This is the company that:

1) got rid of the floppy first

2) got rid of the serial port first

3) got rid of firewire first

4) got rid of non-proprietary charging connectors first

5) decided that instead of adopting a modern file system, would roll its own bastardized, proprietary bullshit system instead

That shark done jumped, yo. MFi licensees must tithe Apple ten percent of their profits. That was one of the main drivers of the lightning port to begin with: you can slap a chip in there that will make your phone say "fuck you, this charger came out of the wrong factory in Shenzen, I'm gonna sit here and die instead." Putting the headphone jack on Lighting allows them to say "fuck you, your headphones didn't pay the Apple Tax, they're not going to work".

Didja see the link in the article? The "maybe Lightning audio won't suck too hard" link? One of those headphones is $800, the other is $450. Me? I buy my headphones two or three at a time. They cost no more than $15 because dollars to donuts I'm going to sweat through them within a month. There is no way forward for me when fucking headphones require a DAC to work.

My Mac mini died last week. Dead hard drive. Need to change the hard drive. Funny thing, though - it may just be a 2.5" drive, but it's got a proprietary connector on it, and it runs proprietary firmware. So to get my less-than-one-year-old Mac Mini to function again, I gotta install the OS on an external.

Because Apple.

I type this on an Air but I'm out. No more Apple bullshit in my life. They really hate their customers these days.