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Comment by fbelzile | Hacker News Reader

> I'm happy to pay $500 for something that works

Sure, if by "works" you mean "only works with other Apple products." The cost isn't just $500, it's also the opportunity cost of going with any other competing (and possibly better) product in the future. Apple's pricing is high, but is even higher if you account for the hidden hand of future buying power you give them. It's a brilliant business strategy as it limits your choice as a consumer for the lifetime of the headphones.

Say Apple decides to slow down your old iPhone again (what? no! [1])... Or maybe you just like the new Google Pixel. Sucks to be you, time to buy a new iPhone again ($$$) if you don't want your headphones to stop "just working."

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724

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The iPhone 'slow down' was to keep the phone operating with old batteries. Without the throttling the phone would just shut down abruptly under certain conditions.

Part of the reason Apple has this issue at all is that they provide continued support for their hardware years after others have stopped even giving security updates.

Apple has also a multi-year lead on things like chip performance in their devices (and more subjectively hardware design, software performance too).

I used Android nexus phones for a few years before jumping into the Apple ecosystem with the iPhone 5 (I had used macs for a while prior to that since OS X 10.3 and played with a variety of linux distos alongside it).

If Apple stuff starts to degrade compared to competition it will be a hassle to jump to a different ecosystem. As it happens, over the years it's just gotten better further ahead of the competition (with some mistakes: butterfly keyboard, touchbar).

The premium and their authoritarian approach to vertical integration and good defaults isn't for everyone, but I think it's really great and worth the premium. Other companies seem to be all over the place without much of a unified vision of what they're doing. Google in particular is extremely bad at this.

It's always shocking how Apple folks adopt a reality distortion field when it comes to explaining their reasoning. Whether it's avoiding justifying the things they claim they get from Apple ("seamless device interop") or ignoring the way Apple actively treats their customers like hot garbage (see Louis Rossman's youtube channel, or the asinine arguments companies like Apple lead against right to repair and all the poor board layout and non-interchangeable parts), instead of saying a reasonable answer like "I'm willing to be ripped off because I like the shiny buttons" or "I have one specific app I use on MacOS that I haven't had the time to replicate elsewhere", it's always some kind of indignation.

If someone tells me my bargan-tier Samsung phone is slower than molasses, I'm not gonna say "yeah but I like the blue color". I'm gonna agree.

I'm a long time Apple customer and have not noticed I was being treated like hot garbage. Their products have performed as promised with little to no hassle.

Can't say the same for their competitors (MS, Linux, Samsung, etc), whose products I've used extensively over the past 25 years. I am not a computing novice. Call it a reality distortion field if you want but I am happy.

It's quite reasonable to dislike the self-repair situation and the opaque software issue reporting. Some people value those a lot, and others less so.

I don't think Apple treats their customers like garbage though; quite the opposite. I've always had a no-bullshit customer experience - fast and easy returns & replacements, generous policies & even being able to return outside the window, no haggling about issues. E.g. a few months ago my iPad stopped charging, a replacement arrived 2 days later. Most tech companies are absolutely terrible at customer service like this.

Tech isn't perfect and will break. And by buying Apple you DO have to go through Apple when this happens, but the actual customer experience is top notch. To characterize it as being about shiny buttons is ridiculous, it's about buying peace of mind and having one less thing in your life be bullshit.

I agree, the customer support rep was very nice when he told me I had to buy a new Mac mini when my hard drive failed after 5 years. They even offered to recycle the old one if I paid $50! How nice!

Do you foresee that situation going any differently if you had experienced the same issue with a Surface Book or a Samsung laptop 5 years after you bought it? Because I don't.

If it was under 7 years old (the typical cutoff for vintage products) they should have offered the option to fix it at the Apple Store.

Could be you got stuck in an edge case or had a bad rep, which sucks. Nevertheless, they have the highest NPS / customer satisfaction scores in the industry, if we're to go by the data.

Sometimes I'm even convinced that Apple is absolutely right in squeezing their captive users of every damn penny (or grand) they can squeeze. They should charge even more. (The customer is always right, especially the addicted one).

Many flagship Android phones followed Apple's lead and killed the headphone jack, so there's a lot of old headphones that no longer "just work".

Furthermore, Bluetooth sucks all around. It's 2020 and you still can't transmit voice without falling back to SCO and having everything sound like a tin can. SBC is barely passable for music, and has hundreds of ms of latency. So companies have already hacked their own various proprietary codecs. Ever hear of AptX or LDAC? They only work with Qualcomm and Sony licensing/devices. Imagine spending $400 on your new WH-1000XM4s only to find that LDAC doesn't work on any desktop OS.

I don't see Apple doing anything different here.

I already don't need a new phone, but the further lack of a headphone jack dis-incentivizes me from considering further. If the choices are accepting headphones I need to charge to use and being a stick in the mud, I'm going to do the latter. I'll keep my old iPhone until it no longer functions. Consequently, Apple is getting less lifetime revenue from me. But I'm not Apple's target consumer: there are others who are far more profitable. An iPhone and a MacBook are all I need, I don't pay for any of their subscription services (Apple Music) etc.

Yeah, getting rid of the jack was a brilliant way of selling AirPods.

> Sure, if by "works" you mean "only works with other Apple products."

Case in point: my mom wants to buy AirPods, but she uses a Samsung Galaxy S10. I told her it'll work fine because Bluetooth, but that (at least originally) AirPods ship out with buggy firmware that needs updating. She'd need to find a friend with an iPhone just to update them to some current version before use. (And apparently even that is a UX nightmare with no real update button or indication)

> Sure, if by "works" you mean "only works with other Apple products."

Well, yeah, that is what people mean when they say this. I'm not seeing anyone here make the case that it's worthwhile if you're don't use other Apple products, or that it's not a giant hassle to switch out of Apple products. They just don't care as much about lock in as you.

> They just don't care as much about lock in as you.

I'm sure some Apple customers realize what's happening. As in, they knowingly look at the slowly boiling pot of water and get in because it's not hot enough to burn them yet.

But I think for the most part, Apple is exploiting a common blind spot in human psychology, the ability to predict the future. People look at the Apple devices they have now and make a decision to buy Airpods. They don't see the future implications of being locked-in.

The typical Apple consumer probably starts with an iPhone or mac (because of phone plans, open standards, apps, etc). The real lock-in begins with the AirPods, iWatch, etc. Once they get you to buy one of these 'lock in' devices, they're much more likely to continue making more money off of you the next time you need a new laptop/phone/desktop. That's all well and fine if you know this going in, but I'd wager most don't.

This is only fair if the Apple user is worried about switching away from iOS, not other devices.

For example, an iPhone user can get the exact same experience from the Galaxy Buds as I have with my S10+, but they get the added bonus of having enhanced operability with things like AirPods, if that's what they want instead. I think the only limitation with the Buds is the ability to stream to 2 sets of Buds at once, but that's such a rare use-case and doesn't really affect the experience in the same way as the quick switching between Apple device that comes with AirPods.

I wish I could have the Apple experience, but my hate for iOS is too strong. Otherwise, I love a lot of what they develop.

When you price out the TCO of staying in the Apple ecosystem... It's quite a bit more in yearly spend than other companies. Feels simply not worth it even with moderate earning power. Maybe I'd do it if I was making some of the wages I see around here :).

The old airpods work about as well as most bluetooth headphones on Android. The only part you lack is an official app to configure stuff like tap actions and updates.

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