[bfreedma]

You got lost in your own thoughts with all these markets researchs and USB-C connectors.

I’m just stating facts that iphone 6 was thinnest and headphone jack was dropped with release of AirPods. This directly impacted sales growth and paved the road for Airpods. You are free to believe whatever for all I care

So your claim now is that market research doesn't drive cell phone development roadmaps? Good luck with that. You also don't seem to understand the development timetable for phones. The AirPods were developed AFTER Apple had already decided to drop the 3.5mm jack, so the claim that they removed the jack to support AirPod sales is completely bogus.

In 2021, 52% of Apple's revenue came from phones. Less than 1% came from AirPods https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/

You are locked into your conspiracy theory and apparently blind to the market and actual financials involved. If you think AirPods drive enough revenue stream to be meaningful to Apple when compared to phone sales, there is little point in continuing this discussion.

 

[bigshot]

I never heard anyone make this much fuss over a plug!

 

[MelodyMood]

So your claim now is that market research doesn't drive cell phone development roadmaps? Good luck with that. You also don't seem to understand the development timetable for phones. The AirPods were developed AFTER Apple had already decided to drop the 3.5mm jack, so the claim that they removed the jack to support AirPod sales is completely bogus.

In 2021, 52% of Apple's revenue came from phones. Less than 1% came from AirPods https://www.businessofapps.com/data/apple-statistics/

You are locked into your conspiracy theory and apparently blind to the market and actual financials involved. If you think AirPods drive enough revenue stream to be meaningful to Apple when compared to phone sales, there is little point in continuing this discussion.

Your info is absolutely wrong. These companies not only earning much bigger than you think or mentioned through selling Bluetooth Headphones, Dongles, Connectors etc. And the margin of profit is much much higher. Like iPhone manufacturing Cost to Apple is around 250-350 and they sell it you at 1000-1400 so around 4X profit. But BT Headphones cost them hardly $10 which are sold at $250. So imagine the profit they can make. Same with Dongles an Connectors which are more prone and frequently broken or mostly lost by the users. There is no reason to remove the Headphone Jack especially from Android phones. They are just making fool of the people and sadly most of the people are falling for that too. After all, you will see fools in the world much more in number than sensible people.

 

[bigshot]

You're making all this stuff up.

 

[Lumithium]

You are locked into your conspiracy theory and apparently blind to the market and actual financials involved. If you think AirPods drive enough revenue stream to be meaningful to Apple when compared to phone sales, there is little point in continuing this discussion.

While I trust you that Airpods were developed after 3.5mm headphone jack had already been dropped. It's not unreasonable to assume Apple had the Airpod idea before that, but was waiting for the proper time to execute (when 3.5mm jack is becoming a lower priority factor, less public outcry on removal of 3.5mm jack etc).

From the website you quoted, wearables revenue has grown by 243% since 2015. Apple would be stupid to not consider it meaningful in the long run. iPhones revenue in the same timeframe has grown by ~23% in comparison. Apple knew iPhones are facing tougher competition, therefore Apple started investing into other categories. If you think since the revenue generated so far is less than 1%, therefore it is not meaningful, then you have no idea how the market works. Apple didn't do it because of the revenue now, but Apple is doing it to secure a big chunk of this rapidly expanding market and expends its source of revenue . It's called investment.

iPhone sales​

Similar to revenue, iPhone sales saw enormous growth between 2008-2015. Sales peaked at 2015, with a steady decline of 14 percent from 2015 to 2020. This decline is mostly due to increased competition in China by Xiaomi and Huawei.

AirPods sales​

AirPods have become a significant business for Apple, with over 100 million sales in 2020. What were panned by many as pricey accessories have become mainstream, with almost every phone manufacturer offering their own ‘hearable’ to compete with Apple.

Apple revenue by product​

iPhone continues to be the main revenue generator, but its percentage has decreased in the past five years. Apple’s other hardware, which includes Watch, AirPods, HomePod and Beats, has become a priority category for Apple, as a way to add more revenue to a single iPhone purchase. Services have also seen significant growth in the past five years.

Your info is absolutely wrong. These companies not only earning much bigger than you think or mentioned through selling Bluetooth Headphones, Dongles, Connectors etc. And the margin of profit is much much higher. Like iPhone manufacturing Cost to Apple is around 250-350 and they sell it you at 1000-1400 so around 4X profit. But BT Headphones cost them hardly $10 which are sold at $250. So imagine the profit they can make. Same with Dongles an Connectors which are more prone and frequently broken or mostly lost by the users. There is no reason to remove the Headphone Jack especially from Android phones. They are just making fool of the people and sadly most of the people are falling for that too. After all, you will see fools in the world much more in number than sensible people.

Raw material costs are not only part of what you are paying for. You are also paying for R&D, labouring, software support etc. As mentioned by others before, 3.5mm jack has lower priority compared to other features like water resistant, bigger batteries.

Are the companies dropping 3.5mm jack to get a bit more revenue? It's a reasonable assumption, but if 3.5mm is such a popular feature, they wouldn't remove it. Apple wouldn't take the risk for no reason. They only do it when they know it's safe to take the risk.

 

[Davesrose]

While I trust you that Airpods were developed after 3.5mm headphone jack had already been dropped. It's not unreasonable to assume Apple had the Airpod idea before that, but was waiting for the proper time to execute (when 3.5mm jack is becoming a lower priority factor, less public outcry on removal of 3.5mm jack etc).

From the website you quoted, wearables revenue has grown by 243% since 2015. Apple would be stupid to not consider it meaningful in the long run. iPhones revenue in the same timeframe has grown by ~23% in comparison. Apple knew iPhones are facing tougher competition, therefore Apple started investing into other categories. If you think since the revenue generated so far is less than 1%, therefore it is not meaningful, then you have no idea how the market works. Apple didn't do it because of the revenue now, but Apple is doing it to secure a big chunk of this rapidly expanding market and expends its source of revenue . It's called investment.

If you want to be a stickler with statistics, I think you're neglecting a few things. The category that AirPods also share is with Apple Watch (largest segment), AirPods (next segment), Beats, and Apple TV. There's no break down available as to growth of each sub-category. Secondly, if you're including 2021....iPhone saw a significant rise from $274.3B to $365.8B.

I would say that when it comes to investment....Apple is looking at content (Apple Music and Apple TV+ being a provider of premium video content and movie libraries). Their own bluetooth headphone/earphones are part of the investment with music services: Apple fans will want to stay in the Apple eco system and Apple spatial is solid marketing for getting AirPod. I really don't see Apple thinking they'd make much revenue with lightening to 3.5 dongles....as that, other cords, and accessories can be 3rd party. One of the main brouhahas of recent iPhones was no inclusion of charger. If you're an iPad user, you could use one that had been supplied by that. But, it's actually cheaper and better to get 3rd party charger and cord that offers the fastest charging for iPhone 12/13. Just measuring my iPhone 12 Pro Max, I can understand why 3.5 was dropped: it's too big of a port. It's almost the same height as the whole bevel (so you can't have your thick gorilla glass). The whole unit could also hamper size for battery: large battery in Max was one of my selling points.

 

[bigshot]

With all this talk of planned obsolescence in Apple products, I realized that this month I turned that idea on its head. I bought a MacBook Pro M1 and a dock and I was going to get a monitor to use it as a desktop at home, but I remembered that I had a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display that I bought in 2004 that I wasn't using. I went to YouTube and found videos on how to convert the dual link DVI connection to work with modern Macs and I got the adapter. The monitor is set up now and it's big and beautiful. it isn't 4K, but it is a good solid 3K, it's huge, and the color is gorgeous. It's old enough to vote! I still have the cheese grater Mac that went with it, and that still works too. It's amazing how long you can keep using Mac products. The connectors might change, but with the right adapter it still works.

 

[Lumithium]

If you want to be a stickler with statistics, I think you're neglecting a few things. The category that AirPods also share is with Apple Watch (largest segment), AirPods (next segment), Beats, and Apple TV. There's no break down available as to growth of each sub-category. Secondly, if you're including 2021....iPhone saw a significant rise from $274.3B to $365.8B.

The website did have separate quotes for each product (*)some are estimates

With AirPods it's from 15 million units sold in 2015 to 114 million units sold in 2020. That will be well over 6x increase in revenue. Or about 5x increase in 2021 (85 million sold), in the real world this should be higher with the introduction of higher end Airpod models. I should've be more specific here as it make more sense. I was just quoting the entire wearables market.

I think the removal of the charger makes sense for a company. People buy new phones every year or two, but the phone chargers can stay relevant for way longer than that. I'd just ended up paying for extra chargers that I wouldn't use. DAP market has been doing this for years before Apple, and as far as I know, most people are fine with it. Apple is just ripping a page off of that.

 

[Davesrose]

With all this talk of planned obsolescence in Apple products, I realized that this month I turned that idea on its head. I bought a MacBook Pro M1 and a dock and I was going to get a monitor to use it as a desktop at home, but I remembered that I had a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display that I bought in 2004 that I wasn't using. I went to YouTube and found videos on how to convert the dual link DVI connection to work with modern Macs and I got the adapter. The monitor is set up now and it's big and beautiful. it isn't 4K, but it is a good solid 3K, it's huge, and the color is gorgeous. It's old enough to vote! I still have the cheese grater Mac that went with it, and that still works too. It's amazing how long you can keep using Mac products. The connectors might change, but with the right adapter it still works.

Yeah, I've got DVI LCD monitors from 2000s. More power to you for keeping it as a primary screen. But as graphics person: blah. Once you see the beauty of HDR and 100% aRGB, you just want to embrace latest standards. When it comes to graphics, Mac was an earlier adopter (so had more software support) with high resolution displays (and scaling text with highDPI). In the PC world, WIndows 10 really addressed being able to scale fonts an icons on a high resolution monitor with old programs.

I've also got a dual Xeon workstation with Windows 7 that I built years ago: it still works fine, even though my most recent laptops can run loops with it for intended 3D rendering, new video rendering (IE h.265), and games that are looking for new features. But if you're running an old G5 workstation: it's many years removed from having an OS upgrade. With the M1 chips, there's still issues of hardware not being fully supported (IE folks having issues with some thunderbolt adapters/issues of USB 3.2 2x2), some Mac software still needing better optimization, and some Intel software that might not ever be ported. My main current work is software development. I had been using a Macbook Pro I-9, until environments were no longer working. I think it could have been issues with security settings for 3rd party developers. Got so frustrated, I finally just went PC with Linux dual boot. None of my coworkers can upgrade to M1 in our workflow, because our VM software is written for Intel and the community has not indicated a recode for ARM.

 

[Davesrose]

The website did have separate quotes for each product (*)some are estimates

With AirPods it's from 15 million units sold in 2015 to 114 million units sold in 2020. That will be well over 6x increase in revenue. Or about 5x increase in 2021 (85 million sold), in the real world this should be higher with the introduction of higher end Airpod models. I should've be more specific here as it make more sense. I was just quoting the entire wearables market.

Unit sales are not revenue (you can sell many x products at lower profits vs y products at higher profits). In the case of AirPods...in 2015 it could have been more expensive to produce an AirPod because it was a new product with R&D overhead and new ramp up of manufacturing. This article does also actually include statistics in real revenue numbers...in which again, for various factors: there was a significant jump in revenue for iPhones in 2021.

 

[bigshot]

Color accuracy is the most important thing for me, not resolution. This monitor is one of the best for color proofing for print. It has a matte finish screen that looks good from just about any angle. Movies look like film on it. Plus it's BIG. A thing of beauty! The specs are comparable to midrange monitors today, but considering it's 18 years old and it still works, I'll go ahead and use it till it croaks!

My G5 is running an Epson 10000xl flatbed scanner which is also from 2004. No need for anything more powerful for that purpose. The scanner has had a refurb, but I got tens of thousands of scans out of it before it needed servicing.

 

[Davesrose]

Color accuracy is the most important thing for me, not resolution. This monitor is one of the best for color proofing for print. It has a matte finish screen that looks good from just about any angle. Movies look like film on it. Plus it's BIG. A thing of beauty! The specs are comparable to midrange monitors today, but considering it's 18 years old and it still works, I'll go ahead and use it till it croaks!

I won't deny that it's a great monitor for its age (first with resolution, then color gamut for a LCD). But compared to today's displays, the color gamut is pretty low: even compared to "mid-range" (as I would assume $500). Measured specs are 90% sRGB. Today, most displays are 95% sRGB if not higher end having > 100% aRGB. If it works, it works....but it's still not going to look like film compared to a display that can display HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision.

 

[redrol]

I own a computer business and I don't use any apple stuff myself. I don't really consider them computers in the traditional sense anymore. No mods, no upgrades, no expansion. Poor excuse for a computer if you ask me. I use an LG G8X phone with quad dac headphone jack and SD card memory expansion, and my wife uses a galaxy S10 which also has a headphone jack and sd card slot. Both of us load all the music we have collected over the years on our phones.

 

[bigshot]

Haha! Funny man!

 

[Blueshound24]

I own a computer business and I don't use any apple stuff myself. I don't really consider them computers in the traditional sense anymore. No mods, no upgrades, no expansion. Poor excuse for a computer if you ask me. I use an LG G8X phone with quad dac headphone jack and SD card memory expansion, and my wife uses a galaxy S10 which also has a headphone jack and sd card slot. Both of us load all the music we have collected over the years on our phones.

Agreed.
I am among the almost 75% of non-iOS users in the world, and I will never own any apple products. I am totally happy with my Android phone with a 3.5 mm jack and expandable SD card storage and I will never get rid of it. I have top of the line bluetooth headphones but will always revert to wired cans when I want to listen to real music. Bluetooth cannot compete with even a mid-level can for sound quality, and sound quality is THE most important thing to me. I didn't buy multi $k headphones to listen to subquality bluetooth. Apple with their proprietary, non-open source products and without a 3.5 mm plug will never grace my desk or pocket.