They've done no ports on devices before. They've already removed headphone jack. So how would it hurt consumers?

By removing the fastest and most reliable means of charging and transferring data.

The removal of the headphone jack was incredibly disappointing and frustrating for MANY consumers.

Since when did stock value correlate with customer satisfaction?

Goalposts: moved.

This is a really insane thread.

That's actually the CEO's catchphrase on earnings calls, so.

A CEO's job is to maximize shareholder value. Sometimes that aligns with customers, sometimes it doesn't.

That is not their job, and they'll be happy to tell you it isn't, and they won't get fired for that. Their job is to do whatever they want insofar as the board doesn't replace them.

You mean like how AAPL drops nearly every time they have some kind of announcement? Yeah, I don't know if that's a good indicator of customer frustration.

3.5mm jacks are still the standard for all wired headphones and will probably outlive both Bluetooth and iPhones.

Also the Macbooks still have it while the M1 didn't have magsafe, so maybe let's not use Apple's decisions as indication of obsolescence.

"charging while using" is a pretty core use case. Are you expecting people to buy a bunch of cords with big dongles on the end? At that point the EU probably would still have grounds to take action since "magnetic attachment point port" isn't exactly "no port."

does using the magsafe charger prevent use while charging?

Yes, the Magsafe charger's cord is 3 feet long. Even if it was longer it would be incredibly clumsy and awkward to hold.

If you're tethered to a cord that's attached to your phone in a specific spot can you be said to not have a "port" even without part of the cable going "into" the case?

I suppose the lawyers would get paid a bunch to figure out how flexible the definition of "port" in the regulation would be. "Port" in networking is obviously purely a concept vs a physical hole. "Port" in shipping is also more conceptual, no two ports need share the same layout.

Removal of the jack dramatically downgraded the quality if you care about it, wireless protocols are simply no match for high end audio. Suddenly ultra cheap phones sounded properly better.

Of course marketing sold it as benefit, which for some it was since they are ok with average quality. Considering thick brick that current iphones are for quite some time, space taken by port was never the issue, unlike stated originally as reason for removal.

Is the DAC in the cheap dongle worse than the old built in DAC?

Not all "really nice" headphones are high-impedance, and if they were a headphone amp isn't a source, it's an amp.

The source is the DAC and the DAC in that dongle is better than most audiophile DACs are. Remember, audiophile equipment is scams made by small companies and iPhone dongles have bigger R&D budgets than their entire industry.

How would you connect your iPhone to HDMI for example? Port charging is faster and more efficient than magsafe. The USB-C data transfer speed is great for data exchange. It is, afterall the "Pro" model.

My car is old and cheap and doesn’t have Bluetooth. Needing to swap between Lightning and USB-C dongles when my wife and I swap over music duties is annoying enough, it’d be far worse if one of those was some magnetic thing that could slide off when I try to prop the phone up in a cup holder.

I bought a £15 adapter for mine

plugged in the back into the unused cd changer port behind some carpet

took 2 mins to install, wish I had done it years ago

The removal of headphone jack is no longer a daily hindrance to me, but it's become at best "every 3-4 days I swear at my company-mandated iPhone for not having a headphone jack" :)

If they remove all jacks, that's so many devices I own, and use-cases I have, poof gone!

I bought a lightning-headphone adapter, and may have to get a USB-C to headphone one (assuming it works). Well worth the expense, and you can just leave it connected to the headphones/stereo.

Oh I have 6. That's the minimum I need to have any hope of having one when I need it (in the car, in the home office, in the office-office, in the backpack, etc).

(I can't "leave it connected to headphones" as my iPhone is not the only device I own; I have multiple headphones and headsets ; and I move myself and my iPhone quite a bit. The nice thing about 3.5 was universal and ubiquitous. Every headphone or headset worked with every phone tablet and music device. Lightning without 3.5mm is just a constant pain in my keister :)

But, the context of this sub-thread as I understood it, is - if they discontinue all the ports completely / go wireless, one could only use bluetooth headphones. And that's the suck because:

1. I already have a number of very nice headphones I planed to last me a lifetime

2. Bluetooth headphones have built-in obsolescence (battery, new protocols, etc)

3. Lag! I like to play synthesizers / make music on computers and tablets. Or play games with Kishi. Bluetooth is a pain for such use cases.

etc :-/

I was kind of expecting the "lowest spec" one to be magcharging only, but maybe that wouldn't really work with a "low spec" and the high end ones use USB-C for external drives and other things.