Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
Jobs had no problem dumping old ports and features even if that angered customers for awhile. Optical drive in MacBooks, for example. Big outcry, now it's clear that software install and music/video can be done more easily via internet. Similarly MacBooks dumped Ethernet, parallel, serial ports long before PC notebooks did. Now it is clear that wireless and USB make all of those unneccessary. Mac OS X broke backwards compatibility with prior Mac apps, while Windows tries to maintain backwards compatibility. Not a lot of people still wishing they could run OS 9 apps. Etc.
A dumb (can only carry audio, can't carry data or power) port like 3.5 mm audio jack is a logical thing to dump. Easily replaced by wireless (BT) and Lightning. So people need to buy new earbuds or use dongle. The people whining about this mostly use disposable earbuds anyway.
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The floppy drive was dropped because no one used it.
Optical drives could be dropped because a better alternative, The Apple Store, and lack of retail boxed product made it seamless.
Ethernet was not dropped, RJ-11 jacks could be dropped because you can run ethernet (as well as serial / parallel services) over other ports like USB. There is no difference in the user experience by replacing one cable with another.
And IMHO Apple have done a spectacular job at maintaining backwards compatibility. They did it through both OS as well as architecture changes. In my case I can't think of a single piece of legacy software that UI used that stopped being supported before it was grossly outdated.
Point being they have been pretty good about eliminating things that were simply no longer being used.
Sure they are providing a lightning port to 3.5 mm jack adaptor but that, unlike prior eliminated hardware, adds an additional step.
Adding steps to a process is not better UX.