I took my sons with me to the dreaded mall to pick out headphones for their father’s birthday. They are almost as tech-savvy as he is and certainly better tuned into what he would find acceptable than I am.
I marched straight to the Apple store because the instructions were that the headphones (with microphone) would be used not just for listening to music but also for calls on the iPhone and for Skype on the MacBook Pro.
I planted myself in front of the large rack of Apple-branded headphones. “Those are crap,” my sons informed me cogently. Although this view lacked both elegance and detail, I was concerned that their father might share this view. There was another, even larger rack of alternative brands right there in the Apple store to choose from but they convinced me we should go to a different consumer audio store for the “really high quality ones”. The headphones we chose there were of “superior sound quality” (according to the very helpful sales person and also made very clear through their price) and only (!) needed a separate $40 kit to add a microphone. And, yes, I was assured, this microphone kit would work with the iPhone.
Verdict by Dad? Amazing sound quality, very comfortable, noise-eliminating – but the microphone didn’t work with the iPhone. According to the (again, very helpful) phone support staff, we should have also been sold another kit to make the microphone compatible with the iPhone – but they would send us one for free in the mail. Problem solved with the only downside being a couple of hours of lost time and several extra feet of cord once all the adapters are in place.
But this isn’t a consumer complaint story. My question is: why didn’t Apple design the headphone/microphone input to be standard for all headphones/microphones?
Was there some special functionality they wanted to do with the connection that the current standard couldn’t accommodate it? Apparently the Apple-branded headphone/ microphone does come with a very neat remote control for the phone built into the wire (a fact I was not aware of as I set out shopping).
Or did they just overlook or under-value the compatibility with the existing standard during the design phase? One blogger claims that the current design was intentional to adhere to the aesthetic of making the iPhone as sleek and simple as possible, which led to a the head/mic plug design being recessed into the device somewhat to make it flatter against the profile. According to him, any headphone plug works if you reduce the amount of plastic covering around the metal plug so it can fit in further.
Or is this an example of another Apple “platform control point”? [Enter scary music…]
Apple is a master of the platform and its control points – like the iTunes app store. Last week they announced that they would be removing “overtly sexual content” from their App store and the last count I saw reported that 4,000 apps had been removed so far. Getting an app approved for the iPhone is already a tightly-managed, lengthy process that usually requires multiple iterations. The fact that they have complete freedom to revisit their decision and remove an app after approval is a clear reminder of just how much control Apple has over their ecosystem at this control point. “Your business is entirely based on showing women in bikinis on the iPhone? Oh I'm sorry -- you’re now out of business.” (OK, it doesn’t make some of us weep for them – but it’s an impressive amount of control.)
So is it worth it for Apple to also have a control point at the headphone/ microphone connection or was it just habit or arrogance to proceed with a modification of the standard to which existing products have to painfully retrofit?
I’ll admit that I really don’t know, but the companies that are listed as the “top 10” suppliers of iPhone headphones / mics by the web site HeadRoom (http://www.headphone.com/selection-guide/top-picks/top-iphone-products.php?price= ) are quite technical companies whose names you may not have heard if you’re not an audiophile – names like Boston Acoustics, Etymotic Research, Monster Cable, Sennheiser, and Skullcandy (ok, you probably have heard of this one if you have a teenager) – and for whom finding a channel is critical. The Apple “platform channel” could be worth investing in if it includes things like space on the racks in the Apple store, any kind of obvious blessing from Apple as being official or certified, and inside information on implications of new versions before their competitors’ get that information.
But what’s in it for Apple? Why bother?
At the very least, the value you as a platform company get from a control point is a community of innovators who provide variety and choice on your platform. That abundance of choice makes your platform more valuable to the end buyer. And once a company makes the investment to work on your platform (at which point they are called a “complementor”), they have an incentive to get more from that investment through more products, more innovation. If you like technical terms, this benefit is called an indirect network effect. It’s self-reinforcing and mutually beneficial to all parties: platform company, complementor and customer.
When you have a very tight lock over your control point, like Apple does with iTunes music and apps, you can extend the value you get to requiring a percentage of the revenue from anything sold through your platform. Apple gets 30% of the revenue of each app purchased on the iPhone. This is what they call a “sweet” business model (not a technical term) – but typically it’s much harder than it looks to accomplish so be careful in making this your next strategy.
Enough musing. I maintain that it is not an absurd thought to imagine that our headphone / mic birthday debacle was an excellent example of a platform control point in action. I would be surprised if it was not a conscious plan, but if it wasn’t – it probably should have been.
