You're not alone and I would expand this distinction to not only factor in popularity but functionality as well. CDs phasing out floppy disks may have been done in part for DRM purposes but the advantage was at least clear; 700MB is a hell of a lot more than 1.44MB. With the iPhone 7, Apple is taking away a time-tested feature in favor of alternatives which do not present clear advantages. Bluetooth headphones are annoying to pair and tend to have connectivity issues in conditions like rain. Lightning headphones are expensive and prohibitive. Dongles suck. As for AirPods, I'm not getting the sense that they provide much more in the way of functionality or sound than any traditional, run-of-the-mill pair of headphones. They certainly won't sound as good as my Audio Technica ATH-M50x. What do I have to be excited for?
I know it's hackneyed to glorify Steve Jobs but he always seemed to have his eye on the ball when it came to tech. Macintosh is the obvious example but if you look at his work at NeXT or building products like WebObjects, you see a CEO who predicted the resurgence of distributing computing and the overall dominance of networking in software. With the iPhone, Apple's move to phase out the physical keyboard on mobile devices was done to put content front and center - a design informed by Jobs' vision of a portable "post-PC" device that would act as the source of most of our media consumption.
What is the removal of the 3.5MM jack informed by? Trivial product metrics like thickness and water-resistance? A cynical attempt to make money from licensing proprietary standards? Or maybe Apple is going through the motions, asserting its reputation as a "gatekeeper" that dictates which standards should be left in the past.
Whatever the case may be, the iPhone 7 is not a compelling product. As an iPhone user, my next smartphone will most likely be an Android.
I would be interested to know how often those jacks fail and need warranty replacement. For whatever reason I seem to break them easily and have moved to Bluetooth to avoid this. The design puts the strain on the socket rather than the jack. There may well be a small minority who regularly need repairs because of this.
I know it's hackneyed to glorify Steve Jobs but he always seemed to have his eye on the ball when it came to tech. Macintosh is the obvious example but if you look at his work at NeXT or building products like WebObjects, you see a CEO who predicted the resurgence of distributing computing and the overall dominance of networking in software. With the iPhone, Apple's move to phase out the physical keyboard on mobile devices was done to put content front and center - a design informed by Jobs' vision of a portable "post-PC" device that would act as the source of most of our media consumption.
What is the removal of the 3.5MM jack informed by? Trivial product metrics like thickness and water-resistance? A cynical attempt to make money from licensing proprietary standards? Or maybe Apple is going through the motions, asserting its reputation as a "gatekeeper" that dictates which standards should be left in the past.
Whatever the case may be, the iPhone 7 is not a compelling product. As an iPhone user, my next smartphone will most likely be an Android.