Apple has long been established as a company that creates great looking hardware, and sometimes at the forefront of technology, and in return they charge a premium price.
Take for example the iPhone phone charger. You lose your current one, you can buy a new plug but this will set you back about £19, then there’s the cable which is sold separately and about £21 for a 3m one.. You buy a docking station to mount your phone on, then they change the connection so you either upgrade or buy an adapter.
And so it is with the Headphones. The removal of the Jack was described by Apple Marketing head Phil Schiller in one word, “courage”, but Chris Taylor a well known journalist at Mashable thinks differently describing the move as “hubris”, “arrogance”, “greed” and “stupidity” and how Apple is taking “one step forward, two steps back”.
So which is it?
We can’t help think Apple know what they are doing, and for them it could be a win win situation. The move to wireless headphones is nothing new, there are many wireless headphones on the market, although most are connected to each other via a cable, but there are a few earpods around. Apple is simply getting in on the market, and lets not rule out the fact that they are providing an adapter so you can still use your “old fashioned” wired headphones. But the cynic in us also suspects Apple knows the earpods will invariably get lost, be it down the back of the sofa, as you take your change out of your pocket, perhaps in city bar, or knocked out of your ear on a crowded underground train and as a result a die hard Apple fan will happily go out and splash £159 for a new set.
Has Apple therefore deliberately engineered another new stream of revenue, knowing full well people will hand over their hard earned money to keep up with the Apple tech train?
Not for us, if we wanted to look like a communication officer we would, but not just yet.
