Why choose between switching and fighting when at Forbes you can get a man that can do both?
Writing for the Forbes contributor network and bespoke hamster vest shop (that’s vests for hamsters, not vests made of hamsters or with pictures of hamsters on them), Dave Thier is all about having the cake and also eating the cake. That just makes sense, right? It’s his cake, after all! Like he’s supposed to just leave it lying around?
“iPhone 7: Apple Killed The Headphone Jack, And I’m Switching To Android.” (Tip o’ the antlers to Philip Speicher.)
You really think most Android phones won’t drop the headphone jack within two years? Well, OK, but history is against you on this.
They’ve been talking about it for years, and they’ve finally done it.
I’ve had enough with Apple’s continual insistence that it knows better than me how I should be using my devices…
That’s fine. No one has to conform if they don’t want to. You might think about what you’re gaining, though.
There was — and still is — something lovely about the standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
Consider, if you will, the relationship between rider and horse. This is something you’ll never get with your so-called horseless carriages.
…it means that I can pick up either a pair of cheap headphones at a drugstore or a high end audiophile set off Amazon, and use both of them with every device I own.
Bluetooth does not exist. It’s not even a thing.
…I realize that micro-USB is also a fairly standard and wonderfully versatile port for devices the world over…
Everyone’s favorite micro-USB game is “How many tries will it take to plug it in the right way this time, oops, I accidentally pushed the receptacle back into the casing of the phone.”
Apple has a good reason for getting rid of the headphone jack, it says. It’s doing so because it has a vision for how people ought to be listening to their phones, and that vision is wireless.
Nowhere in this piece does Thier explain this vision.
To which I say: fine. Have your vision. You never seem short on visions.
Ugh, people with vision, amirite? God, I hate them so much.
…I don’t particularly want to change the way I do things for what seems like no reason at all.
It apparently seems to you like it’s for no reason at all, but it’s not. As Apple indicated, the change allows for more battery life, improved water resistance and the new home button. There’s also something to be said for not dangling cords from your ears and having them get caught on things, assuming you make the jump to wireless. None of this is worth mentioning, of course, because we are driving slowly through the downtown of Rage Spiral, Montana.
Not that dropping the headphone jack is nothing but kittens and other kittens who are somehow even cuter than the first kittens. There are a number of non-headphone devices that people rely on that use the same jack for connectivity. In the long run, manufacturers of those devices will either have to move to Apple’s proprietary Lightning port (and pony up the licensing fee), move to Bluetooth or stop using the iPhone as a platform. Apple probably figured that most people don’t use those devices, but for a company that values accessibility and health care so much, this is a step backward in those areas.
I could still use my headphones, I just need an adapter that, like a set of Airpods, is bound to become just one more thing that I can lose.
Future people are surprisingly careless with their $159 headphones! What’s going on, future people? Is it the alien invasion or the robot apocalypse that has you so absent-minded?
People rage against the $159 cost of the Apple AirPods, but the market is rife with Bluetooth headphones in the $20 to $30 range. They may not be amazing, but no one ever claimed the existing Apple EarPods were the finest listening experience, either.
I’ve pondered an Android phone for a while now, and there are plenty of handsets out there that come with advantages of their own…
Like the Moto Z, which has an awesome wood grain and, uh, doesn’t have a headphone jack, either. To be fair, there were also 9 million articles raging about the Moto Z when it came out so hahahaha of course there weren’t.
Nobody has to stick to the iPhone if they prefer wires. Just try to make a judgement that takes all the facts into consideration.