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00:00♪ It's on and on, it's on and on ♪
00:05♪ Back to low on and on and on ♪
00:07What's up, MKBHD here.
00:09All right, you've heard the rumblings.
00:11It seems like everyone's just saying it.
00:14So let's talk about it.
00:16Apple getting rid of the port in the next iPhone.
00:19See, all of the best and all of the worst things
00:24about Apple products like the iPhone
00:27come from the level of control Apple has over them.
00:30Now, if Apple's trillion dollar value is any clue,
00:33you know, for most people, these are typically good things.
00:36Like we were just talking about this with the M1 Max
00:38and how this vertical integration
00:40is what enables this amazing efficiency.
00:42And that kind of started in the iPhones
00:44with their great use of smaller batteries and less RAM
00:47and their excellent image and video quality
00:50with their image processing pipeline.
00:51All the stuff that people love about the iPhone
00:53comes from this.
00:54But with all of that control,
00:56it also means if you're an Apple person,
00:59you're along for the ride for the misses too.
01:02Now, whether that's an ultra thin keyboard in the Max
01:06that ends up breaking after two years
01:08or just antenna gate or something bad about the iPhone,
01:12you're along for the ride.
01:13So now the next thing for Apple
01:16is getting rid of the port on the iPhone,
01:19possibly as soon as the next iPhone, lucky iPhone 13.
01:24But there's no way they just get rid of the port
01:26and don't say anything, right?
01:28And that brings us to maybe one of the truest,
01:30most consistent facts in all of tech,
01:32which is that most of Apple reporting
01:35can be boiled down to looking at the past,
01:38looking at what the history of one of the biggest,
01:40most consistent tech giants ever has done
01:44and applying that pattern to the future,
01:47assuming it will happen again,
01:49assuming they will keep that up.
01:50So when I do that, when I look back at previous iPhones
01:54as they've moved towards this portless future,
01:58I've noticed that with everything
02:00they've removed from the iPhone,
02:01they always do two things.
02:04One, they try to solve the problem
02:07that is caused by the thing they got rid of
02:10and probably charge you for it.
02:12And two, they will always try to justify on stage
02:17why they got rid of that thing.
02:20So solve and justify.
02:22So just look back at a few years of the iPhone
02:25through this lens.
02:26Let's get rid of all the moving parts.
02:28iPhone 10, they got rid of the beloved home button, right?
02:32Now you would have a really hard time
02:33finding one reasonable person who was like,
02:36oh yeah, get rid of touch ID,
02:38get rid of the best, fastest,
02:40like most perfect biometric authentication
02:42we've ever seen in a phone.
02:44We don't really need the home button anymore, right?
02:46But Apple had this vision of getting rid of this button,
02:49so they needed to solve and justify.
02:53So they did in fact solve no touch ID
02:55by adding this new thing called face ID.
02:57So they're getting back
02:59this form of biometric authentication
03:01and they justified getting rid of it
03:04because hey, look at how much more screen you get.
03:07Look at how great this bezel-less thing looks.
03:09The gestures are great
03:10and this is the future of the iPhone.
03:13And so you could still buy an iPhone with a home button,
03:15the iPhone 8, which was launched
03:17or at least announced on the same day.
03:19But it was very clear from that moment forward
03:22that that was the future of the iPhone.
03:24So here's another one.
03:25Remember when they wanted to get rid of the headphone jack
03:28in the iPhone?
03:29Same thing, solve and justify.
03:32Now this time this was in 2016
03:34and it was a little bit more
03:35of a notoriously less convincing solve and justify,
03:39but they tried it.
03:40They solved no headphone jack
03:42by releasing and selling their own wireless headphones
03:44the same day.
03:45They called them AirPods
03:47and they turned out to be kind of
03:48a ridiculously popular product
03:50that made Apple a lot of money.
03:52And then they went to justify on stage
03:54getting rid of the headphone jack
03:55with a couple of things.
03:57This was the iPhone 7 we're talking about.
03:58And so this actually became
04:00the first water and dust resistant iPhone.
04:02I had to go back and watch the presentation again
04:04to remember that.
04:05But the thing is there were also already phones out there
04:07with water resistance and headphone jacks already.
04:10So they had to toss in a little extra.
04:12They had more space inside the phone now
04:15for a better taptic engine
04:17and a slightly bigger battery.
04:19Sure, I guess.
04:21And they also tossed out this whole courage thing
04:25that went over great.
04:26They had the courage to move forward
04:28towards this wireless future.
04:31Okay, so what's next?
04:33The lightning port.
04:34They wanna get rid of that too.
04:35So the question is now,
04:37what's going to be their solve and justify?
04:41What's gonna be their solution
04:42to getting rid of the lightning port?
04:43And what's gonna be their reason
04:45that they tell us for getting rid of the lightning port?
04:47So I spoke to Mark Gurman about this,
04:49probably the most reliable Apple journalist
04:51on planet Earth right now,
04:53just about when and why they would do this.
04:56Pardon the quality, it is from a MacBook webcam.
04:58What do you think could possibly be Apple's explanation
05:02or angle to justify or explain
05:05why they wanted to get rid of the port,
05:07the last piece you could plug in?
05:08Yeah, you know, I think that their explanation
05:10for moving the charging port
05:12is gonna probably be nearly identical
05:14to their explanation for removing the headphone jack.
05:16Their rationale is probably going to be the same.
05:19One, you don't need it.
05:20Two, we have wireless.
05:21Three, it takes up valuable space
05:24that they can use for other things,
05:25whether that's making a larger battery
05:29or other little gizmos they can throw in there, right?
05:32I mean, this is what would make sense to me.
05:34So my sense is that they're going to add
05:37in-screen fingerprint,
05:38whether that's in the 21 phone or the 22 phone.
05:41That probably, you know, I'm not exactly sure,
05:44but I assume that's gonna take up
05:45a little bit more space inside the phone
05:47to have that sensor underneath the display, right?
05:50So I would say, you know what?
05:52They'll probably be like, this is the trade-off.
05:53We're gonna remove that port
05:55that you probably don't use or need anyways,
05:57and we're going to put that under-screen fingerprint,
06:01a larger battery, better camera, et cetera, et cetera.
06:04Okay, so they add an in-screen fingerprint reader
06:06to the phone the same year
06:07that they get rid of the port, maybe,
06:09so that they can say the extra space
06:11from getting rid of the port
06:12allowed room for those internals.
06:14Maybe that's not technically wrong, but okay.
06:17Maybe a little extra water resistance,
06:18and boom, that can be Apple's justification
06:22for getting rid of the port, sure.
06:23But I think the solve part is much harder here.
06:27It's why it seems to us logically
06:29like removing the port is ridiculous,
06:31like it's the most necessary part of every phone in history
06:35has already had ports,
06:37but here's how I think Apple can frame it.
06:39So number one, they'll say,
06:40we solved it with this whole MagSafe thing,
06:43and now we've got this amazing wireless charging solution
06:45that slaps onto the back of the phone.
06:47It's perfect.
06:48It's amazing.
06:49And number two, when's the last time
06:51you plugged in your phone for anything other than charging?
06:55And what really is gonna need to happen,
06:56to be honest with you,
06:57is they can't pull this off
06:58unless they put the MagSafe in the box, right?
07:00At $40 this year,
07:02I'm sure they can get the margins down at higher quantities
07:04to being able to feasibly price it at 20 or $30,
07:09but I think time allows for stronger margins
07:12on these products and time allows for lower prices.
07:15So I think we'll all even out.
07:17Trust me, if they move to a portless iPhone
07:20and don't include the MagSafe on the box,
07:23you know I'm gonna lose my mind on Twitter, right?
07:25So, you know, that would be pretty controversial
07:28and I would be shocked if they did that.
07:31But on the other hand, you know,
07:32they're the same company that said they're moving away
07:34for environmental reasons this year,
07:36but really requires you to go ahead and buy
07:40that new charger for, you know, 40 or $60,
07:43depending if you get the MagSafe as well,
07:45to really take full advantage of that full power charger.
07:47So I guess anything's possible.
07:49So I agree with Mark.
07:51I think MagSafe kind of has to be in the box logically,
07:54but little known fact,
07:55do you know how the Apple Watch also ships
07:57with that little puck as their own little MagSafe?
08:00There's two versions of that.
08:01There's actually a plastic and metal version
08:03of that little puck charger.
08:04Depending on which Apple Watch you get,
08:06you might get either the plastic cheaper one
08:08or the metal more expensive one.
08:10Right now, the only MagSafe available for the iPhone,
08:12the one they've just invented, is a metal one.
08:15And so I could easily see Apple making a new plastic version
08:19around next year or sometime between now and then,
08:21which will be cheaper,
08:22allowing them to toss it in the box
08:24and also save a little money.
08:26Now, there are some other uses of the port
08:28on the iPhone specifically,
08:30things like transferring data
08:32when you're setting up a new iPhone
08:33or wired CarPlay for the 99% of cars
08:37that don't have wireless CarPlay.
08:39But again, if you look at the grand scheme of things,
08:42Apple's gonna say those are more niche things
08:44and they can dedicate teams of people
08:46to solve those problems like starting a while ago.
08:49So they can make maybe a lightning adapter
08:52for wireless CarPlay.
08:54They can make maybe a perfected wireless iPhone setup.
08:58I already use iPhone setup wirelessly
09:01when I'm transferring my data for an old one.
09:02So they can work on that stuff
09:04between now and the next iPhone,
09:06and then they'll have their solution.
09:08They will have their solve and their justify.
09:11What's next then?
09:14If they've gotten rid of the home button,
09:15they've gotten rid of the headphone jack,
09:16they're getting rid of the port,
09:18are the buttons next?
09:21Oof, that's a good one.
09:22I don't see how they can remove the buttons to be honest.
09:26I am gonna go ahead and say
09:28the buttons I think are here to stay
09:30for at least a couple more years,
09:32just because buttons are just such a difficult thing
09:37to solve and really difficult to justify getting rid of.
09:41And actually as a matter of fact,
09:42replacing the buttons on the side of a phone
09:45with this pressure sensitivity
09:47and haptic feedback has been done before.
09:50And it wasn't great.
09:51I reviewed the HTC U12 Plus in 2018,
09:54which did exactly this.
09:56And maybe the tech in the sensors
09:58and haptic motors is better since then.
10:00Maybe you could remove accidental presses
10:03and even the weird glitches and customization
10:05and do it all better with today's tech.
10:07But even then it's like, I can't help but think,
10:09what if the phone freezes?
10:10You know, you already can't yank the battery,
10:12but now you also can't like hard reset with the buttons
10:15because the buttons are frozen.
10:18Like buttons, buttons the way they are are pretty great.
10:21There's not a whole lot you can improve about them.
10:23And I think getting rid of them
10:25for the tiny, tiny little bit of extra space you might gain
10:29or maybe some better water resistance
10:31is just a really tough sell.
10:33So I think buttons are here for a while,
10:34but again, it's not if, it's when
10:38will they eventually get around to changing that too.
10:41Fun fact though, there is actually already
10:43a completely buttonless, holeless phone.
10:47Did you hear about this?
10:48It's been tried before.
10:49Last year in 2019, along came the Meizu Zero.
10:54And this phone had no charging port,
10:56no speaker holes, no physical buttons,
11:00and no headphone jack.
11:01So we've had a completely holeless phone before.
11:04How did it go?
11:05Well, they got their headlines for sure.
11:06Got a lot of people talking about it.
11:08And then Meizu made the phone an Indiegogo project.
11:11It got a grand total of 39 backers,
11:14failed to meet its funding goal and died, canceled.
11:18So the world wasn't really ready for that yet.
11:20Maybe someday we'll look back and say
11:22that was ahead of its time,
11:23that this whole Meizu Zero thing,
11:26it was just ahead of the tech available to it.
11:28But at the end of the day,
11:29I wanna pass the question off to you,
11:30Philip DeFranco style,
11:31where do you fall on this whole port thing?
11:34If Apple gets rid of the port in the next iPhone,
11:38will you just be right up in line getting it
11:40and just switching to MagSafe and calling it a day?
11:43Or will you be on the other side of that spectrum
11:45raging in the comments about how Apple created a problem
11:49and then solved it and conveniently
11:50sold you a solution again?
11:52I'm curious.
11:53I'm sure there'll be a lot of good comments below.
11:55And then how do you feel about this whole buttonless,
11:57portless future that we're moving towards?
11:59Because again, it's Apple starting the trend,
12:02but as we've seen so often,
12:04maybe one or two years after Apple does something ridiculous
12:07like getting rid of the headphone jack,
12:09it usually ends up becoming a trend
12:11and we start to see it everywhere.
12:12So let me know if you're on board with the whole thing,
12:15or if you hate the idea.
12:16We'll hang out in the comment section below
12:17and I think it'll be pretty good.
12:19Either way, thanks for watching.
12:20If you wanna listen to my entire conversation with Mark,
12:22it'll be on the next Waveform episode.
12:25So definitely subscribe to our podcast
12:26if you haven't already to check that.
12:28And I'll catch you guys in the next video.
12:31Peace.