The Internet has been losing its mind the last several days over a rumor that Apple will ship the next iPhone without a charger or cable. The argument for is, of course, that you need a charger and a cable if you want to keep using your phone past the first charge. The case against is that nearly all consumers already have multiple chargers and cables, and the costs of shipping (and later disposing) of all of that is a lot more than you’d think. MKBHD did an excellent job summarizing (below).

This story is interesting to me in a few ways. In a lot of ways, I think your reaction to this story gives a good indication of your general thoughts about Apple. It is also curious to me how worked up people are getting over a mere rumor. Does Apple even know for sure how they’ll be shipping later this year? It is 2020, after all, and every day seems to bring new surprises.

If I were Apple, I’d be looking at ways to ship the phone without a charger or cord, but also have some mechanism where, if customers need those things, they get them with zero delay, friction, or cost. Apple is a pretty smart company. They can figure it out.

One last point is that if true, Apple will have effectively also ended the debate/outrage we all feel every year when they continue to ship $1,000 iPhones with 5W chargers.

As COVIC-19 comes roaring back, Apple is closing Apple stores in multiple states (including my home state, California). All of the work Apple has done to improve the online Apple Store experience over the last few years is paying off for them. Thus far, Apple has been paying its retail employees during these shutdowns. I know that is not true for a lot of employers and this is one area where I think we are all glad to see Apple spending its money.

I can’t help but wonder what the long term effects of this pandemic will be on an already suffering brick-and-mortar segment of retail sales. Microsoft announced plans to shutter its retail stores permanently last week and while I don’t think that will be the case for Apple, I’m not sure anyone else in retail sales is safe at this point.

Steven Sinofsky, formerly of Microsoft, had an interesting Twitter thread a few days ago that was complimentary of Apple and its ability to ship their own Apple silicon. I read through the thread, and at one point he explains the sort of focus it takes for a company of Apple’s size to pull this off.

13/ Watching today’s WWDC you can see a clear and relentless prioritization of that multi-year strategy across a MASSIVE product development team. It is really amazing to see and I really believe under appreciated. I am fond of the expression “don’t ship the org chart”…

— Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) June 23, 2020

Then later, he makes a point that hit me right between the eyes.

15/ It is incredibly clear that everyone at Apple puts strategy requirements above anything “local”. When you wonder why there isn’t more new in Notes or why Mail is missing stuff it’s because supporting a multi-year strategy trumps individual teams and that’s a good thing.

— Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) June 23, 2020

Within hours of Apple announcing that they were moving all Macs to their own silicon within two years, I was on a podcast whining about the lack of a share button in Apple Mail.

I get Sinofsky’s point, but I don’t have any regrets whining about the Mail app, iOS tag support, or any of the other friction points I face every day as an Apple customer that could be solved with better software.

Make no mistake, this week was monumental in the evolution of the Mac. There is a reason that after so many years the macOS now goes to number 11. Apple silicon Macs are going to change the way we use our Macs significantly. I’m not sure if any of us appreciate how much these changes will resonate into the platform’s future.

Still … it sure would be nice if Apple added a share button to Mail on the iPhone and iPad.