In the dark days before the Second Coming of Steve, when Apple fans tried to defend a company that was inevitably referred to as Beleaguered Apple Computer, the argument for the minuscule market share of the Mac was that Apple was like BMW: making a premium product for a premium price, and eschewing mass-market lowest-common-denominator for quality instead. (To which I would say, Power Macintosh 4400.) It was\u2026an opinion.<\/p>\n
If that was the case, Apple under the returning reign of Himself was less BMW and more Volkswagen: definitely an upper-end product, certainly a little bit of yuppie\/hipster sheen, but an attainable product. Instead of being asked to pay $2500 for a computer that was hard to pitch as worth the money in a world of cheap Packard Bells and E-Machines running everything on Windows like everybody else, it was $1299 for an easier-to-use-than-anything iMac. Or, as the prices started to come down, $199 for an iPod mini that was indisputably the best digital music player on the market. Or, eventually, a base $199 for an iPhone that kicked the very shit out of all the other \u201csmartphones\u201d that were at the same price point at your Verizon or AT&T store. \u00a0It might still be a premium product, but it was value for money and it wasn\u2019t outrageously more expensive and you could see the difference between having an iPhone 3GS or a Blackberry Storm.<\/p>\n
Now?<\/p>\n
After looking at the event yesterday, I\u2019m not sure anyone ever outright named the price of the iPhone 7 or 7 Plus. They referenced the \u201ctypical installment plan\u201d and Apple\u2019s own \u201cpay monthly and replace every year\u201d gimmick, but I don\u2019t think anyone came right out and said \u201cthis phone will cost you $700 cash on the barrelhead.\u201d \u00a0And yes, it\u2019s got the best camera any phone has ever had, and it\u2019s mostly reached gimmick-parity with the top Android devices on stereo speakers (my MOTOFONE F3 was using the earpiece as a speaker in 2007, but go on) and dust\/waterproofing and OOOH MAXIMUM SHINY GLOSSY, but\u2026my cousin is currently jetting around the world from Central Asian Republics to San Francisco to the Emerald Isle packing a third-generation Moto G. It does everything he needs it to, from maps to music to WhatsApp to perfectly cromulent Instagram-grade photography. And that phone could be had right now on Amazon for $180, unlocked and off-contract.<\/p>\n
You see the problem. Ed Earl Brown may not want to splash out $700 for an iPhone when he can get 80% of the way there and good enough for a third of the price. And maybe he doesn\u2019t get security updates on time and maybe he doesn\u2019t see a new point release of Android, but guess what: he can dump that phone after eighteen months and buy the Moto G-5 or whatever and still come out a couple hundred dollars to the good relative to buying an iPhone 7 that he needs to stretch for three years. And that\u2019s before taking the headphone situation into account…<\/p>\n
I can see why they did it. I see the justification for it, in terms of being able to move things around so they can improve the camera and get real water resistance good enough to advertise publicly and increase the size of the battery 14% (a desperate need after the 6S made it SMALLER). But in all the time I can remember, for years and years going back to that first fateful iMac in 1998, Apple has only once EVER replaced a standard port with a proprietary solution. When they dumped 8-pin serial and SCSI and ADB and that wacky hi-density video port, it was for USB and VGA and the open 1394 FireWire standard (which they invented but opened, and which other companies used). When they went down to having Just One Port on the MacBook, it was the emerging USB-C standard, not something they whipped up themselves. They\u2019ve replaced proprietary with proprietary, certainly, as when the 30-pin was replaced with Lightining, but that was a legitimate improvement: a smaller reversible port.<\/p>\n
Oh, and that MacBook had one port other than USB-C\u2026a 3.5mm headphone jack.<\/p>\n
You have to go back to the oldest iPods to see the only other time Apple did this. Sometime between the second and third iPod model, they dumped the classic six-pin FireWire jack in favor of the 30-pin connector going to FireWire. And then to FireWire and USB. And ultimately, just to USB 2.0. And then they rode with that 30-pin connector for almost a decade, carrying it through every iPod model and onto the first five iPhones. And that 30-pin port was in the service of moving the iPod from depending on FireWire to being USB-capable instead, and getting it compatible with PCs.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think this was the time to do this. If anything, I think maybe Apple should have telegraphed it a year: bundle Lightning-based earbuds with the 6S and 6S Plus while it still had an analog audio jack, and demonstrate that Lightning was a good alternative without shoving people into it. As it is, Apple got rid of the floppy or the internal CD-ROM\/DVD at a time when people realized once it was gone that they weren\u2019t going to miss it. I don\u2019t think the headphones are at this point, and $160 EarPods aren\u2019t going to get Ed Earl Brown onto wireless if he\u2019s used to losing his headphones and scooping another pair at the gas station for $10.<\/p>\n
I say all that to say this: the VW days are over. Apple has changed its metaphor again – never mind BMW or VW, they are going all-in on being Tesla. Luxurious, cutting-edge, expensive, and just trust that the infrastructure will be there to support it as you go forward. Oh, and be prepared to plug in everything every night.<\/p>\n
Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn\u2019t. For me, I\u2019m going to cling to this iPhone SE as long as I can and hope that popping sound in the distance isn\u2019t the Monster of Cupertino disappearing up its own ass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the dark days before the Second Coming of Steve, when Apple fans tried to defend a company that was inevitably referred to as Beleaguered Apple Computer, the argument for the minuscule market share of the Mac was that Apple was like BMW: making a premium product for a premium price, and eschewing mass-market lowest-common-denominator … <\/p>\n