8 ms·

“Apple improved upon the notoriously unreliable Bluetooth standard and then slightly degraded wired listening by requiring a $9 dongle” is quite a weak anti-tru

“Apple improved upon the notoriously unreliable Bluetooth standard and then slightly degraded wired listening by requiring a $9 dongle” is quite a weak anti-trust argument. Almost all innovation comes from this type of vertical integration.

skeaker 3y ago
Huh? It sounds more like they deliberately broke everyone's devices except their own so you either have to pay them more to continue using your existing headset with an adapter, or if you have a bluetooth headset you're just shit out of luck unless you buy an Apple headset. How is that not anticompetitive?
- shuckles 3y ago
  No actually any iPhone with a headphone jack continued to have a functioning headphone jack. And competitors marketed their phones with headphone jacks for a year and ended up also abandoning that feature.
  - harkinian 3y ago
    It's not feasible to use an old iPhone forever, I tried. If the required app updates don't get you, the carrier will. The big competitors like Samsung removed the jack too once they started selling their own wireless earbuds. They realized they could use Apple's strategy too.
    - shuckles 3y ago
      Basically every smartphone vendor removed the headphone jack. So you’re saying Apple is a monopoly because they have good ideas everyone else copies?
      - harkinian 3y ago
        The others who did this are also trying to fleece their users. There are loyal Samsung users too, don't ask me why.
      - skeaker 3y ago
        No? Who said that? Wrong on every count, especially the word "good" to refer to removing the headphone jack.
shkkmo 3y ago
> Almost all innovation comes from this type of vertical integration. In what world?
- shuckles 3y ago
  This is widely accepted business theory. It’s hard to innovate when you depend on suppliers external to you for key technology.
  - harkinian 3y ago
    I'm fine with this. Apple can extend sucky BT, Apple can make their faster Apple Silicon chips, Apple can make iMessage since SMS is trash, Nvidia can do CUDA cause OpenCL sucked, whatever. Just don't also intentionally kneecap the competitors by removing their interfaces.
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    That is very different from saying "Almost all innovation comes from this type of vertical integration." Innovation comes from many sources and while vertical integration does assist in some cases, your assertion steps so far past plausible that it is simply ridiculous.
rezonant 3y ago
These days the reliability problems of Bluetooth are effectively gone. Sure, it's not a perfect technology, but Bluetooth devices work completely reliably for me across tons of vendors. Saying Bluetooth itself is unreliable is an outdated view. There are shitty Bluetooth devices yes, but the protocol works fine when paired with good devices
- harkinian 3y ago
  I have high-end Bose headphones from 2020, a new iPhone, and a new Mac. Bluetooth sucks. You're far better off with AirPods than anything else if you're going to use BT. By the way, it's so bad that I don't use headphones anymore with the iPhone. I use the phone in speaker mode. And the only reason I even have a new iPhone is because AT&T dropped support for my old one.
  - somehnguy 3y ago
    I have a low end Bose bluetooth speaker that connects up instantly to any of my powered on devices (2x Macbook, iPhone), and can switch between them seamlessly with a button press. I've also never had any issues with Sony WHM1000XM* headphones regarding bluetooth across these devices. My AirPods frequently hop between my MacBook and iPhone without asking though, because the other device played a split second audio clip. Strong YMMV I guess.
  - monocasa 3y ago
    I mean, bose is known for selling cheap devices as high end for the past few decades. It's not uncommon for the BoM to be ~10% of the final price.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      Yeah, and don't get me started on the audiophile perspective on Bose. Bose is an ear candy brand, what you hear out of them is not even close to what the audio engineer intended the experience to be. I won't fault anyone who's fine with them, but I would never buy a pair of Bose. That being said, they absolutely excel at noise cancellation, and that's because their core market is airmen, Bose is used almost universally by pilots for their in-flight headsets. It's where they make their actual money.
harkinian 3y ago
Do you actually use the dongle? It doesn't work with inline mics, making it useless even if you were to carry it around everywhere. It also doesn't work with previous iPhones, so you can't share say a car aux between an old and a new iPhone.
- shuckles 3y ago
  I used the dongle. I left it permanently attached to my headphone cable, and it was a non-issue to “carry it everywhere.” Needing a wired inline mic is a niche of niche, making the argument about antitrust monopoly even weaker.
  - harkinian 3y ago
    Needing a mic on a phone is not niche. What made you stop using the dongle?
    - shuckles 3y ago
      Wireless headphones are a better experience is basically every way, and yes microphones on phones aren’t a niche which is why every phone has one. Totally unrelated to wired inline external microphones, though.
      - harkinian 3y ago
        If you're taking a call on a phone with headphones, you need an mic on the headphones for anyone to hear you. There were several years you had the option of using BT headphones while the iPhone had both BT and the jack, but you were using the jack.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  > It doesn't work with inline mics Is this a new thing? I haven't used this in a while, but the lightning dongle used to work fine with my headphones+mic (also intended for Apple's headphone jack). I know there's some difference in how the headphone connector is set up between Apple and everyone else though.
andjd 3y ago
> Almost all innovation comes from this type of vertical integration. Really? That's a bold claim. Having a large number of companies that are able to offer competing products and services tends to lead to innovation.
- shuckles 3y ago
  Vertical integration and competition are orthogonal. Vertical integration is when Apple improves upon Bluetooth with a proprietary enhancement to the standard. Competition is Pixel Buds advertising a similar feature set.
- harkinian 3y ago
  Yes, basically non-Apple headphones are pointless for iPhone owners now. Doesn't matter how much Bose or anyone improves their tech, the port they relied upon got removed. Apple has locked together iPhones and headphones.
  - shuckles 3y ago
    Are you aware there are plenty of wireless headphones that work with iPhone?
    - harkinian 3y ago
      Yes, there have been since 2007. Almost nobody used them until the jack got removed, because they don't work well. BT standard improved over the years, but not enough.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    I don't get the sense that third party headphones don't work just fine with iPhone, other than a seeming indication that iPhone users seem to think normal Bluetooth doesn't work well, which might indicate Apple has either not invested in their standard Bluetooth stack or at worst, actively degraded it. But I'm doubtful of this, it seems more likely that some Apple users have an outdated view of how reliable standard Bluetooth actually are, even when paired with their iPhones.
bmitc 3y ago
What innovation? At the time of removal from iPhone, the LG V35 had a headphone jack but was thinner and lighter than an iPhoe with the same IP rating, and a better camera.

skeaker 3y ago

Huh? It sounds more like they deliberately broke everyone's devices except their own so you either have to pay them more to continue using your existing headset with an adapter, or if you have a bluetooth headset you're just shit out of luck unless you buy an Apple headset. How is that not anticompetitive?

shuckles 3y ago
No actually any iPhone with a headphone jack continued to have a functioning headphone jack. And competitors marketed their phones with headphone jacks for a year and ended up also abandoning that feature.
- harkinian 3y ago
  It's not feasible to use an old iPhone forever, I tried. If the required app updates don't get you, the carrier will. The big competitors like Samsung removed the jack too once they started selling their own wireless earbuds. They realized they could use Apple's strategy too.
  - shuckles 3y ago
    Basically every smartphone vendor removed the headphone jack. So you’re saying Apple is a monopoly because they have good ideas everyone else copies?
    - harkinian 3y ago
      The others who did this are also trying to fleece their users. There are loyal Samsung users too, don't ask me why.
    - skeaker 3y ago
      No? Who said that? Wrong on every count, especially the word "good" to refer to removing the headphone jack.

shkkmo 3y ago

> Almost all innovation comes from this type of vertical integration. In what world?

shuckles 3y ago
This is widely accepted business theory. It’s hard to innovate when you depend on suppliers external to you for key technology.
- harkinian 3y ago
  I'm fine with this. Apple can extend sucky BT, Apple can make their faster Apple Silicon chips, Apple can make iMessage since SMS is trash, Nvidia can do CUDA cause OpenCL sucked, whatever. Just don't also intentionally kneecap the competitors by removing their interfaces.
- shkkmo 3y ago
  That is very different from saying "Almost all innovation comes from this type of vertical integration." Innovation comes from many sources and while vertical integration does assist in some cases, your assertion steps so far past plausible that it is simply ridiculous.

rezonant 3y ago

These days the reliability problems of Bluetooth are effectively gone. Sure, it's not a perfect technology, but Bluetooth devices work completely reliably for me across tons of vendors. Saying Bluetooth itself is unreliable is an outdated view. There are shitty Bluetooth devices yes, but the protocol works fine when paired with good devices

harkinian 3y ago
I have high-end Bose headphones from 2020, a new iPhone, and a new Mac. Bluetooth sucks. You're far better off with AirPods than anything else if you're going to use BT. By the way, it's so bad that I don't use headphones anymore with the iPhone. I use the phone in speaker mode. And the only reason I even have a new iPhone is because AT&T dropped support for my old one.
- somehnguy 3y ago
  I have a low end Bose bluetooth speaker that connects up instantly to any of my powered on devices (2x Macbook, iPhone), and can switch between them seamlessly with a button press. I've also never had any issues with Sony WHM1000XM* headphones regarding bluetooth across these devices. My AirPods frequently hop between my MacBook and iPhone without asking though, because the other device played a split second audio clip. Strong YMMV I guess.
- monocasa 3y ago
  I mean, bose is known for selling cheap devices as high end for the past few decades. It's not uncommon for the BoM to be ~10% of the final price.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    Yeah, and don't get me started on the audiophile perspective on Bose. Bose is an ear candy brand, what you hear out of them is not even close to what the audio engineer intended the experience to be. I won't fault anyone who's fine with them, but I would never buy a pair of Bose. That being said, they absolutely excel at noise cancellation, and that's because their core market is airmen, Bose is used almost universally by pilots for their in-flight headsets. It's where they make their actual money.

harkinian 3y ago

Do you actually use the dongle? It doesn't work with inline mics, making it useless even if you were to carry it around everywhere. It also doesn't work with previous iPhones, so you can't share say a car aux between an old and a new iPhone.

shuckles 3y ago
I used the dongle. I left it permanently attached to my headphone cable, and it was a non-issue to “carry it everywhere.” Needing a wired inline mic is a niche of niche, making the argument about antitrust monopoly even weaker.
- harkinian 3y ago
  Needing a mic on a phone is not niche. What made you stop using the dongle?
  - shuckles 3y ago
    Wireless headphones are a better experience is basically every way, and yes microphones on phones aren’t a niche which is why every phone has one. Totally unrelated to wired inline external microphones, though.
    - harkinian 3y ago
      If you're taking a call on a phone with headphones, you need an mic on the headphones for anyone to hear you. There were several years you had the option of using BT headphones while the iPhone had both BT and the jack, but you were using the jack.
AlexandrB 3y ago
> It doesn't work with inline mics Is this a new thing? I haven't used this in a while, but the lightning dongle used to work fine with my headphones+mic (also intended for Apple's headphone jack). I know there's some difference in how the headphone connector is set up between Apple and everyone else though.

andjd 3y ago

> Almost all innovation comes from this type of vertical integration. Really? That's a bold claim. Having a large number of companies that are able to offer competing products and services tends to lead to innovation.

shuckles 3y ago
Vertical integration and competition are orthogonal. Vertical integration is when Apple improves upon Bluetooth with a proprietary enhancement to the standard. Competition is Pixel Buds advertising a similar feature set.
harkinian 3y ago
Yes, basically non-Apple headphones are pointless for iPhone owners now. Doesn't matter how much Bose or anyone improves their tech, the port they relied upon got removed. Apple has locked together iPhones and headphones.
- shuckles 3y ago
  Are you aware there are plenty of wireless headphones that work with iPhone?
  - harkinian 3y ago
    Yes, there have been since 2007. Almost nobody used them until the jack got removed, because they don't work well. BT standard improved over the years, but not enough.
- rezonant 3y ago
  I don't get the sense that third party headphones don't work just fine with iPhone, other than a seeming indication that iPhone users seem to think normal Bluetooth doesn't work well, which might indicate Apple has either not invested in their standard Bluetooth stack or at worst, actively degraded it. But I'm doubtful of this, it seems more likely that some Apple users have an outdated view of how reliable standard Bluetooth actually are, even when paired with their iPhones.

bmitc 3y ago

What innovation? At the time of removal from iPhone, the LG V35 had a headphone jack but was thinner and lighter than an iPhoe with the same IP rating, and a better camera.