> what really makes it is being able to invoke and use Siri reliably when my phone is in my pocket
Interestingly, my AirPods seem to be defective and this is something that mine won't do ;)
> Apple made a trade off, but in this instance, it does not seem like a worthwhile trade off and it does hurt their image when they make some seemingly anti-customer choice like this.
Every Apple device is a tradeoff. It just so happens that the removal of the headphone jack was a trade off that a larger-than-usual number seem to have taken issue with, though it's not clear that this is a perspective shared by the majority of iPhone users.
> Interestingly, my AirPods seem to be defective and this is something that mine won't do ;)
Ah! Of course! Sadly there is no warranty replacement for your problem. ;(
Kidding aside, Siri required some work to understand and shape into a useful tool, but it was worth it to me to make sure I never pulled out my phone without the intention of doing the specific task I pulled it out to do, and only those tasks that require me to look at the screen. Phone calls, playing podcasts, audiobooks and music, and setting alarms, timers and reminders basically work. Haven’t found a way to do Calendar appointments in the level of detail and granularity I prefer though, so I just continued doing that mostly on my laptop.
Not for everyone, but once I figured out how to make Siri useful after years of not using it at all, it was the killer app for AirPods. Still won’t tick nearly all the boxes on anyone’s Butler-in-a-Box wishlist though.
> Every Apple device is a tradeoff. It just so happens that the removal of the headphone jack was a trade off that a larger-than-usual number seem to have taken issue with, though it's not clear that this is a perspective shared by the majority of iPhone users.
I’m not at all disagreeing that every Apple device is a tradeoff. I don’t think I even implied that it wasn’t, what I’m getting at is that on top of the other trade offs they have already made, that this additional trade off, for the reasons they did it, may not have actually been a good one, and I don’t think it has to affect a majority of users to still be a bad tradeoff.
If, and I’m pulling this number from my ass, but if 20% of your existing install base is unhappy with a decision you made on a model they would otherwise have no problem purchasing, but 80% are at worse indifferent, then you’ve still pissed off 20% of your customers.
It might be 15%, or 10%, or 5% or something even lower, but with a customer base as large as Apple’s, that is still a lot of people that may not be buying iPhones the next time they do, or might but will be dissatisfied, and express this dissatisfaction to their social groups. It still tarnishes the brand. If this were the only thing that tarnished Apple’s brand in recent years it might be fine, but it’s not and the removal of the headphone jack didn’t happen in a vacuum.
Interestingly, my AirPods seem to be defective and this is something that mine won't do ;)
> Apple made a trade off, but in this instance, it does not seem like a worthwhile trade off and it does hurt their image when they make some seemingly anti-customer choice like this.
Every Apple device is a tradeoff. It just so happens that the removal of the headphone jack was a trade off that a larger-than-usual number seem to have taken issue with, though it's not clear that this is a perspective shared by the majority of iPhone users.