Friday, September 30, 2016
Apple's 'brave' new world? iThink not
Maybe it’s the writer in me or the fact that I’m growing more cynical as I get older, or perhaps it’s even a combination of both, but since when did deciding to leave a headphone jack off a cell phone qualify as courageous and innovative?
For those unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, Apple CEO Tim Cook used these words recently to describe his company’s decision to leave the standard wired headphone jack off their latest iPhone.
The fact that the company was planning on doing so was long rumored and while it caused a minor uproar among many Apple fans, it is far from a courageous or brave decision.
Yes, a lot of people are going to be angry that all their old ear buds or headphones will no longer work with Apple’s latest device, but the company isn’t likely to lose many sales over it, and they know it.
While Apple fanboys (and fangirls) are bitching all over the Internet about having to buy new headphones or ear buds when the ones they have are perfectly good, we all know they will. Just look what happened a few years ago, when Apple changed the charging port on the iPhone, iPod and iPad from a 30-pin connector to the smaller “Lightning” connector. Buyers still lined up around the block to buy Apple’s latest gadget even though it meant they had to replace almost ALL their old peripherals.
Being courageous means bravely facing the consequences of your actions even though you know those actions are going to hurt you. In Apple’s case, that would mean dropping some function or feature – like the headphone jack – knowing that they are going to lose a good portion of their sales and potentially their position as the preeminent cell phone maker, but doing it anyway because they believe it is the right thing to do.
Clearly, this isn’t the case.
Apple has such a lock on the cell phone market that even a 10 percent dip in sales in unlikely to hurt them – especially now given the battery problem their biggest rival Samsung is having with its newly released phone, the Galaxy 7 Note.
Now I’m not going to argue whether Apple’s decision to drop the headphone jack was the right call. Only time will tell.
However, I can understand the end-user’s frustration with having to replace perfectly good and simple to use ear buds or headphones with new Bluetooth ones that are more complicated, cost more and are easily lost. At the same time, I also understand Apple’s desire to move away from analogue technology and make the device less susceptible to water damage. Fewer penetrations in the phone’s case mean less chance of anything getting inside it and damaging the sensitive electronics.
That said, making the iPhone 7 more water resistant (it isn’t even fully water-proof) is hardly what I’d call innovative.
There are already Android phones on the market that can get dropped and have things spilled on them or even be submerged in a small amount of water without damage. And unlike the iPhone 7, these phones do have headphone jacks!
If Apple was truly being innovative, they would have come up with a way to beam sound directly into your head, rendering the need for headphones obsolete! All they have done now is swap one technology for another and it isn’t even clear whether the new technology is really an improvement over the older one.
Look, I admit it.
I’ve never been a big Apple fan, but my criticism of the spin around their latest product announcement has nothing to do with that.
It’s more about marketing people trying to convince us that things are new and innovative when they’re clearly not. It’s especially upsetting when a company like Apple, which revolutionized the way we listen to music (the iPod), use mobile phones (the iPhone) and replaced the once ubiquitous desktop and laptop computer with a tablet (iPad), starts giving in to this trend.
I don’t need another “app” or virtual digital assistant that maybe saves me a few minutes each day. What I want are things that really are innovative, such as cars that can take over driving when I’m tired or distracted; robots that can clean my house or cut my lawn; or sustainable power systems that will keep my home running during storms so I don’t have to rely on an antiquated electrical power grid that hasn’t changed all that much since it was developed over a century ago.
Those things, my friends, really would be innovative, and part of the brave new world of which Tim Cook speaks.
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