One Fewer Thing

It pains me to admit this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that Apple was right to drop the headphone jack from the iPhone 7. And while there may be some short-term pain from this change, the firm’s ability to push forward is both notable and—God help me—even admirable.

I know, I know.

Look, no one is more openly critical of Apple and its hubristic grandstanding than I am. And yes, I’ve often railed at Apple’s overly-aggressive stance on obsoleting popular technologies.

But this isn’t about our opinions of Apple, nor is it about the poor dupes who buy everything they sell, from the actual products to the ideas they’re peddling. What it’s really about is being on the right side of history, which is to say making history rather than just witnessing it.

For example. In 1998, Apple announced the iMac, the first major new product to ship under the then-recently-returned Steve Jobs. The iMac is credited with a lot of things it doesn’t deserve—popularizing USB, for example—but it really did start Apple’s financial turnaround. What we all remember, however, was Jobs’s controversial decision to not include a floppy drive in the iMac.

I’ve noted many times in the past that this decision was bogus, that Jobs removed the floppy too soon. And as proof of this opinion, I’ve pointed to the fact that USB-based floppy drives were, in fact, the best-selling iMac peripheral. See? He was wrong.

Except that he wasn’t wrong. The existence of USB-based floppy drives only proves that there was at least a way for customers to use floppies with their iMac. Meanwhile, most iMac customers didn’t buy or need a floppy drive. And the PC industry moved forward as a result. As was the theme for the ensuing 15 years or so, Windows-based PC makers simply started copying Apple. That is, they stopped including floppy drives too.

You can apply this same rationale to the headphone jack—well, the lack thereof—on the new iPhone 7. Yes, there is a well-established lock-in strategy in place here. Apple is indeed binding its customers more closely to the iPhone ecosystem and making it harder for them to switch to, say, Android in the future. A single pair of headphones isn’t enough, of course, but the headphone jack is only a small piece of the puzzle. The proprietary Lightning connector is another piece.

But there are in fact benefits to removing this port, and while none of them relate to the thinness of the device, they’re real enough. Better audio quality, for starters. And more broadly, a move away from wires of any kind. That move won’t happen in the iPhone 7 timeframe, but we’ll look back and see it as one of the big steps. (Wireless charging is another. Yes, the iPhone still lacks this functionality.)

There’s something to be said for wires, I know. And for devices that don’t have a battery that constantly needs to be charged. But I can look back on some experiences from my own life and see similar transitions that were initially scary but ended up working out just fine.

For example, when Microsoft switched to wireless controllers for the Xbox 360, I fretted about latency issues. But that worked out so well, I never even consider using a wired controller anymore, with the Xbox 360 or any subsequent console. And when I do have to attach a wire, to charge the controller, I hate it.

You could also just look to history for obvious examples. Pity the poor car owner, said many critics in the early 20th century, noting that the grass and hay they fed their horses with was so readily available. Their arguments made sense, locally and temporarily. But we can look back on that argument today with a knowing smile. It’s silly.

Short-term, the lack of a headphone port will be an inconvenience, and Apple’s customers will pay the price. Literally. They’ll carry and lose dongles as they continue to use the headphones they already own, until they upgrade and forget all about this.

Long-term? It won’t matter. Long-term, we will come to see this as an important and necessary step. And while it may take the rest of the industry to jump on board—and they will, just as surely as PC makers did in the wake of that first iMac—it will happen. Progress will occur.

Like many of you, I bristled, openly and viscerally, when Apple’s Phil Schiller described this decision as courageous. It’s exactly the type of over-the-top bullshit that Schiller and other Apple executives spew at every one of their press events. Which is of course why everyone mocked it so thoroughly.

Well, it takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong, and as Chevy Chase observed in “Fletch 2,” I am not a big man. But … Apple was right to remove the headphone jack. There is nothing cathartic in admitting that. It’s just true.

And that is the last we shall ever speak of that again. 🙂