Headphone Jacked
On September 7, 2016 Apple revealed the latest edition of the iPhone: The iPhone 7. Undoubtedly, the biggest piece of news that came out of the announcement was Apple’s decision to remove the 3.5mm headphone input (aka jack); a standard piece of equipment in nearly every smartphone, ever. The decision was hailed as courageous by Apple marketing executive Phil Schiller who took the stage to introduce the phone.
As you may have expected, this headphone jack business was not taken lightly by many people online. The public ridicule and outrage aimed at something that is, for all intents & purposes, a luxury item was a tad over-the top.
While everybody is certainly entitled to their opinions (even you, Colin Kaepernick), I wanted to try and put this headphone jack business into perspective. Let’s review a few other things that happened in the world this week, and compare them to the removal of a headphone jack…
Perspective
Since Apple’s iPhone 7 announcement on September 7, 2016, sixty people have been reportedly killed by firearms in the United States.
The weekend prior to the announcement, the city of Chicago surpassed 500 homicides for the year. There are still about 4 months to go until 2017.
Mike Krawitz, a politician running for town council in West Deptford, NJ dropped out of his race after publicly calling for the rape of a female journalist via Facebook.
The Republican nominee for President of the United States praised Russian President Vladimir Putin — even stating that he’s a better leader than President Obama.
Private security forces attacked peaceful Native American protestors who are protesting the destruction of sacred cultural sites by construction crews building an oil pipeline across North Dakota.
Sea levels are rising at an unexpected and astonishing rate due to global warming. The risks to the US coastline are here and now.
On the same day as the iPhone announcement the Syrian government poisoned its own people in the city of Aleppo (including women and children) via a chlorine gas attack. Initial estimates reported over 150 casualties.
Maybe, just maybe, we can focus our energy on making the world a better, safer place for all of its inhabitants first. Once that’s taken care of, back to the headphone jacks.
