is to question Apple.
The latest bit of bad press surrounding Apple has been about how it is being incredibly stupid, by supposedly taking off the headphone jack from the upcoming iPhone 7, and thereby trying to kill off wired headphones.
If it is true, then the headphone jack is just the latest bit of antiquated technology Apple is going to kill. Good riddance.
And cry all you might, we’re all gonna be the better for it. It’s a harbinger, if you will, of the inevitable wireless future.
As multiple news reports emerged about how Apple is planning to make the headphone plug disappear, the mainstream media outraged. None more so than The Verge. Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid, screamed one headline.
And the funny thing is: there’s always outrage every time Apple does anything like this.
Apple famously dropped physical keyboards altogether from mobile phones whilst introducing the iPhone, dropped the floppy-disk drive from the iMac while it was still extremely popular; moved from ADB ports to USB at a time when no PC maker was using USB; killed off the mouse with their revolutionary trackpads, rendered millions of chargers useless when it redesigned the iPhone’s 30-pin connector to produce the Lightning port. . . . I could go on but you get the picture.
All the stories above played out to a familiar routine: Apple saw the future, made an unpopular decision ‘no one really asked for’, and after a brief period of outrage, the entire industry followed suit.
Apple has always been very clear in its vision for the future and has always been pro-active in making bold design and engineering decisions it deemed necessary — indeed that is the only way you can stay ahead in the tech industry.
Indeed, several of the advancements in technology that we now take for granted, may have been stuck in the past had it not been for Apple strong-arming and almost shoving us into the future, without taking no for an answer. It’s this single-minded approach that has made Apple the most valuable business in the history of the planet.
Yes, I totally get that we’re accustomed to wired earphones and have now learned to live with their tangled nuisance but one only needs to make sense of the trends sweeping the globe to foretell the limited future that wired headphones have.
Over the last few years, the market for Bluetooth/wireless headphones and speakers has exploded. Bluetooth speakers are one of the fastest growing product categories across the consumer electronics sector, with sales predicted to surge by 68% this year and by an average of 36% through to 2019. Last summer, research firm NPD found that while headphone sales grew 18 percent in the previous year, sales of Bluetooth models more than doubled.
The market is kind of naturally going towards wireless anyway. The products are constantly improving, and consumers are more aware now of Bluetooth and wireless than ever before. There was a stigma against wireless headphones for a long time, with audiophiles turning up their noses at the “inferior sound quality” of Bluetooth. But the wireless tech has caught up. For almost everyone in almost every situation, there’s no difference between wired and wireless anymore.
The insights to be gleaned from all this data are so unmissable that a couple of manufacturers have already jumped ahead boldly in taking off the headphone jack; without waiting for Apple to test waters first as is wont. Motorola’s next flagship phone, the Moto Z, doesn’t have a headphone jack. LeEco, a Chinese company, recently launched three phones with zero headphone jacks between them.
Even audio companies are getting on board: Headphone makers like Audeze and Philips, along with a long list of smaller companies, are already making cans and buds that plug into USB and Lightning ports instead of that tiny round hole.
The moment Apple makes the switch could be the tipping point, though. When Apple does something, the industry usually follows.
Wireless headphones also make sense given the way we listen to music in 2016. A few years ago, your music was a bunch of MP3 files on your iPod. A few years before that it was CDs and cassettes. Now, anywhere there’s Spotify there’s music — and Spotify is everywhere. Even the idea of connecting to your phone for music will be outdated soon. With everything now on the cloud, it doesn’t make sense to physically plug in or wire in anymore.
Because, ultimately, this isn’t about “Apple knows best,” it’s about progress. You cannot move forward if you don’t sever the ties to the past at some point. Some may feel that Apple is pushing the envelope a bit too early with this one, but pushing that envelope is the lifeblood of all innovative companies.
Rather, if Apple wasn’t making a move like removing the headphone jack, I’d be worried.