Stop worrying and love the future
Last week added one more great loss to 2016’s ever-expanding catalogue: the loss of the 3.5 mm headphone jack from the latest generation of Apple iPhones.
The news doesn’t come as any particularly great shock. After all, the tech industry has been abuzz with rumours that Apple planned on removing the headphone jack from their flagship iDevices since as far back as November 2015. In an attempt to stay ahead of the curve and embrace the jack-less future of tomorrow, Android OEMs like Motorola even released flagship-level devices without a headphone jack well ahead of the iPhone 7’s unveiling.
There are reasons to be upset about the loss of the headphone jack. After all, the technology is almost a century old, and has remained relatively unchanged for almost as long. Simply put, users across the world are familiar with the headphone jack as an industry mainstay, and its disappearance—especially from a device created by an industry-leading corporation like Apple—marks an important cultural milestone.
The loss of the headphone jack is nothing like the loss of the floppy disk drive or even the CD-ROM drive, however. Thanks to the ubiquity of USB keys, the floppy disk and the CD were well on their way to growing outdated. More importantly, when it was finally time to bid farewell to the physical storage media of the past, cloud computing alternatives were already present enough—and spacious enough—to serve as suitable replacements.
That’s not to say that there isn’t an existing technology that can replace the headphone jack. Wireless audio is a growing industry, but it’s well past the point of serving a niche market. Almost every single audio manufacturer offers some kind of wireless accessory capable of connecting users with music and video. Moreover, I can’t think of a device worth owning that doesn’t come equipped with a Bluetooth antenna.
Of course, Apple isn’t banking on Bluetooth, and there’s no reason to believe that they ever would. It’s now easier than ever to pair devices via Bluetooth, but the process is still too long-winded and complicated for the tech company that has spent its entire history providing users with interfaces aimed at simplicity. Additionally, while the upcoming Bluetooth 5 standard makes impressive claims about distance, broadcast range, and broadcast capacity, there’s no denying that a wired connection is still more reliable.
So what comes next? What’s the hole in the wall that’s going to connect users to their devices? According to Apple executives and industry analysts, the answer’s been around since 2012: Apple’s 30-pin, reversible, magical Lightning connector.
During the Sept. 7, 2016 Apple keynote unveiling the iPhone 7, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Chief Design Officer Jony Ive, and every other senior-level executive on-stage and on-screen boasted about the Lightning connector.
Regardless, I’m upset about the loss of the headphone jack. Wired headphones are cheaper than their wireless counterparts. A physical wire is infinitely more reliable than a wireless standard—this is true for everything from Bluetooth to Wi-Fi. Most importantly, I already have an entire drawer filled with headphones that work with almost every single 3.5 mm headphone jack on the planet.
However, I don’t believe that Apple’s decision to remove the 3.5 mm headphone jack is going to negatively affect iPhone sales or Apple stock in the long-term. In fact, if Apple play their cards right—and the fact that the company’s packaging both Lightning connector headphones and a Lightning connector-to-3.5 mm dongle with every iPhone 7 is proof that they are—the loss of the headphone jack might even make way for true innovation.
The loss of the headphone jack has already made way for the installation of a taptic engine in the iPhone 7. Furthermore, while the 3.5 mm jack takes up an almost miniscule amount of space, a company like Apple—a company devoted to fitting as much hardware into as little space as possible—might actually be able to introduce highly beneficial technology into their jack-less devices. This is, after all, the same company that removed every single external port from a logic board—except for a USB-C port and, ironically enough, a headphone jack—to build a MacBook that is really more battery than computer.
Furthermore, I’m also not terribly worried about what the loss of the headphone jack means for Apple’s cross-platform compatibility. Apple is a company that doesn’t like to share its toys, and by removing the last truly universal port from the iPhone, Apple has cemented itself as a company focused on bettering itself and its products, and not the industry as a whole.
For now, I’m content with the iPhone 7. It really is an incredible device. Much like the rest of the world, though, I wait with baited breath to see how the tech industry reacts to Apple’s internal decision.
Photo courtesy of Maurizio Pescecc-(CC BY 2.0).