William Gibson’s cyberpunk stories show why Apple is getting rid of cords | Hacker News Reader

William Gibson’s cyberpunk stories show why Apple is getting rid of cords

slate.com

42 pointswalterbell82 comments

The problem is not that they got rid of the jack, the problem is the solution they came up with. Okay, so the give out a lightening headphone set with the new phone.

My options:

- Listening to music : Now I can listen to music but not charge at the same time. To accomplish that, Apple says I need a dock. Ok.

- Need to go to Macbook Pro. Oh crap, need to swap headphones to Macbook Pro. Ok, Macbook Pro does not have a lightening port. SOL there. What about next gen, will it have a lightening port? Probably not.

- Okay, let's go full wireless. Oops. They have their own chip and protocol there. So no one else will adopt it in mass. Plus, it is 150 dollars to get this new set of headphones. That is wrong.

In the past when they got rid of stuff, there was a solution that was industry accepted and gaining in popularity. DVD removal? SSD is there, Wifi is there, and SD slot is there. All standards other folks have.

For the first time in 9 years, I won't be upgrading my iPhone. Instead of de-clutting my life and making it easier, it is increasingly full of fraking 40 dollar dongles, hubs, batteries, and multiple accessories of the same type. No thanks.

Apple has always supported standard Bluetooth audio and still does.

And it has been gaining in popularity over the last year e.g. BeoPlay H5.

> They have their own chip and protocol there.

I thought Apple's new wireless headphones were standard Bluetooth. Do you have any info about this?

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12829190/apple-w1-chip-ipho...

"Apple's new W1 chip uses regular Bluetooth for connectivity."

And that is just the AirPods. It's not like every headphones needs the W1 chip.

It STILL doesn't change the fact that I do not want to buy a wireless headphone set and sit and charge it. I want to use a wired version. That means I can't listen and charge and this wired version only works with the iPhone.

The AirPods headphones are actually Bluetooth. It's just that they have their own chip to manage the headphones. That said, I'm not sure if there's any way to pair the AirPods with anything other than an Apple device. It may be possible, but the pairing is done using the AirPod case. While there are many cheaper Bluetooth headphones, the popular earbuds with a comparable battery life (6 hours) is the Jaybird X2 which is $149. That's the same price. So, it really comes down to features.

The existing Apple dock has had a headphone jack (and has for several years), so anyone who has an Apple dock doesn't have to worry about the charge and listening problem (at least at their desk). There's also a Belkin cable that's a Y cable for charging and audio (but that's an additional cost).

Now you have 3 things that you need to charge.

The iPhone, the AirPods, and what? A laptop, an iPad? The AirPods charge in the battery case (which is good for 24 hours of playback). The AirPods charge quite quickly in the battery case. I've heard that it's several hours for just 3 minutes of charge.

iphone, airpods, iwatch. get with the program man...

Ah. But, you could easy say it's 5 then. iPhone, AirPods, Apple Watch, iPad, and MacBook. But, it's no different than if the AirPods were another pair of Bluetooth headphones, except Apple has a nice charging solution (and carrying case) for them.

off topic, but the wireless charging case is actually a Samsung idea Apple copied:

https://www.samsung.com/us/audio/headphones/in-ear/gear-icon...

Those have a pretty short battery life. They're 1.6 hours for "audio streaming" which I take to mean Bluetooth as the longer life is only for when you download songs to the earbuds. Then, the case recharges up to 2 times, so 4.8 hours total. Even if you assume Apple's 24 hours is a total charge split across both buds, you get 17 hours for Apple's (assuming the case is charged up while you're using the AirPods, possibly only 12 otherwise).

Aren't the airpods independent of each other? Sooner or later one will end up with only one working. Apple just created a mess for no gain for the users.

The AirPods are independent of one another, but they fit into one case to charge. So, the case charges both the AirPods at the same time. If you want to charge the case, you use Lightning to charge it. But, the case is good for 24 hours of charge on the AirPods. Whether that is 24 hours total (so 12 hours each), or 24 hours for both I don't know.

The AirPods can be paired with non-Apple hardware through conventional pairing processes. They've specifically made it easy to pair with their own hardware because, well, they control the stack on both sides so it was feasible to do so.

I hadn't heard about the pairing process for non-Apple hardware. To be honest, I wasn't interested because the EarPods don't fit in my ear well, but I've heard that the AirPods fit better. There was an article on Macworld's site (I think it was there) by someone who had issues with the EarPod fit, but couldn't dislodge the AirPods even when headbanging.

AirPods have not been released yet, how can you and your Macworld source have reached these conclusions?

I am asking this because I am seeing this pattern after every single Apple product presentation.

Immediately after every Apple product presentation the people attending the presentation can try out the product in an adjacent "demo area". Which means there are at least a thousand people who could have tried on the headphones already, including reporters for most major media.

I have become increasingly more suspicious to these things since the iwatch launch.

but fair enough, the macword guy probably attended the event and had a few minutes to test the buds.

If you're just looking at fit, a few minutes is enough to test them. They were tested in the demo area after the event. Sound quality given the noise in the demo area is one thing you wouldn't really be able to know, however.

I'm unlikely to get a new phone any time soon as my iPhone 5 is fine (aside from battery life), but I am interested in the AirPods, if I could actually know how well they fit.

> Ultimately, then, the disappearance of cords is bound to be a story about control. A world without cords may be tidier or more convenient, but it’s also one in which we no longer direct the flow of energy, even in passing. In Gibson’s 1984, wires and cables were our pipeline to the future. In 2016, they’re an increasingly unwelcome shackle to the past. Apple’s ideal world is the tomorrow that we’re living in today. It may already be too late to jack out.

If the author actually had an idea, he would be talking about wireless devices in general, and how landlines phones and cabled ethernet are better because they allow us to direct the flow of energy and because you can hear the mechanical click as you hang up and leave the Matrix and re-enter the real world, or some drivel like that (it would be wrong, but at least it would be an idea).

Instead, he hides behind a pseudo-intellectual semi-conspiratorial (The iPhone is water resistant because Tim Cook wants to control your mind. True fact.) prejudice-stroking "literary analysis"-style tirade with zero added substance to William Gibson's quip, and at least two decades late to make the single point it doesn't really acknowledges is the only one it could possibly make.

He is also factually wrong in what he writes, regarding Neuromancer and using phone cables to jack in. Then he goes on a tirade about obsolete tech. It's amusing to see such a degree of cluelessness on display here. I'm wondering if he even read the book, because it's clearly written in _multiple places_ that Case was using gasp _fiber optics_.

"The new switch was patched into his Sendai with a thin ribbon of fiber optics."

Why is Apple taking so much flak? They aren't even the first and no strangers on pulling this kind of move when it messes up with their vision and plans for hardware.

LeEco's latest smartphones and the new Moto Z all ditched the 3.5mm jack in favour of USB-C only.

Apple also figured now is a good time to do it and had a good hardware design reason to do it.

People that have 3.5mm jack only hardware can keep using their current phones, no one is making them buy the iPhone 7 and even if they do, because it comes with the adapter they'll still be able to continue using card readers and such.

As with all technology being phased out in a certain field, at some point people will have to refresh their peripherals. Backwards compatibility that compromises their design and vision is usually not something Apple has ever been concerned: they'll maybe give you workarounds (adapter) or sell you one.

Personally I was hoping they would also just go for USB-C on everything, but guess they need to justify their investment on the Lightning port's development and keep control over its function.

Charge and listen to music on headphones? You are doing it "wrong". Not wrong, just "Apple wrong" - never did it, but can see how a lot of people do at the end of the day commuting home.

Clearly Apple wants to push everyone wireless, which kind of makes sense if you buy into their ecosystem and vision (Macbook, iPad, iPhone, iWatch), since it allows you to switch device without unplugging anything, but also, in this case, those wireless earphones might (pure speculation here) be the embryo of their "Google Glasses", something they can now build upon and experiment.

EDIT: Just came across a 2010 video of Steve Jobs pretty much summing up what I tried to convey, which is Apple is just being Apple and shows coherence with what happened with the 3.5mm jack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65_PmYipnpk

Why people were not as upset when Lenovo did this? Actually they were.

But also, this is the nature of Android: if this years offering from Vendor A doesn't suit me I can always buy from Vendor B-Z ; without loosing my paid apps and subscriptions.

With iphones, its Apples way or the highway. So Mr. Gibson will whine then give in and buy the new iphone because he simply doesn't have a choice.

True, but everyone buying into Apple's App Store (both iOS as well as OS X and now MacOS) should already know that there is no alternative and that they are locked in if they want to keep using their purchases.

This is the first thing people complain about when they jump ships, so I would say it is not very well known to the average joe.

I had no idea what LeEco was and not interested in Moto stuff. Apple is getting more flak because there are way more people with iPhones that would love to keep using their headphones without the need for another cable, which is ironic when you think about it.

Just pointing out that this is now becoming a trend and you'll start seeing even more, especially for vendors just making for the high end market and with just a couple of models.

Running the risk of being completely wrong, a watershed moment has happened or will happen within the next year or two with more and more vendors doing the same thing.

People with iPhones can still use their current iPhone, if they want the new one they either continue following Apple's vision (jump onto the bandwagon) or accept the hassle of carrying another cable.

By now people should know that when Apple pulls these moves, it won't go back (it's not done on a whim and I imagine they are pretty sure people will just adapt), and it's banking on more and more people buying bluetooth headsets as their main ones (personally I've seen that trend around me in the last few years, which sure, it's purely circumstantial and not a general representation of society).

Personally I have only bought a bluetooth peripheral because I had to (hardware "requisite" - iPad keyboard), as I dislike running out of battery (use wired keyboard, wired mouse, wired headphones, etc), but the experience has made me less worried with battery life. This is where I think Apple will have to improve and make charging stuff pretty seamless.

And yes, there will be that time when you really want to use your headphones and they will be out of battery... And will have to wait a few minutes to get some juice.

Would it be possible to change the battery on those AirPods? I think they are going to lose a lot of people and only the fanboys will stick with it.

Not sure, but taking into account the latest move in the Macbooks, I would say they probably have it pretty much integrated into the design and didn't cater for that. Do others cater for that? From what I've seen, most don't and a good part of them have less battery life. I would assume switching batteries would make them bulkier and introduce more complexity to their hardware design.

From their tech specs, 15 minutes in their battery case will give you 3 hours of usage (50% volume). This is if the battery is drained when you start charging them. I assume the more battery charge they have, the slower it is to charge them further.

Would be interesting to know the predicted lifetime of both the phones/charging case's battery. Haven't found information on that and personally if, with daily usage, it's less than a handful of years, it would make me less likely to buy them. At the moment I have no plans to do so, will wait for the market response to that price point, since similar ones are mostly more expensive.

In a few years, when practically no apps will run on one's iPhone 6, then they'll be forced to change.

>no one is making them buy the iPhone 7

Not today, perhaps. But if they wish to remain in the iOS universe, eventually they will be forced to adapt or die.

Perhaps folks will wake up to the evils of that pernicious 'drm' stuff the likes of the EFF, Doctorow, and even Stallman have been harping on about for decades now. It's not like people haven't been warned, cautioned, lectured, blogged to, and eventually harangued at, 'hey, giving up control and ownership of your bits is a Terrible Idea (tm)'. This is just step N in a long line of steps where those particular chickens come home to roost.

how is this even a serious question?

USB-c is an open standard. you can buy laptops and desktops with it right now - even macbooks! There are numerous phones with this connector, so an investment in usb-c headphones is something you can be sure will be compatible with most things going forward.

Where am i gunna plug in my lightning cabled headphones? Theres no lightning port on my mac, no other company does or will ever make a device with a lightning port. Oh and god forbid apple change their connector again - how much would you stake on the lightning port being around half as long as the 3.5mm connector?

How many millions of Beats headphones have they sold through their own apple stores? How many people did they fleece into paying 300$ for a pair of headphones they wont be able to use with new ios devices? How many have they sold since they knew they were removing the headphone jack?

This isnt just about people being upset their current headphones are basically useless, but knowing that any new headphones they buy have a limited lifetime. This is a major cultural shift in external audio components, which have been standard for decades - to proprietary connectors with known limited lifespans.

That's assuming you buy Lightning headphones. They are clearly pushing for Bluetooth.

Until you do, dongle, and you'll be able to use them.

P.S.: I also agree USB-C would have been preferable and was hoping they would make that move in this keynote.

> Why is Apple taking so much flak? > Personally I was hoping they would also just go for USB-C on everything

A common reason stated for the flak being given is because to many people it is a clear way to pad profit margins. This is likely the reason they went with the 30-pin proprietary connector on the original iPhone and doubled down on the idea with the lightning port. If they went with USB they wouldn't have as much control over their peripheral ecosystem and by control I mean being able to charge third parties to license the proprietary connectors and protocols.

I wish there was some hope that all of this bad press would just mean that people won't buy this because people really do want the 3.5mm jack. So sad that saying that Apple will sell something makes it a fait accompli that we must obey Apple.

I've already decided my next phone is not-an-iPhone. I just hope the Android makers don't try to imitate this move by Apple the way they imitate so much else by them.

I'm sure there will be at least some who go out of their way to maintain the 3.5mm jack just to differentiate themselves.

If I had to guess, I would say that Samsung would be one of the manufacturers to abandon the jack, but I feel like at least LG, HTC, and perhaps a few others would keep it.

LG's latest flagship even had a removable battery (which is pretty unusual for a flagship at this point).

Don't kid yourself. The vast majority of smartphones released in 2020 won't have a headphone jack.

How much do you want to bet?

I don't think so. Not until there's a true unified standard (on the Android side at least).

Maybe I'm wrong. I'll check back in 4 years.

There were already Android phones who got rid of the 3.5 mm jack, like the Moto Z. But from now on if the same companies bring out a new phone without the jack, many people will call them out for copying Apple.

No 3.5mm jack goes back for years. It was only around the time of the iPhone 3G that it was standard in smartphones (I'm not saying that Apple caused it to become standard, it's just it that time frame). Earlier models of phones either didn't have one, or you needed an adapter. I think the first Android phone required an adapter.

I think that's partly because the idea of using your phone as an actual music player also happened to take off around the same time.

I remember when phones had the smaller version, but it was used primarily for headsets.

Yep, 2.5mm was the standard on phones that had a jack. There were also phones that used an adapter that went into the micro USB (or was it mini USB) port.

I fondly remember the Sony Ericsson Walkman series, which were phones intended to be one's personal music player. And they had Sony Ericsson's thick, wide, proprietary connectors. It was such an annoyance having to carry those earphones just for the phone, or when the included earphones (with the proprietary connectors) broke down and you couldn't just use another pair of earphones.

A little while later, someone released an adapter, and that lessened the annoyance.

But later phones that had 3.5mm (or 2.5mm) in-built were definitely better.

Seeing as this piece recasts the removal of the headphone jack as a chapter in a cyberpunk dystopian narrative, surely you can form a scrappy band of resistance fighters that will smash the tyrant through some sort of Bluetooth signal.

Not necessarily even a signal. You can't jam a wire.

That's pretty scary. I can see everybody walking around with their AirPods tucked in their ears, ripe for a cyber-terrorist to unfold an antenna on top of a building, hack into the AirPods' firmware, and send an infrasound to knock the entire population out, or a loud whine to take out their hearing, or a barely audible sequence of subliminal messages.

Welcome to the future.

An Airpod that could generate really loud infrasound would probably have amazing bass response, but I'm pretty sure that's not what was invented here. And subliminal messages don't work, so...why would we care if somebody put them in our audiostream?

A "loud whine to take out hearing" is at least theoretically possible, except that many people are listening to that already - I think they call it music. :-)

Truth to be said, Apple's marketshare is failing and Android is growing, with all the Chinese manufacturers making pretty fine phones. Xiaomi phones are surprisingly good.

I am not sure if that future, where everything is tracked and sold for Google ads - and with Chinese weird mix of capitalism and authoritarianism - is better than Apple-made future, but that's for another debate.

"Chinese manufacturers making pretty fine phones"

Yes. I bought Chinese smartphone for 130 euros few weeks ago and I can't feel much difference from premium Android phones. Sure, camera is not so clear, touchscreen lags sometimes, but it's acceptable for my use case and the fact that it's 3-4 cheaper than a brand phone with same/similar spec.

Out of interest what did you buy?

My first foray into Chinese phones was the OnePlus One which I was more than happy with (still am), I then bought a cheap Doogee X5 for about €50 to use on my commute, which was OK for such a cheap phone, camera was rubbish but I never used it and the GPS tracking and 4g that I did use was perfect for my use case.

Umi Touch: http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_348204.html?wid=21

I see it's out of stock now and price have increased slightly. BTW, its screen is surprisingly good.

I recently bought Ulefone U007 for 50EUR (720p IPS display, 1GB RAM, 32-bit MTK quadcore) in order to use it as a display for my Phantom 4 drone. Well, it turned out to be too slow for real-time video feed so I made it my OSMAnd navigation device permanently attached to my bike. In any case, imagine in 1-2 years a 1080p/2GB/Sony13Mpx camera phone will be available for 50EUR - why would you invest in a premium one?

>with all the Chinese manufacturers making pretty fine phones.

How right you are! The Google Nexus lines were originally industry leaders, signalling the next minimum feature set and specs for Android phones with the added benefit of unadulterated (carrier cruft free) Android releases on the fastest release cycle.

Now vendors are far exceeding specs found on Nexus phones and even the rumored Pixel phones; the next Asus phone[1] has 6 GB of system memory versus Marlin's rumored 4 GB, and the Asus phone has expandable memory^H^H^H^H storage to boot which is something Google eschews on their devices.

So consumers are really down to rolling the dice on timeliness of vendor OS releases - do you risk a nicer phone that is potentially rarely, slowly or never updated or take a middle-of-the-road phone from Google that'll have regular security patches and OS releases for 18 months?

It's no wonder people root their phones and run Cyanogen so they can have the best of both worlds.

[1]

http://www.gsmarena.com/snapdragon_821powered_asus_zenfone_3...

No micro sd is a deal breaker for me.

Me as well.

Google ads is the least of my worries with Android phones.

It's in the inability for the OS to be kept up to date so security patches aren't always forthcoming.

When another company comes along that's more innovative than Apple and better at weaving a narrative about the relationship between technology and ordinary people than Apple -- we'll follow that company's example.

Today, Apple is that company and the course they set is the course the industry proceeds on.

I would say that ordinary people in global sense can't afford Apple products. In that sense Apple is not that company. I also claim that Apple never intended to be that company, because their business model is to be on high-end.

We've heard the same line when Apple ejected the 5.25" floppy, 3.5" floppy, Centronix parallel port, RS232 serial port, FireWire, and a whole bunch of other "universal demand" connectors. I really want to say this one is more awkward than others...but it's not. We've gone thru dongle & wireless solutions before, and came out better for it. Bluetooth headphone sales are about to exceed wired headphone sales. And Apple still sells the iPhone 6s & SE with 3.5mm jacks.

"We've heard the same line when Apple ejected the 5.25" floppy, 3.5" floppy, Centronix parallel port, RS232 serial port, FireWire, and a whole bunch of other "universal demand" connectors."

All these tech were already obsolete by the time Apple got rid of them; 3.5 mm jack is not such case. I'm not using Apple products, but if I would, I'd be mad that I can't use my headphones anymore and must buy new ones that doesn't provide much/any benefit.

There is an adapter included. While certainly inconvenient, it's still a far way off of »I cannot use my headphones anymore and have to buy new ones«.

There's also RSR232 <> USB adapter, but we don't say that modern laptops have RS232 and that's not the point anyway.

We don't say modern laptops have RS232, but we also don't say »Gee, I bought a new laptop and suddenly cannot use this serial device anymore because there is no way of attaching it to the laptop« (despite the fact that in this hypothetical scenario the laptop comes with a suitable adapter that makes everything work).

> I'm not using Apple products, but if I would, I'd be mad that I can't use my headphones anymore and must buy new ones that doesn't provide much/any benefit.

You still can. They even include an adapter in the box. What more can you ask?

To charge the device while using the audio output? That my mother can continue to use her card swipe reader for her small hair salon? I'm not sure what it's like to have an imagination that cannot conceive even one very common use case where this adapter concept falls short.

This dismissiveness is the reason we need influential voices to speak for the user in the design process.

You're not wrong about that. But your mom's Stripe reader will still work. It's just a microphone. The adapter will support it. The concern over charging is merited, but it will not be long before a dual adapter hits the market.

I believe that reliance on the hypothetical arrival of adapters is bad design. Most especially in the case of those adapters relying on a single proprietary connection standard that has the potential to change or deny compatibility in software at the will of the vendor.

Basic dual adapter already hit the market yesterday:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/belkin-introduces-li...

I strongly dislike this direction of Apple's design, seen also in the new MacBooks. You ask, "What is the point of doing away with all of the ports and support electronics if you need an big, ugly, cumbersome adapter to make the device useful again?" and in response hear judgmental sneers that you aren't their target customer anymore, you power user.

But I guess that's par for course for the consumers that clad their fantastically stylish sci-fi pocket supercomputer marvels of manufacturing in neon Croc-rubber.

Why include things that take up space, weight, and cost, things which most users won't use, when users seem to most want less space, weight, and cost?

Users have gone wireless on nearly everything else, and are about to buy more wireless headphones than wired. The dongle is just an interim fix until you switch other devices to matching wireless; we've done it many times before, and we'll do it again.

Users that want the thinnest phone possible so they can wrap it in a Fisher Price box.

Users that want cheaper phones so they can pump more money into the accessory ecosystem the functionality back.

You have fun charging 2 or 3 things every few hours and having horrible device interop or none at all with your headphones and other accessories. I'll keep my headphones.

The basic Apple dock also has a headphone jack. So, if you have one at your desk you can charge and listen at the same time. It's been this way for years.

Unlike all of those technologies, analog audio is basically a solved problem. You can plug decades old headphones into a modern smartphone, or modern headphones into an ancient transistor radio, and it all Just Works. It was a beautiful triumph of engineering, some small refuge of permanence in this age of planned obsolesce and change for the sake of change.

The real goals behind the removal of the headphone jack are DRM, extracting more money out of their peripheral industry, and the chance to make another kooky fashion statement.

I like Apple hardware[0] (I have a rMBP and a work issued iPhone) and wish them well, generally, but I too kind of hope this iPhone is a flop.

[0] Software, though, is a bit different. If I list pros and cons of iOS vs Android, I personally think Android edges it out. But that's just based on how I like to use my phone. Then, for desktop it's Linux > OS X.

Apple is telling people that if you don't use exclusively Apple products, they don't want you as a customer anymore.

That's what this boils down to.

This article was not super coherent. Indeed, wireless will give us a tidier future and will enable new use cases. So airpods are great. As for lighting cable replacing earphones, I think it's very smart and also opens up optionality for Apple to introduce things like a VR display in the future carrying audio, video, control data. Like many things Apple, things are done across multiple releases after they have reduced technical risk for a feature. So it's premature to opine too strongly in a new enabling technology / feature unless you have knowledge of the roadmap.

Open standards like 3,5mm audiojacks, microusb, microsd, tethering, removable batteries in general keep us in some sense grounded and connected to the real world and less dependable on some virtual world gatekeeper. Cyber track: X-Dream: We Interface https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BBg6F0WFBs

Didn't Gibson also describe wireless throat microphones in his books?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com