 "New iPhone might not have headphone jack")
If Apple had its way, this week would play out like Christmas for 5-year-olds. First, unbelievable anticipation. Then, great surprise. At the end, immense satisfaction. When the latest iPhone is unveiled here on Wednesday in a 7,000-seat auditorium, it probably will instead be more like Christmas for a sneaky 10-year-old who long ago peeked at his present. Thanks. That's it?
Anyone who cares enough about the iPhone to know that a new model is being released this month already knows what it is supposed to be like: a little thinner, a little faster and equipped with superior cameras on the Plus model.
By far the most controversial feature, however, is the one that will be missing: a headphone jack. A standard element of technology that can be traced back to 1878 and the invention of the manual telephone exchange, the jack is apparently going the way of the floppy disk and the folding map. The future will be wireless.
We know about this potential absence thanks to a global information chain, one that shadows the supply and manufacturing chain that produces Apple's products. The shadow chain is intended to ferret out Apple rumours: Promoting them, discussing them and then discussing them some more, long before they become facts.
This rumour mill is both a gift to Apple and a burden, a sign that it has not lost its magic and a warning that everyone is on watch for the moment it does. No other company is tracked quite so relentlessly.
Under its co-founder Steve Jobs, Apple relished its ability to keep news under wraps and went to great lengths - legally and otherwise - to make sure it remained that way. "There is one more thing, and we've managed to keep it secret," Jobs exulted in 1999 as he introduced iMacs in colours like blueberry and tangerine. "It's hard to believe, but we did it."
Things have not quite worked out that way.
"When Steve Jobs was around, there was still that hope they could surprise you," said Gene Munster, an Apple analyst. "Today, that hope is largely gone." The long road to unraveling this week's surprises began last November, less than three months after the iPhone 6s had debuted to gangbuster first-weekend sales. The Japanese website Mac Otakara, considered a generally reliable source of information that has ties to the factories manufacturing the phone, wrote about Apple removing the jack in the next iPhone under the heading "rumour."
For anyone not ready to go wirelss, the story said, wired earphones would plug into the iPhone via Apple's Lightning connector, which is typically used for charging power. Traditional headphones would presumably work through a converter
This was big. "Headphones are one of the most basic functions, so this is something that's going to affect users of all kinds," said Eric Slivka, editor in chief of MacRumors.com. "I immediately knew it would be an extremely controversial topic all the way until launch."
A post on the MacRumors site, drawing from the Mac Otakara story, included a cautionary note that began, "Should this rumour prove to be true ..." The post received 1,100 comments from Apple aficionados who had no doubt it was and who, in general, did not like the idea of no jack.
Cellphones were once like bricks, but losing the jack so the iPhone could be even thinner was felt by some to be a bad bargain.
"Any thinner and I'll lose it into the time-space continuum forever," one commenter joked.
MacRumors exists for these kinds of moments. So does AppleInsider, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac and similar sites in various languages, all of which picked up the news and chewed it over. During the next six weeks, helped along by further stories on Chinese blogs, the mainstream media picked it up as well.
Newsweek, sounding rather overwrought, asked, "Is Apple Ready to Kill the Beloved Headphone Jack?"
A Fast Company article announced that Apple would be dropping the jack - "It's True," read the headline - and added that the iPhone would probably support wireless charging and be waterproof.
By early January, emotions were at a fever pitch. An online petition from SumofUs.org, which more than 300,000 people have signed, denounced Apple for creating more electronic waste - presumably, headphones that will no longer work with the iPhone and be thrown out.
Some commentators explained that even if people used adapters with their old headphones, they were gaining things, too. Other commentators noted that people complained that Apple never innovated anymore, and yet here it was innovating, and people were complaining anyway.
Then came the rumour that the headphone jack was not going away after all. The Chinese website Mydrivers.com published a photo of what it said were the innards of the new iPhone with the jack right there. "Has the rumour mill been lying to us?" wondered Cult of Mac. "Surely not!"
Two weeks ago, with the volume of commentary picking up as the big reveal approached, even Apple's other co-founder, Steve Wozniak, weighed in. "If it's missing the 3.5-millimeter earphone jack, that's going to tick off a lot of people," he told the Australian Financial Review. But he added a conciliatory note: "We'll see. Apple is good at moving towards the future, and I like to follow that."
Perhaps it is better to be forewarned about what the future holds rather than be forced to confront it abruptly. "We soften the blow," said Neil Hughes, managing editor of AppleInsider. "Can you imagine that if no one saw it coming and Apple just dropped this on Wednesday? People would lose their minds."
Apple, which declined to comment for this article, most likely has a different view. In late 2004, it went after several websites, including AppleInsider, saying that when they posted details about unreleased products, they were publishing stolen property. At first Apple found success in court but then was sharply reversed on appeal. It was ordered to pay $700,000 to cover the sites' legal fees and generally looked like a bully.
For several years, Apple sold a T-shirt in its Cupertino, Calif., campus store that read, "I visited the Apple campus. But that's all I am allowed to say." A recent Apple presentation poked fun at its extensive security measures. But even if the company can now have a laugh or two at its own expense, its philosophy has not changed.
"Do you remember when you were a kid, and Christmas Eve, it was so exciting, you weren't sure what was going to be downstairs?" Mr. Cook said when asked about the rumored Apple car at the annual shareholders' meeting last February. "Well, it's going to be Christmas Eve for a while."
Apple might be the richest company in the world, and quite possibly the coolest, but feel for it for a moment. It has to keep making the iPhone exciting enough so tens of millions of people immediately buy one. Apple depends on this. Never before has a company so large and influential been tethered to one consumer product.
And that product, which recently celebrated its one-billionth sale, may have already hit saturation. Apple sold 40.4 million iPhones last quarter, a drop from 47.5 million during the same period in 2015. It was the second straight quarter of declines.
"I think we've reached peak iPhone," said Seth Weintraub, of 9to5Mac.
But only for the moment. Even as the Apple faithful wait to see all these rumours confirmed, the scuttlebutt and speculation have started about next year's model. It will be the iPhone's 10th anniversary, which means the stakes are going up.
"Apple is hopefully turning on the development afterburners," Mr. Weintraub said. "We hear it wants the phone to resemble a sleek glass slab. It's supposed to be a statement, a really big deal."
Assuming, of course, the rumours are true.
Anyone who cares enough about the iPhone to know that a new model is being released this month already knows what it is supposed to be like: a little thinner, a little faster and equipped with superior cameras on the Plus model.
By far the most controversial feature, however, is the one that will be missing: a headphone jack. A standard element of technology that can be traced back to 1878 and the invention of the manual telephone exchange, the jack is apparently going the way of the floppy disk and the folding map. The future will be wireless.
We know about this potential absence thanks to a global information chain, one that shadows the supply and manufacturing chain that produces Apple's products. The shadow chain is intended to ferret out Apple rumours: Promoting them, discussing them and then discussing them some more, long before they become facts.
This rumour mill is both a gift to Apple and a burden, a sign that it has not lost its magic and a warning that everyone is on watch for the moment it does. No other company is tracked quite so relentlessly.
Under its co-founder Steve Jobs, Apple relished its ability to keep news under wraps and went to great lengths - legally and otherwise - to make sure it remained that way. "There is one more thing, and we've managed to keep it secret," Jobs exulted in 1999 as he introduced iMacs in colours like blueberry and tangerine. "It's hard to believe, but we did it."
Things have not quite worked out that way.
"When Steve Jobs was around, there was still that hope they could surprise you," said Gene Munster, an Apple analyst. "Today, that hope is largely gone." The long road to unraveling this week's surprises began last November, less than three months after the iPhone 6s had debuted to gangbuster first-weekend sales. The Japanese website Mac Otakara, considered a generally reliable source of information that has ties to the factories manufacturing the phone, wrote about Apple removing the jack in the next iPhone under the heading "rumour."
For anyone not ready to go wirelss, the story said, wired earphones would plug into the iPhone via Apple's Lightning connector, which is typically used for charging power. Traditional headphones would presumably work through a converter
This was big. "Headphones are one of the most basic functions, so this is something that's going to affect users of all kinds," said Eric Slivka, editor in chief of MacRumors.com. "I immediately knew it would be an extremely controversial topic all the way until launch."
A post on the MacRumors site, drawing from the Mac Otakara story, included a cautionary note that began, "Should this rumour prove to be true ..." The post received 1,100 comments from Apple aficionados who had no doubt it was and who, in general, did not like the idea of no jack.
Cellphones were once like bricks, but losing the jack so the iPhone could be even thinner was felt by some to be a bad bargain.
"Any thinner and I'll lose it into the time-space continuum forever," one commenter joked.
MacRumors exists for these kinds of moments. So does AppleInsider, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac and similar sites in various languages, all of which picked up the news and chewed it over. During the next six weeks, helped along by further stories on Chinese blogs, the mainstream media picked it up as well.
Newsweek, sounding rather overwrought, asked, "Is Apple Ready to Kill the Beloved Headphone Jack?"
A Fast Company article announced that Apple would be dropping the jack - "It's True," read the headline - and added that the iPhone would probably support wireless charging and be waterproof.
By early January, emotions were at a fever pitch. An online petition from SumofUs.org, which more than 300,000 people have signed, denounced Apple for creating more electronic waste - presumably, headphones that will no longer work with the iPhone and be thrown out.
Some commentators explained that even if people used adapters with their old headphones, they were gaining things, too. Other commentators noted that people complained that Apple never innovated anymore, and yet here it was innovating, and people were complaining anyway.
Then came the rumour that the headphone jack was not going away after all. The Chinese website Mydrivers.com published a photo of what it said were the innards of the new iPhone with the jack right there. "Has the rumour mill been lying to us?" wondered Cult of Mac. "Surely not!"
Two weeks ago, with the volume of commentary picking up as the big reveal approached, even Apple's other co-founder, Steve Wozniak, weighed in. "If it's missing the 3.5-millimeter earphone jack, that's going to tick off a lot of people," he told the Australian Financial Review. But he added a conciliatory note: "We'll see. Apple is good at moving towards the future, and I like to follow that."
Perhaps it is better to be forewarned about what the future holds rather than be forced to confront it abruptly. "We soften the blow," said Neil Hughes, managing editor of AppleInsider. "Can you imagine that if no one saw it coming and Apple just dropped this on Wednesday? People would lose their minds."
Apple, which declined to comment for this article, most likely has a different view. In late 2004, it went after several websites, including AppleInsider, saying that when they posted details about unreleased products, they were publishing stolen property. At first Apple found success in court but then was sharply reversed on appeal. It was ordered to pay $700,000 to cover the sites' legal fees and generally looked like a bully.
For several years, Apple sold a T-shirt in its Cupertino, Calif., campus store that read, "I visited the Apple campus. But that's all I am allowed to say." A recent Apple presentation poked fun at its extensive security measures. But even if the company can now have a laugh or two at its own expense, its philosophy has not changed.
"Do you remember when you were a kid, and Christmas Eve, it was so exciting, you weren't sure what was going to be downstairs?" Mr. Cook said when asked about the rumored Apple car at the annual shareholders' meeting last February. "Well, it's going to be Christmas Eve for a while."
Apple might be the richest company in the world, and quite possibly the coolest, but feel for it for a moment. It has to keep making the iPhone exciting enough so tens of millions of people immediately buy one. Apple depends on this. Never before has a company so large and influential been tethered to one consumer product.
And that product, which recently celebrated its one-billionth sale, may have already hit saturation. Apple sold 40.4 million iPhones last quarter, a drop from 47.5 million during the same period in 2015. It was the second straight quarter of declines.
"I think we've reached peak iPhone," said Seth Weintraub, of 9to5Mac.
But only for the moment. Even as the Apple faithful wait to see all these rumours confirmed, the scuttlebutt and speculation have started about next year's model. It will be the iPhone's 10th anniversary, which means the stakes are going up.
"Apple is hopefully turning on the development afterburners," Mr. Weintraub said. "We hear it wants the phone to resemble a sleek glass slab. It's supposed to be a statement, a really big deal."
Assuming, of course, the rumours are true.
©2016 The New York Times News Service