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Apple Owns Your Ears

Apple killed the boom box. Now it's going to kill the headphone jack and you know what? That's okay.

Best Noise-Canceling Headphones

Rumor has it that the next-gen iPhone will dump the headphone jack in favor of a straight Bluetooth connection, something proprietary to Apple, or both.

Opinions Because tech news is slow during the summer, this actually became a huge topic of discussion. How pathetic are things when you have to dedicate time and ink to kvetching about the headphone jack? Well, I can play that game, too.

If it removes the jack, I'm siding with Apple. For one thing, it helps promote the Beats Solo2 Bluetooth headset, and God knows, Apple needs to boost sales of those. I'm not sure when the aesthetics changed from the cool white wires and earbuds to clunky over-the-ear "cans," but it did. And that's a good thing.

The appeal of earphones is that they silence outside noise. Screams? Sirens? You are immune to it all and can be maximally oblivious to your surroundings. You are in the zone, listening to your favorite playlist.

In the days before the iPhone or MP3 players, people would share their lack of musical taste by hauling around huge portable music players called boom boxes, with their tinny cheap sound and faux bass and annoying forced treble. Many placed them on their shoulders as if they were playing it into their right ear, and turned up the volume for all to hear.

The popularity of boom boxes faded fast with the rise of the iPod. This was the beginning of Apple's enormous popularity because the company managed, through marketing, to do the world a huge societal favor by ridding it of the stupid boom boxes. If you saw someone with a boom box up on a shoulder today, you and everyone else would point and laugh.

So we ended up with the image of someone dancing to some unheard music coming in via the white wires and earbuds. A definite improvement, despite some annoying gyration, head bopping, humming, and mumbling.

A number of people have turned to noise-canceling headphones to further isolate themselves. But this had an unintended consequence. Large headphones make it a little difficult to jump around like an idiot because they'll fall off your head; another Apple societal win.

Removing the headphone jack will push users in this new direction: cans. Specifically, those made by Apple. Big shocker there. It will just be the continuation of something Apple started and still controls. Complaining will not change anything, nor should it.

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About John C. Dvorak

Columnist, PCMag.com

John C. Dvorak is a columnist for PCMag.com and the co-host of the twice weekly podcast, the No Agenda Show. His work is licensed around the world. Previously a columnist for Forbes, PC/Computing, Computer Shopper, MacUser, Barrons, the DEC Professional as well as other newspapers and magazines. Former editor and consulting editor for InfoWorld, he also appeared in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Enquirer, SF Examiner, and the Vancouver Sun. He was on the start-up team for C/Net as well as ZDTV. At ZDTV (and TechTV) he hosted Silicon Spin for four years doing 1000 live and live-to-tape TV shows. His Internet show Cranky Geeks was considered a classic. John was on public radio for 8 years and has written over 5000 articles and columns as well as authoring or co-authoring 14 books. He's the 2004 Award winner of the American Business Editors Association's national gold award for best online column of 2003. That was followed up by an unprecedented second national gold award from the ABEA in 2005, again for the best online column (for 2004). He also won the Silver National Award for best magazine column in 2006 as well as other awards. Follow him on Twitter @therealdvorak.

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