You’ve got to love Apple sometimes (and I mean that in a jocular sense). They’ve just released the iPhone 7, which has had the fortunate (for Samsung) effect of shifting attention away from the saga of the exploding Galaxy Note 7s. However, keen to innovate everything to death as always, they have caused a bit of a stir by removing the headphone jack.
To be fair to Apple, the problems being suggested aren’t as bad as they’re being made out to be in the media. The iPhone 7 is supplied with a set of wired earphones (or “EarPods”) which connect to the Lightning port, a Lightning to USB cable, and a Lightning to 3.5mm stereo jack adapter (so you can use your existing earphones). The Lightning socket is an Apple invention dating back to 2012. All the media stories I’ve read have missed these details, and have suggested Apple is forcing people to buy its premium AirPod earphones.
Apple’s head of marketing, Phil Schiller, has come out with probably the most arrogant and typically Apple statement imaginable, and described the decision to lose the 3.5mm jack as “courageous”. The tech world seems to be split on this – well, when I say “split”, it’s more like a small piece torn off the corner – with the vast majority seeing it as a cynical attempt to make money and a doomed venture based on poor logic.
From the money perspective, people don’t have to buy AirPods and, as I’ve already said (but no one else seems to be), the iPhone 7 can still output to 3.5mm jack earphones and headphones using the supplied adapter. Apple’s gear has always been overpriced, and at £159 AirPods are no exception. But even if the whole Apple fanboi user base bought them, I couldn’t see it making much difference to Apple’s bottom line – not when you consider that a new iPhone 7 is going to set you back £600 or £700 depending on the model. So yes, it is somewhat cynical, but nowhere near as much as it would have been if users had had no choice but to buy AirPods. The real problem is all to do with Apple’s logic on this matter.
You see, not that long ago, if a pair of headphones slipped off your head there was a good chance they’d shatter a coffee table or injure the Labrador. This would have been true whether they were wired or wireless, because they were bloody big things with proper speaker coils inside them. They may also have contained a couple of Duracells, and wired types would have sported a cable strong enough to hold down an elephant. More recently, though, technology has improved significantly and headphones – especially earphones – have become so small that the cotton-thin wires used to connect them to equipment provides additional functionality as a location device and a tether to stop them from falling into toilets or down drains. If an earbud were to fall out – which they frequently do – it would simply dangle around your neck until you shoved it back in your ear, and if you dropped the whole shebang as you ran across a field, the bright red or white cable would be visible from 100m or more. Take the wire away, though, and you’ve got two small things each the size of a broad bean which you’ll probably never see again. This is essentially what Apple has created with AirPods.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the physically small size means a similarly physically small power source. Weighing in against that, AirPods contain what Apple refers to as a microprocessor, and this is needed to collect data from built-in optical sensors, accelerometers, and microphones, and to provide the functionality above and beyond just playing music. In fact, AirPods come across as being the aural equivalent of Google Glass. Without the dangle-round-your-neck safety feature, these delicate electronic units are likely to find themselves coming into contact with hard floors from heights of up to 2 metres if they slip out – possibly with a little extra momentum (not to mention dirt and water) thrown in if the wearer is a jogger. Apple claims a 5-hour talk time, which in real world English probably equates to 3-4 hours – and this is with factory-fresh batteries. After a few dozen charge/discharge cycles this will likely deteriorate to 1.5-2.5 hours. Knowing how the typical iPhone user uses earphones (i.e. 18 hours a day, 365 days a year), most will start to experience a substantial reduction in talk time within a few months. Naturally, in something so small, there isn’t a slide compartment where you can replace batteries, so when the battery dies so does the AirPod. And they cost £159, remember.
Quite simply, wired earphones are about as perfect as you can get as far as the basic design goes. The wire is important, and getting rid of it is therefore a major change which requires a major shift in battery technology to work out properly. And let’s not forget that AirPods are typically Apple – designed to be seen. They are released in October, and I predict AirPod related muggings will start around the same time.
I stress once more that iPhone 7 buyers will still have the (for Apple) rather inelegant as standard option of plugging in normal earphones or headphones via an adapter cable. AirPods, though, have all the hallmarks of being too far ahead of their time – just like how the first mobile phones had to be connected to batteries the size of briefcases, or how current electric cars have extremely limited mileage range per charge. Until they can go a full day on a single charge – and until someone finds a way of making them stay put – users are likely to become disillusioned very quickly.
Just watch how many people lose them.