Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'm of the belief that you shouldn't refer to yourself as courageous. Especially if you're a company. Courage is something others must judge, and I was amused during the keynote Apple used the moment to give themselves a pat on the back. Ick.
That said, I'm glad they're doing it. They're putting an adapter in the box and they're selling it for $9, which is more than fair in the Apple universe. And the truth is, Apple is the most b(only?) influential player that can push the industry towards wireless. Nobody else can really move the market, and if Apple doesn't do it, we'll continue to be stuck using this very old connector.
> ...continue to be stuck using this very old connector
The question is: what's really wrong with the old connector (from a consumer's PoV)?
When they abandoned ADB, SCSI etc for USB (and at least it was clear that the new thing would end up being better, soon. Abandoning VGA could have been similar except it meant a shift to a parade of different things (DVI D/A/both; DP, mini-DP, etc) which only, (mostly) converged when the rest of the industry finally caught up by standardizing itself on HDMI. And the consumer lost as well as won in that. Switching the MacBook to USB Type C was a transition similar to the first USB one: eventually it will be great but the infrastructure hasn't build out yet (believe me: I own a MB, love it, but don't have any peripherals).
But the TRS connector wasn't preventing much of anything.
I think the real significance is that they are going to a port-free device with inductive charging like the watch. But they can't do that until enough people have switched over to wireless headsets.
If they were replacing the connector with a royalty free standard connector, then I'd be with you. But the reality is this is a proprietary connector play and if they win we'll all be paying while Apple profits. $9 isn't reasonable, it just increased the base price of all existing headphones while shifting a nice fat margin to Apple.
As for wireless I think many people think syncing and charging headphones is more hassle than just plugging in.
This goes to show how much of an Apple apologist Josh Gruber is in defending the removal of the headphone jack. People need to realise that not all deductions by Apple were accepted with open arms (remember the buttonless iPod Shuffle) and I feel there might be a 50% chance that this is not the end of the headphone jack on iDevices.
I certainly think that there's courage in what Apple's doing; it's just not not the courage that Phil Schiller described it as the courage to move forward. It's more the courage to test the limits of the goodwill/fanaticism that Apple has built over the last decade of true innovation to force an even more locked down ecosystem that keeps users from never switching away. If Apple were truly courageous for technology's sake, they would have adopted an open standard like USB-C or make Lightning an open standard and drop the ridiculous royalty fees and MFi process associated with it. That is the courage to do what's right with out profits in mind.
Bringing up USB-C suggests you miss the point. It's not about picking jacks and wires. The new world is wireless, and incidentally it's standards based.
Why then does Apple still sell Lightning earphones and a Lightning to stereo jack converter? What if I don't want the hassle of another chargeable dependency? What if I want the ease of use of plug and play?
With all the dongles required and extra charging requirements for accessories, unfortunately the simplicity and mantra of "It just works" doesn't quite apply to the Apple of today.
I really hate the idea of having to recharge my headphones. I'm not a fan of the idea of wireless headphones.
The whole adapter issue doesn't seem to bother me that much.
But I do feel it goes against Job's philosophy on stuff.
I remember reading he hated the idea of stylus's for the phones because he lost them or thought people would lose them.
> but which would lead to everyone having a better experience in the long run (and for early adopters, a better experience as soon as they start using their AirPods)
How long is the long run? Oh and he forgot to mention that "as soon as" precludes you spending $150 on AirPods. So, after you spend several hundred dollars buying a new phone, you're either relegated to carrying around a pointless dongle for something as basic as a headphone, or you now have to spring $150 more for AirPods, and keep charging them, because Apple now has "courage". IMHO this decision is driven primarily by self-interest from the Beats acquisition.
In any case, I'm actually looking forward to better wireless tech (from any vendor). I'm just not buying the courage BS, or that this iteration of the tech is ready for primetime. I don't doubt that they will get a ton of sales from the iPhone 7. Hopefully it will help bring down the cost over time. I'm hoping that by the time the iPhone 8 comes out, they'll have out of the box wireless headphones and proper wireless charging, etc. I only hope they don't slow down my 6S too much before then.
Let's not get too excited by comparisons to the non-inclusion of Flash on iOS.
Back then, a closed, proprietary and bloated system was phased out in favour of openness and interoperability -- because it worked well for Apple.
In this case it's the opposite; the open and interoperable standard is on its way out. Apple is really just doing what they think makes good business sense for them, there isn't some noble aim here.
What exactly is this W1 chip thing? Does it change the underlying bluetooth communication? That wouldn't make sense as the AirPod works with existing Mac as well. Looks like W1 chip is still utilizing the existing BT protocol but adds extra logic to make it easier for pairing/dropouts etc if the host (Mac/iphone) has support for it?
That said, I'm glad they're doing it. They're putting an adapter in the box and they're selling it for $9, which is more than fair in the Apple universe. And the truth is, Apple is the most b(only?) influential player that can push the industry towards wireless. Nobody else can really move the market, and if Apple doesn't do it, we'll continue to be stuck using this very old connector.