure you have enough chargers, and probably like the headset you have, and if you want new ones, we sell them". So everyone else can just drop the shipping of mandatory e-waste, just to keep up with the iPhone. It was a bad Nash equilibrium, and only the market leader was in a position to break it. Feel free to discuss the missing headphone jack and the multibillion dollar AirPods platform in the replies!

zivkovicp 5y ago
excellent points. I'm still upset about the 3.5mm headphone jack to be honest.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  I'm still upset about the 3.5mm headphone jack to be honest. I'm still upset† about the 30-pin connector. I can no longer stick my iPhone into the slot on the top of my clock radio just so trillion-dollar Apple can lock me into its 30% walled accessories garden that prevents me from doing what I want with my own hardware that I paid for and have no other options. (Did I miss any HN clichés?) (I'm actually slightly upset† about the iPhone not coming with a cleaning cloth anymore. I've been using my original one for 15 years, and it's starting to get worn out.) † For varying definitions of "upset."
  - quantified 5y ago
    This comes across as mocking, did you mean it that way? I wasn’t a fan of proprietary connectors either. 3.5mm jack is as standard as it gets. Plug your phone into any audio equipment, like a guitar amp with a 3.5mm -> 1/4” adapter. Bluetooth = tons of exotic e-waste, thank you very much.
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      For years, I rolled with a BT adapter that produced the signal on a standard 3.5mm audio jack, and a typical "aux" cable. Never failed -- if I ended up at an unplanned gathering, it took 3 of us to make music happen, and it wouldn't have been possible without my adapter.
    - whyoh 5y ago
      I like to have the 3.5mm jack too, but the reality is that the vast majority of users don't miss it. That's because they either don't use headphones at all, or because they prefer wireless ones anyway. So as much as I personally don't like it, it makes sense from Apple's POV. The arguably bigger annoyance and source of e-waste is that iPhones still use a proprietary charging port instead of USB-C.
      - ryandrake 5y ago
        The amazing thing to me is: They removed the headphone jack 6 years ago and people are still complaining about it. I have a feeling, 20 years from now, some of these people will be sitting in their old-folks homes, not remembering who their kids are, but will still be complaining about Apple getting rid of their headphone jacks. I've never seen such attachment to a feature.
        quantified 5y ago
        Detachment from the replacement. I only upgraded in the last few months. Not one of the people that budgets $1G/year to own a phone. Am I complaining loudly? No. Do I want to ditch my wired things and get deeper into bluetooth insecurity, battery life issues and e-waste of bluetooth devices? Definitely no. Since I drive a stick better than my CVT shifts, and I can get much better gas mileage, I also prefer that older technology. Not going to look for ways to mock on people here, seems to be a thing today!
- larrik 5y ago
  the look on my wife's face when I told her she couldn't listen to music and charge her phone at the same time...
moron4hire 5y ago
> Apple invented the modern slab-of-glass smartphone industry They did, huh? All by themselves?
- Bud 5y ago
  Yes. They did. All by themselves.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Yes. Before the iPhone, the only smartphones anyone really had were Blackberrys. And those weren't "slabs of glass".
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Really? How about palm or pocketpc? There were mobile phone versions before iPhone iirc
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      Which ones were slabs of glass?
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        Most of them? The face buttons were usually minimal, with 2-4 buttons plus maybe a d-pad >"The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 as a rebranding of the Palm-size PC category. Some of these devices also had integrated phone and data capabilities, which were called Pocket PC Phone Edition or simply "Smartphone"." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC >"The first-generation iPhone was announced by then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone
        endisneigh 5y ago
        but... that's not true. The HTC HD2, arguably the best Windows Mobile phone, wasn't a slab of glass - it was plastic, just like most (if not all) of the flagships.
qwertox 5y ago
I've bought a lot of Android devices and all which were of a well known brands like Samsung, Lenovo, HTC, Motorola had good chargers as well as good headphones in the box. Only cheap non-brand devices did not include headphones but the chargers were average amazon-type cheap but ok chargers. Also there's often the case where you buy stuff like led flashlights which don't come with a charger they do have an USB charging cable in the box.
Steltek 5y ago
> always shipped a high-quality charger and headphones with the iPhone, something which started with its ancestor the iPod. Phones with proprietary connectors always shipped with chargers. Probably most micro USB phones as well. Apple was not special in this regard. Likewise with earbuds, many phones, smart and dumb, also shipped with earbuds or a headset. Apple was leveraging the iPod name to sell the iPhone so omitting earbuds would have been conspicuous.
- judge2020 5y ago
  iPhone still ships with the cord, all you need is a brick or other power source with the increasingly-common USB-C connector.
  - larrik 5y ago
    "increasingly-common", my macbook and now my PS5 have USB-C female ports for charging stuff. That's the grand total of places I can use these cords (and I doubt the PS5 will charge my phone). It's a slow rollout best.
    - Macha 5y ago
      At least the PS4 USB ports worked perfectly fine for charging arbitrary devices, though I wouldn't expect fast charge voltages out of them even if USB-C is more standardised on that stuff than older fast charge implementations.
      - larrik 5y ago
        I know that I can't charge the PS5 controller off the switch dock, at least. I never have to charge the Pro Controller while the PS5 controller only lasts a few hours, so that would have been handy.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    >iPhone still ships with the cord Yeah, the cord that's not compatible with their previous gen chargers, which they claimed everyone had enough of at home, and had dropped to "save the environment". Dick move.
1980phipsi 5y ago
Bring back the headphone jack! The worst part is I've only been able to get Apple's 3.5mm to lightning cable to let you listen to a phone call. It's never worked when I bought a 3rd party cable.
- InvaderFizz 5y ago
  The Apple adapter is thin trash that wears out after a few weeks. Get the UGREEN Lightning to 3.5mm cable. I've been using them daily for years now with my Sennheiser Game One headset and the only problem I have encountered is a bit of curling from the braiding.
- hallway_monitor 5y ago
  Good news, there's a fix for this! The Samsung phone I purchased this week has a lovely headphone jack which works perfectly, as well as several other advantages which I won't go into.
- Damogran6 5y ago
  See, I thought that til I resurrected my ipod. That cable snags on EVERYTHING. Apparently I had a bunch of muscle memory things to keep that from happening. (I remember feeding it down my shirt and into the ipod in my pocket. I do NOT miss headphone cables.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    Sennheiser CX300-II worked fine for me and I had somewhere around 5 pairs of them. CX3.00 with soft-touch coating on the wires snagged on my own clothing. Latest CX300S (with soft-touch wires too, but different from CX3.00) are fine again. And I greatly appreciate what I don't need to care to charge another device and can just leave them in the pocket for next time I need them, be it tommorow or in two weeks.
xadhominemx 5y ago
> Apple invented the modern slab-of-glass smartphone industry, and always shipped a high-quality charger and headphones with the iPhone Rechargeable portable electronics always came with chargers, long before iPod or iPhone came around
- raldi 5y ago
  "High-quality" is the focus of that sentence.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    Apple didn't invent high quality
    - raldi 5y ago
      Nobody claimed they did.
  - blablabla123 5y ago
    Yeah yeah, I also wanted to say... So far I repaired 1 charger, bought 3 or 4 new and eventually even found out that an iPhone charger I have is likely to have an electrical problem. That said, with the USB-C craze I think things got a little better
  - echelon 5y ago
    Every single Apple charger/cable I've ever had has frayed or gotten close to it, FWIW. I'm not mistreating them. My ancient Thinkpad chargers are doing fine and they see lots of use. They're thick and ugly, with the cables themselves almost as big as the old barrel jack connectors, but they still feel safe and reliable. Heck, my old Nintendo DS chargers are still fine too.
    - samatman 5y ago
      I deliberately didn't mention the cables, and I'm happy to slag on their quality with you. Glad they finally did the right thing and separate the chargers, which are excellent, from the cables, which are.. white. They're also spec-compliant, which matters more and more with Thunderbolt and the like, but I find that any other reputable cable is also spec-compliant, and is going to last me about three times as long. I do mistreat them, to be clear, but at that price I should get away with it.
xwdv 5y ago
Many children today do not know what a headphone jack is, and by the time they mature into adults, they may still have never seen one in their lives, much less used one.
- comprev 5y ago
  My nephews (all under 16) have only experienced "always on" internet. The idea you had to co-ordinate with family on using the phone line via weird screeching noises, only to browse at a slow speed was lost on them.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    I like to razz my extended family who are all internet addicts now. They told me shit like, "go outside more" but now they are effectively crippled without their devices. Gotta love boomers.
  - buttscicles 5y ago
    Not really that unusual - I'm 27 and missed out on dial up
- larrik 5y ago
  That's nonsense, they all use headphones on their chromebooks at school.
rospaya 5y ago
> As a result, everyone else had to sell... some kind of earbuds and charger. These didn't have to be good, but they did have to be in the box. Are you implying that before the iPhone nobody sold chargers or earbuds with the phone? If so, you are massively wrong. Source: tech journalist, pre-iPhone, reviewed hundreds of phones.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  At that point in time most chargers were proprietary though. These days, you’ll be hard-pressed to find an AC adapter for a phone that doesn’t just have either a USB-A or USB-C port, and the cable you’ll need is almost certainly the same one that you used for your last phone. Neither were typically the case pre-smartphone.
  - rerx 5y ago
    And the reason for that was not Apple's will, it was EU legislation.
  - Steltek 5y ago
    I think mini and micro USB were pretty common when the iPhone debuted but maybe I only higher end phones. You probably got a lot of trash chargers though, like an AC wart hardwired to a uUSB plug or some mini USB to DC barrel jack adapter abomination.
    - ryukafalz 5y ago
      On higher-end phones yes; I had a BlackBerry at the time which I believe had mini-USB. Most of my friends had feature phones at that point in time though, and those were notoriously nonstandard.
5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
yeah but what if you don't have a charger or headphones. why should you pay the same or (more!) for less. at least take it out of the cost to retail.
teatree 5y ago
>Apple had the margin to make these quality: you can get better earphones but not better chargers. Are Apple chargers really better than those shipped with Android devices?
- apexalpha 5y ago
  Apple chargers, as well as the earphones were notoriously low quality, especially the cables. They would almost always break or degrade around the connections.
  - bradfa 5y ago
    The cables often have lacked strain relief, so I agree with you there. But I've had great experiences with Apple chargers. I've definitely not had great experiences with various 3rd party chargers.

zivkovicp 5y ago

excellent points. I'm still upset about the 3.5mm headphone jack to be honest.

reaperducer 5y ago
I'm still upset about the 3.5mm headphone jack to be honest. I'm still upset† about the 30-pin connector. I can no longer stick my iPhone into the slot on the top of my clock radio just so trillion-dollar Apple can lock me into its 30% walled accessories garden that prevents me from doing what I want with my own hardware that I paid for and have no other options. (Did I miss any HN clichés?) (I'm actually slightly upset† about the iPhone not coming with a cleaning cloth anymore. I've been using my original one for 15 years, and it's starting to get worn out.) † For varying definitions of "upset."
- quantified 5y ago
  This comes across as mocking, did you mean it that way? I wasn’t a fan of proprietary connectors either. 3.5mm jack is as standard as it gets. Plug your phone into any audio equipment, like a guitar amp with a 3.5mm -> 1/4” adapter. Bluetooth = tons of exotic e-waste, thank you very much.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    For years, I rolled with a BT adapter that produced the signal on a standard 3.5mm audio jack, and a typical "aux" cable. Never failed -- if I ended up at an unplanned gathering, it took 3 of us to make music happen, and it wouldn't have been possible without my adapter.
  - whyoh 5y ago
    I like to have the 3.5mm jack too, but the reality is that the vast majority of users don't miss it. That's because they either don't use headphones at all, or because they prefer wireless ones anyway. So as much as I personally don't like it, it makes sense from Apple's POV. The arguably bigger annoyance and source of e-waste is that iPhones still use a proprietary charging port instead of USB-C.
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      The amazing thing to me is: They removed the headphone jack 6 years ago and people are still complaining about it. I have a feeling, 20 years from now, some of these people will be sitting in their old-folks homes, not remembering who their kids are, but will still be complaining about Apple getting rid of their headphone jacks. I've never seen such attachment to a feature.
      - quantified 5y ago
        Detachment from the replacement. I only upgraded in the last few months. Not one of the people that budgets $1G/year to own a phone. Am I complaining loudly? No. Do I want to ditch my wired things and get deeper into bluetooth insecurity, battery life issues and e-waste of bluetooth devices? Definitely no. Since I drive a stick better than my CVT shifts, and I can get much better gas mileage, I also prefer that older technology. Not going to look for ways to mock on people here, seems to be a thing today!
larrik 5y ago
the look on my wife's face when I told her she couldn't listen to music and charge her phone at the same time...

moron4hire 5y ago

> Apple invented the modern slab-of-glass smartphone industry They did, huh? All by themselves?

Bud 5y ago
Yes. They did. All by themselves.
colejohnson66 5y ago
Yes. Before the iPhone, the only smartphones anyone really had were Blackberrys. And those weren't "slabs of glass".
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Really? How about palm or pocketpc? There were mobile phone versions before iPhone iirc
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    Which ones were slabs of glass?
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Most of them? The face buttons were usually minimal, with 2-4 buttons plus maybe a d-pad >"The name was introduced by Microsoft in 2000 as a rebranding of the Palm-size PC category. Some of these devices also had integrated phone and data capabilities, which were called Pocket PC Phone Edition or simply "Smartphone"." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocket_PC >"The first-generation iPhone was announced by then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007. " https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        but... that's not true. The HTC HD2, arguably the best Windows Mobile phone, wasn't a slab of glass - it was plastic, just like most (if not all) of the flagships.

qwertox 5y ago

I've bought a lot of Android devices and all which were of a well known brands like Samsung, Lenovo, HTC, Motorola had good chargers as well as good headphones in the box. Only cheap non-brand devices did not include headphones but the chargers were average amazon-type cheap but ok chargers. Also there's often the case where you buy stuff like led flashlights which don't come with a charger they do have an USB charging cable in the box.

Steltek 5y ago

> always shipped a high-quality charger and headphones with the iPhone, something which started with its ancestor the iPod. Phones with proprietary connectors always shipped with chargers. Probably most micro USB phones as well. Apple was not special in this regard. Likewise with earbuds, many phones, smart and dumb, also shipped with earbuds or a headset. Apple was leveraging the iPod name to sell the iPhone so omitting earbuds would have been conspicuous.

judge2020 5y ago
iPhone still ships with the cord, all you need is a brick or other power source with the increasingly-common USB-C connector.
- larrik 5y ago
  "increasingly-common", my macbook and now my PS5 have USB-C female ports for charging stuff. That's the grand total of places I can use these cords (and I doubt the PS5 will charge my phone). It's a slow rollout best.
  - Macha 5y ago
    At least the PS4 USB ports worked perfectly fine for charging arbitrary devices, though I wouldn't expect fast charge voltages out of them even if USB-C is more standardised on that stuff than older fast charge implementations.
    - larrik 5y ago
      I know that I can't charge the PS5 controller off the switch dock, at least. I never have to charge the Pro Controller while the PS5 controller only lasts a few hours, so that would have been handy.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >iPhone still ships with the cord Yeah, the cord that's not compatible with their previous gen chargers, which they claimed everyone had enough of at home, and had dropped to "save the environment". Dick move.

1980phipsi 5y ago

Bring back the headphone jack! The worst part is I've only been able to get Apple's 3.5mm to lightning cable to let you listen to a phone call. It's never worked when I bought a 3rd party cable.

InvaderFizz 5y ago
The Apple adapter is thin trash that wears out after a few weeks. Get the UGREEN Lightning to 3.5mm cable. I've been using them daily for years now with my Sennheiser Game One headset and the only problem I have encountered is a bit of curling from the braiding.
hallway_monitor 5y ago
Good news, there's a fix for this! The Samsung phone I purchased this week has a lovely headphone jack which works perfectly, as well as several other advantages which I won't go into.
Damogran6 5y ago
See, I thought that til I resurrected my ipod. That cable snags on EVERYTHING. Apparently I had a bunch of muscle memory things to keep that from happening. (I remember feeding it down my shirt and into the ipod in my pocket. I do NOT miss headphone cables.
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  Sennheiser CX300-II worked fine for me and I had somewhere around 5 pairs of them. CX3.00 with soft-touch coating on the wires snagged on my own clothing. Latest CX300S (with soft-touch wires too, but different from CX3.00) are fine again. And I greatly appreciate what I don't need to care to charge another device and can just leave them in the pocket for next time I need them, be it tommorow or in two weeks.

xadhominemx 5y ago

> Apple invented the modern slab-of-glass smartphone industry, and always shipped a high-quality charger and headphones with the iPhone Rechargeable portable electronics always came with chargers, long before iPod or iPhone came around

raldi 5y ago
"High-quality" is the focus of that sentence.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  Apple didn't invent high quality
  - raldi 5y ago
    Nobody claimed they did.
- blablabla123 5y ago
  Yeah yeah, I also wanted to say... So far I repaired 1 charger, bought 3 or 4 new and eventually even found out that an iPhone charger I have is likely to have an electrical problem. That said, with the USB-C craze I think things got a little better
- echelon 5y ago
  Every single Apple charger/cable I've ever had has frayed or gotten close to it, FWIW. I'm not mistreating them. My ancient Thinkpad chargers are doing fine and they see lots of use. They're thick and ugly, with the cables themselves almost as big as the old barrel jack connectors, but they still feel safe and reliable. Heck, my old Nintendo DS chargers are still fine too.
  - samatman 5y ago
    I deliberately didn't mention the cables, and I'm happy to slag on their quality with you. Glad they finally did the right thing and separate the chargers, which are excellent, from the cables, which are.. white. They're also spec-compliant, which matters more and more with Thunderbolt and the like, but I find that any other reputable cable is also spec-compliant, and is going to last me about three times as long. I do mistreat them, to be clear, but at that price I should get away with it.

xwdv 5y ago

Many children today do not know what a headphone jack is, and by the time they mature into adults, they may still have never seen one in their lives, much less used one.

comprev 5y ago
My nephews (all under 16) have only experienced "always on" internet. The idea you had to co-ordinate with family on using the phone line via weird screeching noises, only to browse at a slow speed was lost on them.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  I like to razz my extended family who are all internet addicts now. They told me shit like, "go outside more" but now they are effectively crippled without their devices. Gotta love boomers.
- buttscicles 5y ago
  Not really that unusual - I'm 27 and missed out on dial up
larrik 5y ago
That's nonsense, they all use headphones on their chromebooks at school.

rospaya 5y ago

> As a result, everyone else had to sell... some kind of earbuds and charger. These didn't have to be good, but they did have to be in the box. Are you implying that before the iPhone nobody sold chargers or earbuds with the phone? If so, you are massively wrong. Source: tech journalist, pre-iPhone, reviewed hundreds of phones.

ryukafalz 5y ago
At that point in time most chargers were proprietary though. These days, you’ll be hard-pressed to find an AC adapter for a phone that doesn’t just have either a USB-A or USB-C port, and the cable you’ll need is almost certainly the same one that you used for your last phone. Neither were typically the case pre-smartphone.
- rerx 5y ago
  And the reason for that was not Apple's will, it was EU legislation.
- Steltek 5y ago
  I think mini and micro USB were pretty common when the iPhone debuted but maybe I only higher end phones. You probably got a lot of trash chargers though, like an AC wart hardwired to a uUSB plug or some mini USB to DC barrel jack adapter abomination.
  - ryukafalz 5y ago
    On higher-end phones yes; I had a BlackBerry at the time which I believe had mini-USB. Most of my friends had feature phones at that point in time though, and those were notoriously nonstandard.

5350-uiop-1130 5y ago

yeah but what if you don't have a charger or headphones. why should you pay the same or (more!) for less. at least take it out of the cost to retail.

teatree 5y ago

>Apple had the margin to make these quality: you can get better earphones but not better chargers. Are Apple chargers really better than those shipped with Android devices?

apexalpha 5y ago
Apple chargers, as well as the earphones were notoriously low quality, especially the cables. They would almost always break or degrade around the connections.
- bradfa 5y ago
  The cables often have lacked strain relief, so I agree with you there. But I've had great experiences with Apple chargers. I've definitely not had great experiences with various 3rd party chargers.