If Apple kills the iPhone 7 headphone jack, it's hubris plain and simple

There's a great anecdote I like to tell at parties about how music has changed over the past couple of decades, and I find it particularly relevant on the eve of the iPhone 7 launch.

In Brooklyn, where I used to live, people sell their used junk at "stoop sales" — as opposed to garage sales, which is the norm in the rest of the country (where having a garage is actually possible). One sunny Saturday afternoon, my friend Lauren was checking out a few of these with her 13-year-old daughter, Sylvia (names have been changed).

At one stoop, the seller had put out, amongst various knick-knacks and baggy T-shirts, a stack of old records. Sylvia picked up one of the albums and innocently asked her Mom, "What are these?" Read more...