The Portless iPhone
Why it makes sense, and how Apple is in a unique position to release it.
A portless iPhone? Apple took our headphone jacks starting with the iPhone 7 in 2016, and now they want to obliterate the charging port altogether in one of the rumoured upcoming models? What in the… Come on, Apple! Or maybe… just maybe… we’re missing something entirely.
Before we all get worked up, I have a feeling that by the end of this article, you may at least have a new perspective on why that decision makes sense, only for Apple, in the next 5 years approximately. I say that Apple could be in a unique position to release a completely portless phone because spoiler alert, to the industry, it’s nothing like when the 3.5 mm headphone jack was removed. In order to chip away at this statement, let’s start by summarizing what it meant for Apple and consumers when the beloved AUX port disappeared:
When Apple was merely rumored to ditch the headphone jack, other phone manufacturers rushed to try and beat them to the punch. But who even remembers who did it first? Maybe you do, but it’s beside the point. It was when Apple officially announced it that the industry actually followed. Whether or not you believe Apple did it best doesn’t really matter. What does matter, is the alternative they offered: AirPods, the iOS integration, and the convenience that came with them. Bluetooth audio was very widely accessible before Apple even announced AirPods and the riddance of the headphone jack. But there is a reason why AirPods did particularly well. So well in fact, that they’re the best-selling headphone and/or earphone on the market ever, period (expected to surpass 100 Million units in 2020). And yes, Apple certainly has its big share of people who will buy whatever Apple launches, but Apple can’t keep fooling millions and millions of people with impressive and magical marketing if there wasn’t a true, beneficial value that everyone could sense, or else people would see right through it. You don’t even have to consciously be aware and understand why wireless is miles more convenient than wired, to realize that once you go wireless, there’s no going back.
Here’s my personal experience with switching to wireless. Living in a cold country as I do, winter involves putting on heavy winter coats, scarves, beanies, and backpacks. For anyone who’s in a similar situation, just try to remember how many times your wires got trapped with a doorknob on your way out, or how your wires get in the way of you zipping your jacket, and perhaps the most dreadful of all, untangling your wires, wasting precious seconds, or sometimes minutes of listening time. These are but a few consistent and daily inconveniences users have to deal with when using wires.
To summarize the headphone jack removal, essentially, someone really had to take it away in order for us to realize that we can live a more convenient and seamless life without it. For the audiophiles who refuse to see the value in that, and who still wanna throw the “wired sounds better” argument, here’s a news flash: Apple stopped caring about audiophiles the second they launched the iPod back in 2001, and offered a novel advantage of storing thousands of songs in your pocket. For Apple, It was always about Convenience for the average consumer.
Apple is really good at recognizing when it’s acceptable (but still controversial) to do seemingly radical things like taking away the AUX port. They know when a certain alternative technology is reasonably priced to manufacture and to sell to people. They know how people currently behave with their devices in order to determine if they are ready to face this change or not. And, they know the value that it actually provides to eliminate the pain points that the majority of us do notice, and care about. Convenience is the top priority! Audio comes second.
We’ve covered the headphone jack removal and how itself was an intuitive transition to a more convenient and wireless alternative. Now, will the removal of the charging port be similar to the impact that the headphone jack removal had? Is it any different to the overall landscape of the industry, and if so, how so?
I want to start by acknowledging that I recognize the following: a wired charging connection is always going to be faster than wireless charging. There’s no denying it, so let’s put a pin in that. In terms of convenience, I’ll also be the first to tell you that wireless charging, unlike wireless and wired audio, is not always more convenient than wired charging. If I cared about the speed of charging, then wireless is slower than wired. Moreover, if I cared about the ability to pick up my phone and use it while it’s charging, I can’t even do that with wireless charging. Only a plugged-in cable can allow me to do that. I’ll be the first to admit that wireless for the sake of wireless is not always more convenient. In 2021, we won’t have magic hubs that shoot energy throughout the room directly at our phones to keep them charged 24/7. And no, your iPhone won’t have solar panels or gyroscopic energy charging that requires you to shake your iPhone to charge it, or a graphene battery that lasts over a week.
That being said, let me ask you the following: Do you believe that in 5 years’ time, you’ll still be using your iPhone the same way that you do today? By that, I mean to unlock your phone, open up some apps, type on the keyboard, watch some videos, open up social media, pull out the camera to post a photo or video, then eventually running out of battery, and plugging your phone in again to rapidly juice up and quickly get back to what you were doing? Do you believe so? I’m seriously asking, because if the charging port is removed at a time where we still behave the same exact way described above, then it offers no convenience to remove that port yet (except for very specific security reasons and potentially improved water/dust resistance, both of which offer no daily and measurable improvement for an average consumer).
Apple (and Big Tech) surely knows that wireless charging isn’t always more convenient than wired charging. The only convenience with wireless charging is throwing your phone on a pad and not looking for wires to plug-in! Therefore, it makes sense for Apple to take out the charging port if they are betting on the fact that you will be using and interfacing with your phone, completely differently. What do I mean by that? Let’s look into a few things for now. Today, the iPhone already has commendable battery life with the new iPhone 11 and 11 Pro series. The Apple Watch can really improve your phone’s battery life because it tracks all your health and motion activity and it can process it locally without needing your iPhone to do so. It also sends you notifications without even waking your iPhone, and the fact that it connects to cellular and Wi-Fi means it can directly access notifications from the cloud and the internet without even needing your iPhone as the middle-man.
Do you know what else can improve your iPhone’s battery life even way further? It hasn’t launched yet… Yes, I’m talking about Apple’s heavily rumoured Augmented Reality (AR) headset. This device will not only revolutionize Apple’s lineup but will dictate the future of interface and interaction for the whole industry. Now, I won’t go too deep in this article on the value of AR, but this headset will do to the modern smartphone, what the iPhone did to keyboard phones in the past. AR is the future, and whether or not you believe that to be the case, here’s just one compelling reason that shows why Augmented Reality will obliterate traditional smartphones in the following years: my iPhone and other smartphones provide me, currently, on average, 6 inches of interactive space. 6 inches to FaceTime my loved ones, 6 inches to type and tap, 6 inches to see what people are posting, 6 inches to watch my favourite movies, shows, and YouTube videos: 6 measly inches to experience all of what the digital world has to offer.
What if I gave you your entire Field of View as your portal to experience the world, instead of 6 inches. Just imagine how Maps can be navigated in AR, and having a huge arrow guiding you where to turn left and right instead of having to look down at your phone to get to your destination. Below, an example of how AR can look like with GPS type applications.
That’s just one example of many, and I don’t want to get caught up in the Augmented Reality conversation too much, because I will talk about it for days if I don’t stop myself.
In case you’re skeptical about Apple and their avid interest in AR, they’ve launched ARKit in 2017 (ARKit 3 as of March 2020), an API allowing every single iOS and macOS developer to start creating augmented and virtual experiences that are fully integrated within the Apple Ecosystem. Today, we can experience a hint of what AR has to offer with hundreds of applications, but the experience is still either through iPad or iPhone displays and doesn’t yet span your entire Field of View like a headset can.
The Apple AR Headset will soon become the main device you interact and experience with, becoming your primary display. With that, you’ll begin to realize that your iPhone will not do much other than sitting snug in your pocket, process a ton of data, connect to 5G, do some more processing, and essentially, act as a mobile computer for the AR headset, until this headset can someday become completely independent from the iPhone, effectively replacing it (Within 10 years, by 2030). Within 5–10 years, with improving battery technologies like graphene, solid-state batteries, more efficient processors, and more efficient display technologies, your iPhone will easily last you 2 days, maybe even 3 if you paired it to your Headset and your watch, meaning they’ll share and optimize each other’s battery life, by only utilizing the phone when they need it, by running as much processing as possible locally first.
So now I ask you again, in a world just like that one, do you ever need to absolutely charge your phone quickly in 30 minutes anymore? What if instead of that, I told you your battery was much bigger thanks to the omission of the charging port and its valuable space inside the phone? What if instead, you only ever needed to charge your phone every 2–3 nights overnight, without needing to rush a charge? Just relax, and set it down on its wireless charger overnight, and wake up not needing to even think about charging for the next 2 days (realistically, but hopefully more!).
Because of that tight integration between all of its devices, Apple has a unique advantage when it comes to taking away all ports on the iPhone. Companies can today, theoretically and physically remove all ports. You’ll see, that simply because the 2021 iPhone is rumoured to do so, other manufacturers will race to do it first, but won’t be able to sustain it for long, because of a lack of devices that behave as a support system to each other, and that work together harmoniously. Apple may be the first and only company that can kill all ports while offering value on the other hand, and until other companies figure that out, Apple will be competing with pretty much only itself, just like it does currently in the smartwatch space.
I personally am not sure that the portless iPhone will actually happen soon. To me, 2026–2027 sounds a bit more reasonable. Also, I do expect that Apple will introduce, in new iOS versions 14, new features that likely make file sharing and syncing more streamlined than it already is, helping you forget that missing cable and port. If iCloud offered more storage for the same price, or a cheaper price for the same storage, it would encourage more cloud-stored files, making the wireless future more compelling, valuable, and easy to adopt.
Cheers, and keep looking forward to the future!
