[UVB-76]

What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake.

I'm never going to buy an iPhone without a headphone jack, but reinstating the jack on a future model would be admitting they made a mistake with the iPhone 7.

Likewise, with the new MacBook Pros, they are not going to release an update in a year's time that doesn't sacrifice ports and performance and battery life for size and weight, because doing so would be admitting a mistake. Nor are they going to dramatically cut the prices, such that they are actually affordable for someone, because doing so would be admitting a mistake.

[elicash]

I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone. They're not going backwards because they think they're right, not because they think they're wrong but don't want to admit it.

And the reason they aren't cutting prices is likely because they're more profitable with prices as they are, not because they're afraid of admitting a mistake.

[rsync]

"I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone. They're not going backwards because they think they're right, not because they think they're wrong but don't want to admit it."

I believe that the iphone is by far the best executed mobile phone platform and the best hardware - and has been from day one.

However, I have never purchased or used an iphone because of my stubborn indignation over the lack of plain old USB for charging.

Contrary to all expectation and experience, everyone in the world got together on one little thing - establishing the global standard for USB charging - and the world was actually a very slightly better place. And apple shat all over that, and continues to do so, in order to make (on average) an extra $10 for every iphone sold.

So fuck that and fuck their iphone.

[swiley]

I don't "happily" buy phones now and I doubt most people do. Most phones are this bizarre compromise between the political wills of some corporation (or designer) and the needs of the user.

[superuser2]

I have almost $1000 invested in over-the-ear Sennheisers and custom fitted in-ear Shures.

I don't think I'm going back to the audiologist to spend more hundreds of dollars a second pair that only works with iPhones and not my Mac or any pro audio equipment. Or depending on any battery device (like wireless headphones) that can't be plugged in while operating. Or having a device in my pocket that I can't plug in to a real PA system to test. Or paying what I currently pay for headphones that are iOS XOR Android.

Apple may be right for the millions who only ever use the included headphones, but in a world with compelling iOS alternatives that still have headphone jacks, I'm not throwing away the rest of my equipment or carrying adapters everywhere.

[zeveb]

> I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone.

Is there a site we can legally use to register that bet? I'd be interested in taking it.

I honestly don't think that the headphone jack will ever go away. Wireless audio is like wireless internet, in that it's better than nothing but worse than something with wires and a stable connexion.

I daresay you're correct that Apple think they're right, but … I think they're wrong. The question is, can they remain irrational longer than the rest of the market can be rational? I _think_, given Android's market success, that they ultimately can't: Apple have made too many mistakes in too short a timespan.

But only time will tell.

[vonklaus]

> I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack,

I bet within a decade we will all happily buy autonomous cars without a steering wheel. This is because in a decade, battery life, software, connectivity and manufacturing experience will provide a large benefit and will be normalized.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that this will provide a 10x better experience. Here is what Apple is doing:

* The Computer is the Hub for all devices

* the cloud is the Hub

* the phone is the Hub

That's fine. Except that if my phone is using bluetooth to be constantly connected to my headphons & iwatch, as well as occasionally my computer; AND it can power my headphones it really dosn't matter if you give me 2x the previous phones battery I am running 4x the amount of devices off it. Apple needed to deliver a phone that lasts >3 days and headphones that aren't a chopped up earbud that can max out at 2 hours.

the iphone 7s will probably be awesome, this is the bridge model as Walt Mossberg put it, and it doesn't seem realistic to even consider buying it.

[bogomipz]

"I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone"

Sure, absolutely when Rezence” or “PMA,” or whatever the wireless charging standard becomes is ubiquitous. However we don't have that today, no will we have it in 18-24 months, the general duration of a customer's contractual obligation to a carrier and phone model.

And for people that need to type and talk at the same time, sometimes for hours at stretch - for maintenance window or outages or even just long conference calls, not being able to accessboth a headphone jack and a power simultaneously on their phones is a real deal breaker.

I don't think the OP is necessarily pooh-poohing change but rather being pragmatic and practical for the immediate term.

[Mikho]

I can believe that the 3.5 jack will be removed, but only to be replaced with more convenient open and not proprietary standard--analog standard. I can live with USB-C, that, btw, already has analog audio implemented, when it de facto becomes industry standard for audio output. Just hope they solve simultaneous charging with headphones plugged. Two USB-Cs may be.

But definitely it is not going to be proprietary lightning digital audio port that requires external DAC and licensing.

[akhilcacharya]

Not when the existing jack is 1) a proprietary standard that does not work with any other device 2) A port that doesn't allow one to charge and use audio at the same time.

Something like a USB-C for everything could be doable - but as far as I know, USB-C ports are thicker than 3.5mm jacks.

[7952]

I have been buying bluetooth earbuds for years. Cables seem so cumbersome in comparison. If only they could sort out latency on video I would be 100℅ sold.

[404error]

By eliminating the headphone jack didn't they just create another revenue source? My understanding is that they get paid a per unit licensing fee by anyone who creates/sells an adapter. I was under the impression this was the reason they removed the jack.

[mixedCase]

>I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack,

No, sorry. I actually enjoy the music I listen to.

[kj01a]

>willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack

Are you saying that because you think there will be a better alternative to the 3.5mm jack a decade from now? What does that have to do with what Apple is doing now?

[rahrahrah]

> I would be willing to bet that within a decade you HAPPILY buy a phone without a headphone jack, whether that be an Android or iPhone.

I'll take that bet. A decade, so lets say, we bet for $100,000? Is that Ok with you?

[wklauss]

> What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake.

They have backtracked from decisions made, several times, and admitted to mistakes too. Apple Maps is a good example. MobileMe, the return of buttons to the iPod shuffle, price cut on iPhone... same.

The problem is that what you or I think is a mistake, it might not be one in the eyes of Apple.

A lot of the frustration I see these days can be summed up as "Apple no longer is making a product that I like, therefore it is making products that nobody likes".

Well, maybe. Time will tell. But I think they have a very clear vision about how they want their computers to look and feel (same for iPhones) and they are heading there full-speed. For some customers it will be a deal breaker, for others it might be what they need to jump ship and buy a Mac or upgrade from a Macbook Air to a more profitable Macbook Pro.

[dashoffset]

What frustrates me the most is that Apple no longer is making a product that I like but no one else is. Every single laptop model in the market lacks at least one feature that's essential to me.

[dgregd]

> What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake

In corporate politics that would be a suicide. Only Jobs was powerful enough to make mistakes.

Anyway it is shocking what Apple does now. During Jobs Apple removed product features only used by laggards. Now Apple removes the features used even by pragmatists and early adopters[1]. Do you known how many people moved exclusively to wireless headphones and TH3?

Another surprising thing is ignoring the professionals. They are in minority and it is hard to see them on sales charts. But they are opinion leaders.

Many people overpay for Apple products because they want to look as real professionals. Majority don't care which laptop is the thinnest, they use products used by opinion leadres. With current trend, in 5 years Apple brand might be associated with rich bozos buying gold phones. Just look at the Mercedes S vs Tesla Models S sales in last 2 years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm

[JustSomeNobody]

> Many people overpay for Apple products because they want to look as real professionals.

Just stop right there, OK?

Look back through my comments and you can see I've made this point a few times, but I'll make it again just for you. Mac laptops are sturdy, well made devices. My workstation provided by work is a lenovo W series laptop. I can push the bottom screen bezel and it flexes a full half inch. The plastic above the keyboard flexes also. The trackpad is meh (and TINY!). For the price (which at the time of purchase was not really inexpensive), it is cheap plastic crap.

My rMBP is solid. Feels wonderful to type on. The screen hinge stays put and doesn't shimmy. The keyboard feel solid with no flex. It's worth the price, especially compared to a lot of the junk that's out there today.

[smitherfield]

> In corporate politics that would be a suicide. Only Jobs was powerful enough to make mistakes.

To wit: an insignificant change (dropping skeuomorphic UI) was coincident with Scott Forstall being canned.

> Many people overpay for Apple products because they want to look as real professionals. Majority don't care which laptop is the thinnest, they use products used by opinion leadres.

I used to think this way, until I went through 3 PC laptops in 2 years. Macs are worth every penny of the premium Apple commands, and more.

That said, to keep me as a customer they are going to have to do a better job convincing me they aren't planning to discontinue the Mac lineup. And they'll have to offer a more convincing spec bump over my 2014 15" rMBP, which remains borderline-overkill for my needs.

[Grishnakh]

While this sounds nice, I don't think it's correct. If people really bought products because they wanted to use the same thing professionals use, then everyone would be running around with Thinkpads and Latitudes, not Macbooks. And they would have turned their noses up at iPhones and bought Blackberries instead. Apple stuff is just fashion accessories (though for the iPhone, I will grant that it was a quantum leap over the state of the art at the time, but not any more, and this doesn't apply to the situation with notebook computers). They use their marketing to convince rubes that their stuff is the best made, but it's not actual professional gear.

As for Mercedes S vs. Tesla Model S, that seems like an apples-and-oranges comparison there. The Mercedes isn't electric. EVs are fundamentally different vehicles from gas-powered cars, and someone who really wants an EV is not going to even bother looking at gas-powered cars in the same price range. That would be like looking at a really nice microwave oven and then buying a really nice set of stainless-steel cookware instead; sure, they can both be used for cooking, but they're really different approaches to the problem and not normally used for the same thing.

[smoser]

I can think of one instance. After Apple released the 3rd gen iPod Shuffle (gumstick) with no buttons they said at the release of the 4th gen iPod Shuffle event: "But users clearly like the buttons". So then the next gen had buttons just like the 2nd gen.

[pavel_lishin]

What about the changes that bluedino talks about?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12836747

> [The Macbook Air] didn't become popular until they added a second USB port and SD card reader, added a higher resolution screen, fixed the battery life issues, fixed the horribly slow performance, and reduced the price big-time.

[mathw]

They did that while keeping it thin and light though, which is the entire reason for the Macbook Air to exist - or at least, it was, until the even thinner revised Macbook turned up. Which will, I'm pretty sure, gain a second USB C port just as soon as they figure out how to fit it in.

[acomjean]

Oh they do admit mistakes.. They just don't say it:

Steve Jobs on why the iPod color doesn't have video said something to the effect of "nobody want to watch video on a tiny screen". a generation or 2 later the iPod (classic style) can play video.

You can totally make do with html/javascript apps on the iPhone. Not long after there is an SDK/app store.

cut and paste on iOS: It took a couple years but here is our version that is world beating.

That round mouse they included with the original iMac didn't last long.

I think a lot of projects were killed (Newton, Pipin, iPod, the motorola phone that used iTunes.) that just didn't work out.

Not to mention 'ping' (social media for iTunes) and the cloud based infrastructure.

I think the problem is Steve really liked the mac, and you could see that during his demos he was a power user and understood the product better.

[erichocean]

> nobody needs cut and paste

Said no one, ever, including Apple with the original iPhone.

[wmil]

Newton is an interesting case. Apple made two big mistakes... They didn't realize how hard handwriting recognition was and they didn't realize how important syncing with a computer was.

I think there's an alternate universe out there where Apple kept the Newton and it evolved into the iPhone.

[dexterdog]

You're forgetting about the phablet market. Apple insisted that the puny iphones were the prefect size for all people. I bailed for a Note2 and never looked back.

[scottmf]

I don't think they ever said copy/paste was unnecessary, although it mostly was in iOS 1.

[Dotnaught]

"Never" is a bit of an overstatement. There was an apology for Apple Maps. I think better way to put it is that Apple doesn't engage in a genuine way with customers. It communicates with favored individuals in the press or chosen customers via email, with the expectation that the email from Tim Cook or Phil Schiller will serve to get the word out.

Compare the number of Google employees making public statements through blogs with the number of Apple employees who do so.

There's very little acknowledgement of public input, as if anything the public had to say about Apple products doesn't matter because Apple knows better.

[jimbokun]

"Likewise, with the new MacBook Pros, they are not going to release an update in a year's time that doesn't sacrifice ports and performance and battery life for size and weight, because doing so would be admitting a mistake."

I know this has been litigated to death in the original thread, but I think the 4 USB-C ports implicitly admits the MacBook with only a single USB-C port was a mistake. I think obsessing about having specific legacy ports is short sighted, and pushing forward with new connection technologies fits well with Apple's history of innovation. Having ports capable of being every thing from power connector to video display to high speed disk connector to mouse or keyboard port offers great flexibility and will seem like an obvious choice very soon.

I think the claimed battery life still fairs well against similarly spec'd PCs?

Size and weight are super important characteristics for many users. Not sure sacrificing these attributes would appeal to most laptop consumers.

"Nor are they going to dramatically cut the prices, such that they are actually affordable for someone, because doing so would be admitting a mistake."

It's only a mistake if their overall profits would be higher by cutting prices.

Now, the sacrifice I don't understand at all is capping RAM at 16GB. Makes the MacBook Pro seem like a very low end machine compared to the competition, and will almost certainly shorten its useful lifespan, especially for professional user.

[denzil_correa]

> Now, the sacrifice I don't understand at all is capping RAM at 16GB.

Apparently, the lack of a higher capacity RAM was due to the performance/energy ratio.

https://twitter.com/DanFrakes/status/791754757404626944

[igravious]

> Now, the sacrifice I don't understand at all is capping RAM at 16GB.

Totally agreed. The laptop I'm writing this on has 8GB and Firefox happily gobbles most of it. The server I recently built has 16GB which already feels very constrained. My next laptop is going to have 32GB for sure. If Apple don't have a 32GB Macbook Pro my next laptop ain't going to be from Apple.

Oh. And it's fares well, no?

[vi4m]

SSD in Macbook Pro is crazy fast. So fast that finally, after many years, we can think about "replacing" RAM with it.

LPDDR3 RAM speed = 17 GB/sec, SSD read - 3 GB/sec. As much as it sounds crazy, i believe, SSD will eventually replace big and inefficient RAM's (which consume 6 W of power for each 16 GB slot)

[Alex3917]

> Nor are they going to dramatically cut the prices, such that they are actually affordable for someone

For the average developer the MBP amortizes out to somewhere around one day of salary per year, out of the ~251 annual work days, even less if you keep it more than four years. Is there any other industry with lower overhead costs?

[ksk]

That would be fine if the components actually were expensive. Most people would avoid lining the pockets of the executives with their hard earned money if they had a choice.

[eatbitseveryday]

> Apple never admits a mistake.

Not sure what you call "admission" but they did screw up their Maps application and apologized for it[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/sep/28/apple-map...

[snowwrestler]

> What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake.

Really? No one remembers the very public apology from Tim Cook about their Maps roll out?

http://www.apple.com/ca/letter-from-tim-cook-on-maps/

[TillE]

That's an apology for poor execution, not a mistake as in making the wrong choice.

[evo_9]

Yeah because Google or GM or Sony or Audi all come out regularly and admit their mistakes. Honestly do you really expect any company to do that?

Also as mentioned in the article - Apple charges a premium to, some would say, wisely cash-in on early adopters; over the life of the product its price drops. If you want an affordable Apple product - just like any other company - don't buy the very latest, newest model of any of their stuff.

[kuschku]

> Honestly do you really expect any company to do that?

Yes? Many companies do that, especially small to medium businesses.

Multinationals are the only exception.

[marricks]

The prices of the MBP aren't even high historically adjusted for inflation. The always "raise" prices on model redesign, and taper them down on refresh. This reddit post has a pretty illustrative chart, https://m.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/59uyqw/all_13_and_15_m...

Everyone is acting like Apple is extorting people or being unconscionable because they can't have 32 gigs of ram (no one else can at any small laptop size, Intel's chipset is the limitation), or the prices are extreme when they're really just right in line with inflation...

[rayiner]

That's not really true. E.g the first Macbook Air had a very small battery and only a single USB port. The third gen released 18 months later had two USB ports, a much larger battery, and an SD card slot.

[optimuspaul]

I don't understand how those things are mistakes. You can easily make up for the missing jacks and ports with dongles. But you could easily argue that it's a mistake to keep those jacks and ports to support a shrinking base of users that still require those jacks an ports. I haven't used the headphone jack on my phone in a very long time, it's a backup if anything, but mostly just a place that collects lint.

[grey-area]

The reactions here to recent Apple products remind me of slashdot's infamous - "no wireless, less space than a nomad".

Like the original USB on the iMac (which also caused uproar), USB-C is significantly better than the previous mess of competing standards. The iPhone should have been usb-c too but that's a whole other debate.

Like the original MacBook Air (which was panned for performance), these new computers will be used by many for serious work, they are not fatally flawed or underpowered.

Like serial ports, analogue audio ports have had their day, USB has more than enough bandwidth.

You might disagree with these choices and compromises, but it's simply hubris to imagine HN denizens are in sync with the majority, or even ahead of it, they very rarely are.

[Someone]

"What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake."

In a country as lawsuit happy as the USA, would any decent legal departement allow a company to admit a mistake?

And if these machines do not sell, I would expect they will cut prices or price the next version (which, then, may come out fairly soon) lower (it wouldn't surprise me if their roadmap already includes a version with a Skylake CPU and DDR4 memory at the current price point, while keeping the existing models around at lower prices)

[hbosch]

I'm trying to recall the Antennagate scenario with the iPhone 4, which forced Apple to hand out bumper cases for free. Did they officially claim responsibility for that design flaw?

[undefacct]

Nah man, you're holding your phone wrong.

[mandeepj]

> What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake.

Apple does. At least with Maps fiasco, Tim Cook apologized publicly.

[CN7R]

I'm not sure if it's really Apple's fault at this point. Over the summer, two people that I know went out and bought MacBook Airs -- even though its specs are severely outdated for its price. As long as people continue to buy their uninnovative products, Apple will continue to never admit a mistake.

[hyperhopper]

They did once. One of the earlier iPhones boasted about how its smaller screen size was "the perfect screen size" due to the size of your fingers and how you needed to be able to reach both top corners. Obviously they made bigger screens since then and ignored that they ever said those things.

[phyrex]

And god dammit they were right back then!

[denzil_correa]

> What frustrates me the most is that Apple never admits a mistake.

Do take a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr_KxouI8Zs

[logfromblammo]

Sounds to me like Apple needs to get married for a few years. That'll fix its problem right quick.

Give it long enough, and it'll even be admitting to making big mistakes with Windows 10 telemetry data reporting.

[mavelikara]

They switched to x86 after years of publicly touting the benefits of PPC (all the while working on the switch project in secret). I think you are attributing a corporation too much human-like emotions.

[usefulcat]

They will change if it hurts their bottom line enough. Only question is how much is "enough".

[hackermailman]

No escape key on the new Macbook Pro either.

[WildUtah]

MacBook Escape, which will be the most popular model by far, has all the hardware escape keys any user wants.

[shawndumas]

What, specifically, are you using your ESC key for? (Not a challenge, just curiosity.)