iPhone hopes and fears: In his phone game, what features adored Apple will he eliminate?

Poor Ned Stark (no relation to Tony), lord of Winterfell, guard of the north, hand of the king, regent of the seven kingdoms and protector of the kingdom. When we meet him for the first time in Game of Thrones, it is clear that he is the main character in the story. But [spoiler alert]he ends suddenly and fatally.

If George R.R. Martin has a plot in his writing of The iron ThroneThis is how he makes us discover fascinating characters, makes them love, then kills them without ceremony. Episode after episode, season after season, book after book, someone we love is out of play.

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We do not connect only to the last episode of Eu for incredible views, special effects and tense scenario. We are disconnected from morbid fascination. Who will be killed next?

In an interview with The GuardianMartin said, "You can not live forever just because you're a cute kid or the hero's best friend or hero." I love all my characters, so it's always hard to kill them, but I know it must be over. "

What Martin says, "must be done", Apple calls "courage". In 2016, when Apple killed iPhones headphone jack, Apple's vice president, Phil Schiller, called it "the courage to move on".

As The iron Throne episodes, Apple events often inspire a feeling of morbid fascination for me. In Eu, it's a combination of hope (what progress will the heroes make), mixed with fear (which beloved character Martin will he kill next)?

At Apple events, we're still wondering what new wonderful stuff will come out (and we hope there will be no hope for a new Mac mini), but considering this product, this feature, this connector the scrap pile of the story.

As one of my advisers said, all technology companies must "throw in your darlings." That it is to kill the line Apple II after 15 years in 1983, to replace DOS by Windows (although the prompt A has remained under Windows forever) or to exchange phones for smart phones, technology needs to evolve.

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It's just the equipment. We have seen major changes as we move from individual isolated office nodes to the Internet, from local computing to the cloud, from floppy disks to SaaS, and from physical servers to virtualized instances and containers.

At each transition, we had to buy more equipment, replace our accessories, and learn new procedures. This is understandable, but that does not necessarily make the task easy or welcome.

In recent years, Apple has killed many crowd favorites, often to the contempt and frustration of those who rely on these features.

Look, we know that it's not just Apple. In 2012, Microsoft introduced Windows 8 without the Start menu. It happened like a balloon of lead.

But back to Apple, since the big fall of the society is this week. We talked about the "courageous" elimination of Apple's headphone jack from the iPhone in 2016.

In fact, 2016 was a record year for courage. With its new generation of MacBook Pro, it has destroyed the MagSafe 2 connector, the SD card slot and USB 3.0 ports for the benefit of exclusively USB C technology. Yes, this generation of MacBook also has Touch ID technology but for those who now need to wear dongles for everything, the compromise was far from worth it.

All this brings us to September 2018 and more formidable. According to rumors, Apple will kill the Home and Touch ID button on the iPhone product line. Although the rumors may not be true, we showed that Apple had already proven itself in suppressing the useful in favor of whiz-bang.

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Without the home button, you will have to slide up from the bottom of the screen. Without the built-in Touch ID on the Home button (a feature as brilliant and useful as MagSafe), you'll need to use a face ID.

To be honest, some people appreciate face recognition and do not miss the home button. But others, including me, prefer Touch ID and the Home button.

I did an informal survey on Twitter. While 42% of iPhone X users do not encounter any problem with the face identifier, 35% miss their home button and 23% find the face identification unreliable.

I can not help but think that Apple will soon remove the Lightning interface on iPhones in favor of USB-C. Like Lightning, the USB-C can be used in any orientation, the sockets are about the same size and the USB-C is now the standard connector on Macs.

At this point, we can expect to introduce new chargers, new adapters, new dongles, new strange headphone converters, and so on. For Apple, this is an opportunity to change the use of space in their devices, reduce costs and sell more accessories.

Also: iPhone XS: 7 things that the pros need TechRepublic

But for us, these are years of life with a mix of interfaces, adapters, software and hardware incompatibilities, inconsistencies in use, and user interface templates. What is the damage on your organization system with new dongles and new connectors? How many users will you need to recycle? How much technical support do these changes require?

In the end, it does not matter. Technology must change. Some of our practices are getting better. Others, well, they fall by the wayside after a good run.

Whatever it is, you can count on the change. New products will be introduced. The cherished features will be killed. And, retaining the darkness of light, no matter what changes, one thing is constant: Apple will introduce new horrible wristbands.

Hodor.

You can follow my daily updates on social networks. Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook on Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram on Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.

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