I’m not sure I’ve ever understood this take.

I think Apple has always been like this (one-button mouse, B&W display, proprietary keyboard plug, dropping the floppy, adopting USB, adopting FireWire, making the original iPod only function as a FireWire hard drive on Windows, etc.) But, like any product maker, the choice of whether you buy it or not is up to you. If you don’t like the whole package, find another option?

To put it another way, if, for whatever reason, someone made a delicious food item that was perfect for me in every way — mind-blowing taste, exceptional packaging, incredible mouthfeel, truly a cut above any other food — except that it gave me the extreme shits, I wouldn’t keep eating it and complain about it all the time. I would simply not buy it anymore. I don’t think, as a complete package, it’s for me — despite the fact that everyone has the right to food to nourish them.

I mean... I assume that the person you're replying to doesn't buy Apple products. I certainly don't, precisely because I hate their arrogant "we know better than you" approach to technology. But I still think it's valid to discuss it as a drawback of the company's philosophy, even if you are choosing to not be a customer.

Sure, I'm for open discussion, but I think it could be argued that it is the central underpinning of Apple's entire ethos. It's a matter of perspective whether this is an arrogant approach or a user- and productivity-friendly design philosophy. Discussing that is great.

Stating that you are forced to use or upgrade a thing, that Apple is somehow giving you something counter to what they have offered or that you have decided to pay for, or that there is some platonic ideal of hardware that Apple should be pursuing is the take that puzzles me. Just... choose another piece of hardware.

I mean, that's what I'm doing. I stopped buying apple stuff about 20 years ago. My phones are Android, which I'm not exactly thrilled with, but consider to be the lesser of the evils.

But let's be real, a smart phone is practically a requirement to participate in modern society, and there are two options. iOS and Android. "Opting out" is becoming increasingly hypothetical.

I feel this, and it's pretty dismaying. I'm ok enough with Apple still, but I do question it frequently. I'm watching closely the Asahi project and Haiku (I know, orthogonal approach) on the desktop and constantly questioning my use of smartphones. I don't love the walled garden that Apple has become, either.

I've never 100% understood it either, the only steelman I've been able to come up with over years is most people are like me and lose or damage the wireless earbuds every 6-12 months. I'm lucky enough to be a yuppie tech nerd with disposable income to treat it as a fact of life. Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year.

> Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year.

Except that you are not, there exists a 8-10$ dongle from apple for lightning to headphone and, i just had to check, there exists a usb-c to headphone dongle for the same price range if you happen to have the newest gen phone.

So instead it's a forced march to buy a new dongle if you happen to lose your cheap wired headphones/earbuds, assuming you just leave the dongle attached to the headphones/earbuds.

I don't like dongles. It's another piece. It plugs into the same place the charger does.

Everything else aside, the DAC in Apple's USB-C/Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter is phenomenal for the price.

Sure -- do you want me to steelman that too? (TL;DR: 'forced purchase' and 'can't use your stuff' effects still play in)

'forced purchase' is much different when its $8 and not $150 (and let's be clear you can get bluetooth headphones and earbuds for well under $100 at this point). Let's also remember that when apple made this change originally they packed in earpods w/ lightning connectors.

I can understand some grousing when the headphone jack was removed. I can't understand grousing still almost 8 years later. Buy the phone or don't buy the phone, they clearly aren't going to add the jack back.

I hate wireless headphones because they are a strictly worse product. They cost a lot more, can be lost, and need to be charged. But the only advantage they offer (being wireless) isn't actually useful. So I use wired headphones, because they are flat out better in every way that matters.

Not having a wire is an obvious advantage, even if the negatives you listed are true. Obviously this only applies to me, but having to avoid yanking or catching me headphone cord significantly impacted my range of motion if I was doing anything other than walking or sitting down.

Indeed Apple AirPods are such a step above in usability of even other wireless headphones, let alone wired, that they're almost a separate product category.

They're so much better than what we had before that once you've used them for a few days it's hard to go back.

I have AirPods Pro but ended up prefering the Samsung Galaxy Buds (had many different iterations of them from Samsung). Samsung products compatibility is overall better with non-Apple products and it works ok with Apple products too.

If you have to use Windows computers for work and use Microsoft Teams and all that, Samsung line works. If you want to connect with a Linux computer, Apple AirPods get terrible audio quality (and had same issue on Windows 11), but the Samsung Galaxy Buds (all of them) seem to work fine.

My experience is damaging cheap wired headphones way faster than with wireless. Although it certainly wasn't a 150$ wired or wireless headphone.