Requiem for a Headphone Jack
The latest bit of antiquated technology Apple is going to kill. Thank god.
I can’t wait for how much this is going to piss some people off. But I say YES, please.
I tweeted that last November in response to a rumor that Apple would remove the 3.5mm headphone jack in the next iPhone. Yesterday, the rumor re-surfaced, this time in a report about this fall’s forthcoming iPhone by The Wall Street Journal. This is happening, people.
And sure enough, right on cue, Nilay Patel over at The Verge got pissed off. Taking the headphone jack off phones is user-hostile and stupid, was his headline yesterday. At first, I thought the post may have just been a clever excuse to use the phrase “jack off” in a headline. But reading it, he does seem to be legitimately mad about this forthcoming maneuver by Apple.
John Gruber calmly retorted some of Patel’s fears, and poked fun at others. To which Patel snarked:
Was counting on @gruber for the best argument possible for removing the headphone jack, and it’s “Apple knows best”
But here’s the thing about that notion: it’s said every single time Apple does something like this. The removal of the floppy drive on the Mac. The lack of a physical keyboard on the iPhone. The removal of the optical drive on MacBooks. The end of the mouse. The removal of USB ports. Etc. Etc. Etc.
The outrage is as palpable as it is comical. Then everyone calms down. The news cycle moves on. People buy the new Apple device anyway. Life continues. All competitors copy Apple’s once-controversial move. And technology ends up in a better place as a result.
Because, ultimately, this isn’t about “Apple knows best,” it’s about progress. You cannot move forward if you don’t sever the ties to the past at some point. As Gruber points out, Apple seems to be particularly astute with its timing in this regard, but I’d argue these changes would ultimately happen regardless. They’d just happen a lot more slowly.
This isn’t rocket science, it’s simply sensing trends that are going to happen. Sometimes Apple may push the envelope a bit early (the one USB-C port on the MacBook is mildly annoying), but pushing that envelope is the lifeblood of innovative companies. If Apple wasn’t making a move like removing the headphone jack, I’d be worried. The plug is essentially 19th century technology, for Chrissake.¹
So while it’s fair to question certain things such as the potential proprietary nature of Apple routing headphones through the Lightning port, the market will ultimately decide if this makes sense or not. And Apple will adapt if it has to.²
What Apple won’t do is built some sort of Frankenstein product to ease this transition. That is, leaving the 3.5mm jack just to placate those fearful of change. If they did that, the adoption of the new technology would be so much slower, and everyone would suffer in the long run as a result. Instead, they’ll offer the bridge of an adapter — highly-priced, no doubt.
But the key is to offer a bridge, not a crutch. Or, as I once called the physical keyboard on a smartphone, an “adult pacifier.” In a way, I suspect the Lightning port option is a bridge itself, to our inevitable wireless headphone future. Yes, they’re still slightly problematic now for a number of reasons. But every single time I pull my wired EarPods out of my pocket and they’re tangled in a way that defies the laws of science, it’s clear where we need to get to. And this is a necessary step.
¹ Yes, you read that right. 19th century, not 20th century: the plug may date as far back as 1878!
² Though, yes, it usually doesn’t have to.
