In what sure seems like a blatant bit of nickel-and-diming, Apple will no longer include a free 3.5-mm headphone jack conversion dongle with the new iPhones it announced on Wednesday.
So if you want to listen to music with wired headphones on your fancy new $ 1,449 iPhone XS Max, you’ll have to shell out an extra $ 9.00 for one of the clumsy, much-hated and all-too-frequently lost adapters.
(Apple does include a pair of lightning earbuds in the box.)
Predictably, folks on Twitter did not greet the news favorably. It turns out the only thing worse than having to use a dongle is … not having one at all:
Apple: "We were able to keep the price of the iPhone Xs the same as the iPhone X by courageously removing the dongle for your headphones! Now you don't need to worry about losing the dongle we never gave you!" pic.twitter.com/4l91gKM2fH
— Juan Carlos Bagnell (@SomeGadgetGuy) September 12, 2018
AND adding to the story: No more headphone jack dongle included in the box. A trillion dollar company just removed a simple accessory that costs pennies to manufacture. The proprietary dongles are basically pure profit for @apple. (That's why they sell 23 different kinds now.) pic.twitter.com/lnCF41g3IO
— JerryRigEverything (@ZacksJerryRig) September 13, 2018
Apple's spec sheet:
– Fast charging (if you buy an extra accessory)
– Wireless charging (if you buy an extra accessory)
– Headphone compatibility (if you buy an extra accessory)— Vlad Savov (@vladsavov) September 13, 2018
Apple. A trillion dollar accessory company. The new PowerBook still has the old headphone jack … and USB-C ports that need all new cables and dongles too. #hate
— Colin McCavitt (@colinmccavitt) September 13, 2018
Road to quadrillion is built through dongles…
— Sandesh Sagvekar (@sandeshSagveka3) September 13, 2018
