On Sept. 7, Apple held a showcase for the new iPhone 7. However, the presentation was met with controversy. Much of this controversy revolves around the removal of the headphone jack and the functions of the home button.
Apple’s stock price has been stagnant for the past year. iPhone revenue for the last quarter decreased for the first time since it was released. The company has been looking for ways to increase sales by coming up with innovative products and designs. This year, Apple’s message was “courage.”
“The reason to move on comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on, do something new that betters all of us,” Philip Schiller, senior vice-president of worldwide marketing at Apple, said during the iPhone 7 announcement.
Many industry experts and consumers have said that Apple was courageous when it made the decision to remove the headphone jack on the iPhone. However, customers have expressed mixed reactions about this particular move towards a wireless future.
There are some who see it as instrumental for the future.
“It might be a little too early for phones without a headphone jack. But since we are moving towards a wireless future anyway, it is necessary,” senior Graeme Steller said.
Others were not as receptive towards the move.
“Removing the headphone port makes purchasing headphones inconvenient as it forces consumers to buy exclusively wireless headphones,” junior Su Ataman said.
This is not the first time that Apple took away a feature that customers deemed important from their devices.
Apple recently removed the CD drive and some other ports from their laptops, which initially angered some customers. In the past, Apple did away with the then-standard 5.25-inch floppy disk drive and replaced it with a 3.5-inch drive. However, these changes did not deter users from buying the newer models and in the case of the floppy disk, became the norm.
“Apple has a history of doing what it wants and making people believe that it’s the best idea ever. The company has an affluent customer base that has in the past paid to upgrade because it cares about the quality of the experience,” Julie Ask, an analyst at Forrester Research, said in an interview with The New York Times.
To help customers ease into the transition, each iPhone 7 will be sold with a Lightning-to-audio converter that can connect wired headphones into the converter. The Lightning end of the converter can connect to the iPhone.
Along with the big news of taking away the headphone jack, Apple also changed their iPhone 7 home button to be pressure sensitive, so iPhone users can activate different functions depending on how hard they press the button. Additionally, in an attempt to lengthen the lifespan of the button, it no longer depresses when touched.
Other improvements that Apple have made are to their camera quality. The iPhone 7 camera now captures a greater variety of colors, and its processor operates at a speed 40 percent faster than the previous edition.
The iPhone 7 will also come in shiny and matte black along with the silver, gold and rose gold that existed in the previous generation.
The other product that was announced at the showcase was the new Apple Watch Series 2.
The new watch comes with a more user-friendly operating system, called WatchOS 3. It also features water resistance up to 50 meters for swimmers and a GPS function to track runs that builds off of Apple’s push for more fitness-oriented users.
“We are committed to fitness and health and think our customers will love the new capabilities of Apple Watch Series 2,” Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief operating officer, said at the event.
Other swimming features include measuring the number of laps swam, lap times and stroke type, which some people say may be extra and unnecessary.
With the recent changes to the new iPhone and Apple watch, Apple is looking to the future, but they are pushing the boundaries — something that some people are not comfortable with yet.
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