Tl;dr Honestly, this is just getting ridiculous. For christs sake go get a reality stick
What always amuses me most is that some people seem to honestly think that Apple got where it is now through clever marketing and nothing much else.
...... Just thought I'd leave space there to let us reflect on that for a second. Now, one of the largest, richest companies on the planet. A company who was on the brink of bankruptcy, got to where they are now from marketing alone? Really, do tell, or as we like to say in Scotland in these circumstances, did they, aye.
Nobody in their right mind is going to say that Apple aren't pretty good in the old marketing department. But you don't make the kind of cash they have just by telling people something is good. Contrary to what would appear to be suggested, people are not mindless fools who will buy an invisible waistcoat because someone says it's the best thing ever.
Some people might like to thrust upon us their education as if that's some sort of marker by which we should measure their opinion as gospel. Oddly enough, I've not seen any of the regulars from here doing the same. Despite the fact that I've been around here long enough to know for a fact that there are among us people who chat away without feeling the need to disclose that they are in fact legitimate rocket scientists, among many many other professions. You never know when you might be taking to one of these unbelievably intelligent people. Perhaps because these people are more than clever enough to know that how many letters you have after your name does not in itself dictate your ability to be right.
Anyway where was I, oh yes marketing. You might get away with selling one person a polished turd by telling them it's a piece of the one true cross. But firstly, they won't be fooled again so easily. And secondly, they will, pardon my pun, make such a stink about it so as that other people will not make the same mistake. Marketing is a powerful, powerful tool, which will only get you so far. Because only a tool will fall for it time after time.
Apple and this may come as a complete and total shock, so brace yourself. Apple got where they are today by providing us with, hard as it may be for some to believe, good products. Products we can in general expect to last us a long time. Products which we know when we buy them will not only deliver, but in general surpass a level we have come to expect from them. Products which we feel safe in using from a reliability and security standpoint. Products that often include unique new technologies but more importantly, far more importantly, whatever technologies they do include are put to very good use.
Rather than filling a spec sheet with technologies that are badly implemented, or that are inferior from a usability perspective. They give us good, solid, reliable and useful things. Which is why unlike many other manufacturers, when Apple implement something new, it lasts through generations of their products. It doesn't disappear from the spec sheet as a failure, only to be replaced by something else the next year in the hope it might stick. Apple, more than any other manufacturer on the planet, manage to deliver a complete package. Something where the hardware, the software and the ecosystem work in perfect harmony to create for the end user an unsurpassed experience. Of course that's just my, and a few other hundred million people's opinion.
I know this not just because I am an Apple customer and a very happy one at that. But because I wasn't always an Apple customer. I once tread the ground of quietly sneering at those (very few at the time) I knew who were Apple customers because they must surely be fools, they couldn't run all of the applications that I, as a mighty Windows user could. They were foolish because they couldn't spend as may thousands of pounds every six months as I did, keeping my PC on the cutting edge for the latest gaming experiences.
Yeahhhhhh. Oddly enough it was my very experience of owning, using, working with, programming for and fixing those Windows systems for, well, let's for the sake of argument say 15 years. That drove me to adopt an Apple computer in the first place. When I was sick of all of the hassle, the constant need to chase a never ending stream of upgraded hardware and all of the security and other nonsense that went with it. I eventually reached the point of thinking there must surely be a better way, why aren't Microsoft making my life easier instead of harder.
Then, with newly opened ears, I actually listened to my Apple owning friend and it was a revelation. He had most all of the things I wanted but had none of the stress and hassle that went with it.
I purchased my very first Mac and from that moment knew that I had been missing out on a nicer, simpler life.
That story is also true when it comes to handheld devices, including those that predate smartphones. I rose through the ranks of Psion, Palm, Symbian, Blackberry, Windows Mobile (in the days when it went through more name changes than a satanists wife) and yes, even Android. In a never ending pursuit of more power, better features and something that wasn't so, well, clunky is the only way I could describe all of those in one way or another. (Although Palm for the most part did a decent job.)
What all of this painful waffling is getting at is fairly simple. People, most people, aren't stupid. We are capable of making our own decisions, often based on decades long experiences with a great many differing platforms. Both personally and professionally.
Crucially, we know a good thing when we see it.
You might be surprised that none of this is leading to an anti-Android sentiment. There's nothing wrong with Android, if that's your choice. It and its over 1000 manufacturers have more than their fare share of varying problems. Just as Apple and iOS have theirs. Luckily there's plenty of space for both to exist. But to suggest that the hundreds of millions of Apple customers are somehow foolish, blinded by marketing or making a mistake of some kind is a sentiment beyond the ridiculous. Just as suggesting that Android is in the position it is in based on its merits alone is utterly ridiculous, any research into the average selling price of Android hardware will show that price beyond all else has put it in the hands of the people. We can't all afford hundreds upon hundreds to buy the very best technology has to offer. Be it Apple or Android.
The vast buying public at large, who lets be honest aren't really represented on these forums in any way shape or form, don't make their decisions based on a spec sheet as long as my incredibly long arms. No it's one simple aspect and one only that makes their choice for them, they get whichever device they can afford. That above all else has decreed Androids position.
This is borne out in the spending power of the average iOS or Android owner. iOS simply makes more money, because more people who use it can afford to do so than the average Android owner. It's not hyperbole it's just a fact. Some might say that there's no reason or sense in the App buying public or it's very real relevance to understanding various ecosystems. That of course is also nonsense. A smartphone is a computer in every sense of the description. So it's only natural that one would purchase software to expand and enhance the experience and of course to entertain oneself. Spending power is an increasingly useful metric in understanding the popularity of a software platform and of its demographic.
As for the subject at hand. Finally
Apple may have drawn a line in the sand when it comes to analog headphones but to suggest that this is for Apples benefit and theirs alone is just patently wrong. In the long run every Apple customer will benefit from this. They will be pouring significant resources into development of wireless audio technology and ultimately that will bring about a stunningly good, lossless audio interface we can all enjoy.
Likewise Lightning and its digital connection allows for far better processing components to be used, bypassing the internal processing.
Is it all going to be good? God no. Just as there are good and crap analog headphones, Lightning and wireless will share that same fate. But the quality of the device you decide to spend your money on is in the hands of the purchaser, not the manufacturers, who will make varying degrees of hardware quality.
And it's going to be a tough transition for some people, despite the fact that's there's very little, not nothing, just little they could do before that they can't do now.
Is it for Apples benefit? Well of course it is, every decision any company makes is for its own benefit. But thankfully some do it in a way that will ultimately benefit their customers as well.
We can debate the pros and cons of this decision until we're Bluetooth in the face (couldn't resist
) But what's done is done and it won't be undone, Apple aren't a company for backtracking on decisions like this. We just have to suck it up, put on our big boy pants and start thinking of how this could benefit us in the long run. The analog port had to die eventually, that was always going to happen. We just didn't really think it was going to happen now. I've said before, I'm all for it, I can see a few years down the line when this decision will really bear fruit and we have seriously good wireless systems that will make us wonder why we kept analog around so long as we did. But for that to happen, to force companies to invest the billions it will take to do it, it has to be killed first.
I could waffle on for a few more pages but much like any of you who dragged yourself through this post, I'm getting bored now and thanks to my sodding nerve damage my hand is getting sore from typing. So..... Let's wrap this up. Not enough sleep, too much pain, so too much medication, make Stu brain chatty
Oh one last thing. Despite having decided to stick with my 6+ already. I've spent, well over a couple of weeks, but the last two days in particular pouring over every decent device on the market. iOS and Android.
And I can't help it, the inevitable has happened. I've just ordered a nice new iPhone 7 + in black (ultimately the camera won me over, analysing some uncompressed images really showed how much better it is. I still stand by my ability to cope with the 6+ 1GB of RAM, it's just had its time. )
So, I suppose that must make me a stupid mindless sheep too, good I like it that way. Baaaaahhhhter go get myself some AirPods now
