When it comes to defying convention and making difficult decisions that the company knows are correct, Apple has never shied away from controversy. The company regularly pushes the envelope even when it knows that people will take time to adjust. In fact, we covered one such change earlier today. People likely don’t remember the early responses to the first-generation iPhone. They don’t remember how many journalists, bloggers and consumers laughed at the idea of a smartphone without a keyboard. But Apple had a better solution, and the company’s executives knew it was better. They just had to wait for users to experience it and realize how much better it was.
Apple would never have become the company it is today had it not been willing to push the envelope like this. It truly has been courageous, time and time again. But the company’s most recent act of courage is unlike the paradigm shifts it has spurred in the past. This time around, Apple did a terrible job of ensuring the solution it offered in place of the industry standard it eliminated is actually a better solution.
I really wish Apple would stop trolling me.
Back in November, I wrote about a frustrating problem that I’m having with my iPhone 7 Plus. Many other people have been having the same problem, and there is no fix. You can read about the issue in that post. In a nutshell, many iPhone 7 models have a serious problem with Bluetooth audio. The sound from music and streaming videos constantly gets choppy, rapidly cutting in and out. It’s unbearable, and it’s incredibly frustrating since using wireless headphones is the only way a person can listen to music and charge an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus at the same time without carrying a clunky third-party dongle.
Why am I writing about this again? I recently penned another piece titled “I really hate how much I love Apple’s AirPods.” That article focused on how much I disliked the look of Apple’s AirPod since the moment I saw them. But then I warmed up to them because the technology is so impressive and the sound quality is so surprising.
Long story short, AirPods are awesome. If only I could connect them and listen to music on my iPhone 7 Plus without wanting to throw my phone through a wall.
Overall, I’ve never been happier with a smartphone than I am with the iPhone 7 Plus. The display is gorgeous, the battery life is beyond impressive, and the speed and power are unrivaled. There’s just nothing else out there that can compete with the iPhone 7 Plus. But this audio problem is widespread and Apple hasn’t even acknowledged the issue publicly, so we have no idea when or even if this serious problem will ever be fixed. Is it a software issue? Is it the Intel modem in the AT&T iPhone models?
We don’t know, so we’re left to assume that this problem will never be fixed, despite the fact that it completely ruins a key area of the iPhone experience.
Courage is important and Apple has been more courageous in recent years than any other consumer tech company. It has pushed the envelope constantly, leaving rivals scrambling to copy Apple’s every move. But Apple has historically abandoned a legacy feature only when it has something that is truly an improvement to replace it with, and that’s simply not the case with the 3.5mm headphone jack.
