THE HEADPHONE JACK
REVOLUTION
VIEW
Apple
has been removing features from its products and daring customers to complain
about it almost since Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997.
Jobs’s
first major product announcement after his return was the iMac the most
controversial thing about the iMac was that it removed the floppy drive, which
was then a standard part of virtually all Macs and Windows PCs. Apple also
removed several ports that had been included in every Mac for a decade, replacing
them with a cutting-edge standard called USB.
Removing
the floppy drive from the iMac (and soon other Macs) made them lighter,
cheaper, and smaller. Ditching older ports encouraged the development of
Mac-compatible USB products like keyboards and printers. Before long there were
plenty of them to choose from. A decade later, Apple introduced the MacBook
Air, a laptop Apple made razor-thin by eliminating the CD-ROM drive and the
Ethernet networking port — both industry standards at the time. Once
again, customers grumbled but many found its slender profile impossible to
resist.
Apple
took this to an even further extreme with the latest MacBook. It has just two
ports: a souped-up USB port on one side and a headphone jack on the other. If
you want to plug in other devices, like an external monitor or an Ethernet
cable, there’s a variety of splitters and adapters that allow that lone USB
port to perform many functions simultaneously.
Apple
introduced AirPods, providing a wireless audio experience that immediately sets
up with all the devices signed into your iCloud account, including your iPad
and Mac. Dual optical sensors and accelerometers in each AirPod that work with
the W1 chip to detect when AirPods are in your ear, so they only play when you
are ready to listen. An additional accelerometer in each AirPod detects when
you’re speaking, enabling a pair of beam-forming microphones to focus on the
sound of your voice, filtering out external noise to make your voice sound
clearer than ever before.
Apple’s decision to remove the
headphone jack as part of an underlying push towards wireless Specifically, the
size of the audio jack became a frustrating nuisance when trying to incorporate
the respective camera systems inside of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Removing
the headphone jack enabled Apple to increase the size of the 4.7-inch iPhone 7
battery by 14%, ultimately providing users with an extra two hours of battery
life. And last, removing the 3.5mm jack finally helped Apple deliver a more
water-resistant iPhone.
Obviously,
no customer is asking Apple to eliminate features from its products. But
customers do like it when products are smaller, lighter, and more affordable.
Removing little-used ports and drives also leaves more room inside for
batteries, enabling longer battery life. The healthy sales growth suggests that
Apple is on to something.
NIKHIL
REDDY
1
BBA A
COUNTERVIEW
If
you take Apple’s word for it, removing the headphone jack was a pure expression
of its desire for technological progress, why not get rid of it the same way
Apple killed the CD drive and Ethernet port on laptops? After all, this is just
another connector that can be replaced by something wireless.
But
there were clear and tangible benefits to those changes (namely, much thinner
and lighter laptops), whereas this change comes littered with downsides. Most
headphones in existence are incompatible. You can’t charge the phone and listen
to wired headphones at the same time. And if you do want to use old headphones,
you need to keep a small adapter handy
The
benefits for Apple are much easier to see. The iPhone 7 will be bought by
millions of people and its lack of a headphone jack is going to make many of
them consider buying Lightning or Bluetooth headphones. Apple profits from
both.
Any
company that wants to make a pair of Lightning headphones has to go through
Apple’s licensing program. Apple Inc.'s MFi Program is a licensing
program for developers of hardware and software peripherals that work with
Apple's iPod, iPad and iPhone. The program covers various device connectors
including the headphone jack, original dock connector and the newer Lightning
connector.
Though
its fees are kept a secret, reports have indicated that Apple charges a
flat fee for every device sold using one of its connectors. So, a bump in the
likely low popularity of Lightning headphones is a win for Apple, since it’s
getting a cut no matter who sells them.
And that’s just
Lightning. More likely is that the lack of a headphone jack on the iPhone and
increasingly, on android phones as well — will lead to an uptick in sales
of Bluetooth headphones. And it just so happens that Apple owns the number one
Bluetooth headphone company, Beats
Beats brings in more revenue from Bluetooth headphones than LG,
Bose, or Jaybird, according to NPD figures released in July. In terms of
unit sales, it controls over a quarter of the Bluetooth headphone market.
Bluetooth
headphones are also disproportionately profitable among headphones. NPD has
them accounting for 54 percent of all dollars spent in the market, despite
representing only 17 percent of units sold. These headphones sell at high
prices with high margins, and Apple’s company is making the best of it so far.
Sales
of Bluetooth headphones are already growing, with units up 64 percent year over
year according to NPD’s figures. And Apple’s removal of the headphone jack is
likely to give them another boost.
It
certainly benefits Beats the most as the market leader. Not surprisingly, during
its iPhone announcement, Apple gave some stage time to Beats, which announced
three new sets of wireless headphones: The Solo 3 Wireless, the Powerbeats 3
sport earbuds and a neck-wraparound called the Beats X.
Apple
is asking a lot of customers, even if it manages to convince its own customers
to make the switch, the loss of a venerable standard could still be a sad
development. Hopefully in the long run, Apple and Android device makers will be
able to converge on a new, open, digital standard (most likely a version of
USB) to become the universal connector for smartphones.
MATHEW
ISSAC
1
BBA A
No comments:
Post a Comment