Adding while subtracting Apple way
Story of new iPhone 12 with no charger
Today Apple unveiled iPhone 12 family of devices. Without going into the details and differences between the models, one element caught my attention that I’d like to elaborate on.
This year Apple made a decision to exclude wired headphones and charger from the device package, instead they are including a Lightning to USB C cable. Question that comes to mind is: why go through all this trouble with getting rid of charger, adding in its place a Lighting to USB C cable, instead of going all in on USB C and cutting all cables altogether? It’s not like Apple is new to USB C, after all they have been releasing devices with it since 2015, making a debut in MacBook 2015 model, followed by MacBook Pro in 2016 and iPad Pro in 2018. To a consumer it is only natural and convenient to have one connection to worry about and not bother with adapters and extra cables.
My theory is Apple got stuck in-between the point where they can go full wireless, with no cable connection on their most important device at all and switching to USB C and admitting that open standard is better in all the ways than their proprietary Lightening standard developed 10 years ago. Given Apple’s history of integrating USB C as connection of choice for the last 5 years it felt natural that it would culminate in going all in on USB C. And yes, Apple gets small royalties from 3rd parties making lightening cables and accessories, but for a $2T company that is peanuts.
MagSafe
Let me elaborate a little on the port-less future for iPhones. A big step in that direction was taken today with introduction of MagSafe wireless charging capability in the new iPhone 12 line of smartphones. Next year will be crucial for Apple in gathering user feedback about the use of this charging option and if all goes well and this technology advances some more, very likely two upgrades from now, in 2022, given Apple’s 24 month major iPhone model redesign calendar we’ll see MagSafe 2 with faster and more refined charging as the only charging option completing the evolution of the device first losing its headphone jack, then sim slot in favor of eSIM and finally losing its last power port in favor of all-wireless design. This is or course wishful thinking and may not happen at all, or take more than one full design cycle, though given past announcements this is a likely future development.
Back to the power adapter and wired headphone subtraction being presented as addition, this was shown in the most environmental way possible. This move alone should allow iPhone boxes to be 70% smaller, making an impact equivalent of taking out 450,000 cars from the road annually. It sounds nice until you start thinking that all first time phone buyers will need to buy a charger and headphones anyway. Those of us with existing chargers, still need to replace them every couple of years due to degraded performance and faster GaN (gallium nitride) chargers coming on the market. These extra chargers will now necessitate their own purchase with shipping and packaging that arguably has a bigger negative impact on the environment than had the charger been left in the iPhone box, as was the case all along.
Maybe internal thought process at Cupertino was along the lines of wanting to make a great charger, that on the flip side would increase the cost that Apple would not be able to pass on to the consumers if they kept the charger as part of the package, and on the other hand making a standalone charger was not a kind of product Apple felt like getting into.
Mind you this subtraction does not result in a price reduction to the consumer, this one goes straight into improving profit margins, not by much, but in this game any such “improvement” is most welcome by the investors. And that is how subtraction turns into addition, nice one Apple.
