And then there are many that are between the extremes and at various times have different views on different things that Apple (or any company) does.
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Other All These People Said They Had Adapters Already...
- Thread starter blairh
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I'm sure we can assume that anything they remove from the very small space opens up new design possibilities. That goes without saying.
But unless we know what, specifically, could be achieved, we have no real reason to champion the idea of a portless iPhone. At the moment it would be impossible to launch such a thing for a lot of reasons, and there are no clear solutions to the problems.
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You mean like...normal reasonable people, who have conversations?!
I'm sure we can assume that anything they remove from the very small space opens up new design possibilities. That goes without saying.
But unless we know what, specifically, could be achieved, we have no real reason to champion the idea of a portless iPhone. At the moment it would be impossible to launch such a thing for a lot of reasons, and there are no clear solutions to the problems.
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You mean like...normal reasonable people, who have conversations?!
Maybe we can reference the removal of the headphone jack. What aspects of today’s iPhones would be reduced if the headphone jack was still present?
That was done very deliberately for waterproofing, and it was known before it was even done that this would be the reason.
Known by whom? Back then I only found out about the removal during the live reveal.
you do realize the same people with old chargers can also use their old lightning cables too right? it makes sense to get a usb-c charger because they support the highest charging speeds but there is nothing wrong with using a USB-A to lightning charger and cable.
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What doesn't quite follow is that they change the cable and not include the power adapter for it on the basis that people already have plenty of those power adapters from previous phones yet those won't work with the cable that was changed.
well apple had a choice. if they provided a usb-a to lightning cable it wouldn't work to provide the fastest possible charging speeds. since far less people have usb-c to lightning cables i think it makes total sense to provide that to help people transition to usb-c chargers and get fast charging... since likely those without usb-c charges probably have normal lightning cables already. i don't need apple to keep giving the "old stuff" that in a year or two i wouldn't want anyway... having more usb-c cables has more value for me since i have less of those than the normal stuff.
That wasn't done due to waterproofing. It was done to free up space for other components and to make the design thinner. If a headphone jack prevented waterproofing, so would the lightning jack. Also, there are quite a few Samsung phones (for instance the Galaxy S9) that have been released in the past that had a headphone jack and were IP67
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I only have one USB C plug that came with my iPad pro, sucks to see apple "saving" the environment so soon. They should have kept the 18watt plug for this version too since it seems quite a bit of people upgrade every 2-3 years. But I guess Cook needed to appease investors a bit.
If you think I’m trolling report my posts.
I’ve commented in the discussion, and even asked you questions that you’ve curiously avoided answering.
I hope some day you find peace for the upset Apple has caused you this week.
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Here’s how I see it.
If users wanted fast charging, they would have gotten a fast charger long ago.
If users were fine charging their previous iPhone with their existing charger, they will be fine using it to charge their new iPhone as well.
For the small portion of people who are getting a smartphone for the first time, Apple’s usb c chargers are now cheaper and in line with third party offerings.
The smartphone is now a very mature product category, so I think it is safe to assume that the majority of users are going to have a fair amount of accessories that carry over when they upgrade. For example, I already have AirPods, and foresee myself continuing to use them should I upgrade. EarPods are just going to be rotting away in the box anyways.
It may suck from an individual customer’s perspective, but looking at it from a company operating at the scale at Apple does, and we are looking at a lot of potential waste saved.
The number of people affected by this is likely in the minority, and now that Apple has set the standard, expect the competition to follow suit shortly after. Meaning even less waste generated as a result.
I find this change will ultimately be for the best.
And that's where a good variety of discussion is coming from.
Could Apple have reduced criticism by bundling usb-c chargers for another 1-2 years to ensure that more iPhone users have a usb-c charging brick before doing away with them? Perhaps, but I also feel that focusing on details like this misses the forest for the trees. The point is that Apple knows including a power adaptor with every iphone will get wasteful over time. As with the removal of the headphone jack, there may never be a right or best time for it. May as well start the ball rolling now and get the criticism out of the way.
As with many things that Apple does, I would file this under the “Yeah, it sucks now, but it will be worth it in the end” category. Griping about how Apple is penny-pinching or how it’s a shame that some random guy halfway across the globe that you won’t ever know has to spring a few extra bucks for a usb-c charger isn’t invalid, but I find this to be very shallow discussion that barely scratches the surface of what (I feel) Apple is ultimately trying to achieve.
I have mentioned this a couple of times, that at Apple product events, the takeaways often end up being related more to how Apple is setting the stage for the future. Certain announcements and features make much more sense when thinking about what Apple will likely unveil the following year.
Apple is introducing a new ecosystem of MagSafe accessories, and is likely looking at eventually removing the charging port altogether. The Duo charger suggests that AirPower is dead in the water, but it also represents a more elegant solution for those seeking to not have to worry about lining their devices perfectly on a charging pad.
Focusing on this would lead to a more fruitful and productive discussion, IMO.
Spot on. Samsung may mock Apple today but they'll be suspiciously quiet next year after they do the exact same thing.
There could have been other ways to mitigate things. Aside from still including the power adapter at least for the first year of the change, they could have done it through a voucher program where those who need a power adapter could take advantage of it and those who don't could skip it.
Even that aside, and the whole part of a bigger picture and it all being better in the long run, while that may very well be the case, rather than presenting it all as some amazing effort that Apple was nice enough to take on they should have actually stood by their decision and taken the burden of it instead of essentially shifting it on the consumers (while at the same time not only cutting costs but even making additional profit on top of it all because of it).
I had a Fast Charge mat, first time I used it I noticed my phone was warm, next time I used it phone was warm. I threw it away. A warm / hot battery is a short lived battery. Working from Home, I plug my USB-C to Lightening cable into my Mac mini and slow charge it is.
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I guess there are two ways of looking at things.
One can complain that the iphone still costs more despite Apple removing accessories and benefiting from lower packaging and shipping costs.
Another take is that the iphone costs what it does (compared to even more due to features such as 5g and a new form factor) precisely because Apple was able to find corners to cut in ways that least impact the end user. That Apple has also dropped the price of their own usb-c charger and EarPods show that they are not entirely insensitive to sentiment on the ground.
My guess is that it’s more the latter, and Apple’s earnings will probably show that even with this, their margins are still in line with those of previous years, or even a little lower.
The iphone costs more because it costs more to design and make, and this is Apple doing what they can to keep it affordable to customers.
At the same time in all the many previous years the iPhone got improved each time with better and more features and materials, and yet accessories weren't removed to make up for that.
Correct, and as the smartphone matures as a product category, Apple probably finds itself having to invest ever-increasing amounts of money and effort into increasingly-incremental improvements.
Apple didn’t do any of this for as long as it was sustainable and profitable to do so. They raised prices when they had to, and they are now both raising prices and removing accessories as circumstances call for it.
It’s really the law of diminishing returns at work.
There might be all of that in play. Still, it seems that between what they did and how they talked about it they could have mitigated things somewhat better in this sort of a transition and actually make it more transitional than just more of an abrupt change not with just a removal of something that was always there but also with the change of an accessory that they left in.
