A word about “Courage”:
Phil Schiller. Seriously? At this particular date, with all of its significance, the word “courage” applied to the way people use their $600 telephone is a mind-jarring mis-use of English. Is this just another case of pandering to the drama of Ellipticals? They can deal with it. It’s just a freakin’ jack!!
The crazed, emotional rants in advance of the official product announcements were generally from people complaining that they don’t want to give up their wired headphones. You don’t have to give up your headphones. You lose the jack.
Read the details people.
- The iPhone 7 comes with Apple lightning connector “Earpods”—you connect them to your phone with a “lightning” connector. (The same connector used for your power adapter.)
- Apple also includes a little “dongle” to connect your current headphones using the Lightning port.
- This only applies to iPhone 7 and newer Apple devices going forward.
- For now, you can’t charge your iPhone and listen at the same time. Wow. Big inconvenience.
iMac 1998—What’s a Big Inconvenience?? The first friggin’ iMac was a Big Inconvenience!
The first iMac was the first Macintosh with USB connectors. Most people had never seen nor heard of USB. Printers? Scanners? Modems? Hey, none of the old stuff worked!! You had to buy all kinds of new cables, adapters, and peripherals. USB was brand new. And mice? Thank you, Jonny Ive, who designed this crazy ROUND mouse (which became known as “the Hockey Puck“). THAT spawned a whole industry of replacements and add-ons because it was so useless. AND there no floppy drive to install all the new drivers!! Gone! All those boxes and stacks of 3.5” floppies were now about as useful as…well, nothing. We didn’t call that “courage”, we called that “Steve Jobs fixing Apple”.
AirPods?
As for the new wireless earbuds, airbuds, EarPods, AirPods, whatever…those beautifully designed Dyson-style, GI-Joe sized, mini-hairdryers only work for people who can put them, and keep them in their ears. I can’t. Love the technology. Hate the shape.
Here I am giving away another brilliant idea: “Pod Shapers”, a special adapter for the AirPod to hold it on your head because it won’t stay in your ear. Especially for the Boomer market, available in a range of fluorescent colors to make them little buggers easier to find!*
To The Whiners—If you really hate Apple roping you into its eco-system and “forcing” you to go wireless and buy airbuds, EarPods…whatever, then go on, buy a Samsung phone. Just, make sure you also buy a fire extinguisher. 😎
—TechWite
*Did I call this or what?! Just get PowerBeats Pros in your color choice!—TW, 3/1/2022
TechWite 