As many of you know, the common tech media meme about the iPhone 7 is that it’s a very modest update, largely because the case looks very much the same. Curious that this has become a defining feature, even though it will do little or nothing to reflect the quality of the internal workings or its performance.

The lack of a headphone jack also gets a fair amount of coverage, probably more than it deserves. As I wrote previously, once the media latches on to something, it seldom lets go. Consider how long it took for Apple not to be a beleaguered company. Wait, to some it still is, and the lower sales of the iPhone in the past two quarters haven’t helped change that tune.

As a practical matter, the loss of the venerable headphone jack has had a variable impact in the first batch of reviews, but it’s usually meant as a negative talking or bullet point. It actually doesn’t hurt your experience with the new iPhones, unless you absolutely have to listen and charge the unit at the same time. You then have to spring for a $40 Belkin adaptor, or someone else’s adapter, as I expect there will be more over time, and some will be a lot cheaper.

I suppose one could invent a faux conspiracy over the ease with which you can lose Apple’s headphone jack to Lightning adaptor. If you’re concerned, they are $9 each, so it’s not much of a deal. You can always buy a few for a rainy day.

Apple, of course, is looking towards a wireless future — same as with the MacBook and its single USB-C port — where you won’t have to worry about using those old fashioned cables for anything. Maybe if Apple adds wireless charging next year, the circle will begin to close. But supplying free wireless headphones ought to help drive home the point about a cable-free iPhone. I don’t mean AirPods, but basic Bluetooth ear buds. I saw a number of products starting at $19.99 at Amazon, but wouldn’t vouch for the quality of any of them. But if it were similar to the ear buds Apple provides as standard issue, that would be good enough.

Sorry audiophiles, but most iPhone users stick with Apple’s standard issue headgear.

Predictably, the shiny jet-black iPhone 7 is prone to scratching, so the advice is probably to get a case real fast. That said, why buy one in the first place if you can’t experience its beauty?

The other source of criticism is a mixed bag, the solid state Home button. So you sense a click with the Taptic Engine, but there is no physical switch or physical click, which makes it far more reliable. I don’t know about the failure rate, but it’s reported that the Assistive Touch feature, which creates a virtual Home button, is widely used around the world. This move is intended to protect the hardware. Remember that an iPhone is an expensive piece of electronic gear, and fixing anything can be mighty costly. The new Home button, while getting some brickbats from reviewers, eliminates that need.

Without personal experience, I still suspect you’ll probably get used to it, just as much as you’ll probably get used to the lack of a headphone jack. I don’t see either as a serious negative — to me. But I can see where different customers have different priorities, and the feeding frenzy over headphone-gate — there I said it — is bound to influence the buying decisions of some.

Or maybe not.

But consider the negatives: The iPhone 7 doesn’t look very different from the previous model. There is no headphone jack, and a solid state Home button is, well, different. The camera enhancements are important to some, and the wider color gamut will also appeal to a small number of  users. But the latter is most important to people who require accurate color for their work or hobbies. It doesn’t mean a lot to most users. I remember working with the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which also sports enhanced color. All well and good, but you don’t catch the difference unless you have a regular iPad handy with which to compare it. The improved performance from the A10 Fusion processor is also a nice improvement, but again mostly in comparison to previous iPhones that will suddenly seem a little laggy. Longer battery life, in response to years of customer requests, is a plus.

So you’d think this is all just a very modest improvement and it isn’t going to alter the downward sales trend. Worse, Apple won’t be releasing sales numbers after the upcoming launch weekend. The excuse is that there won’t be enough stock to fill demand, but that’s been true in the past, so does Apple expect a less-than-stellar result? Or maybe supplies are more limited this year.

Regardless, there are early indications of very high demand. Two major wireless carriers in the U.S., T-Mobile and Sprint, report huge increases in preorders over last year. We’re talking about close to four times as many. That doesn’t indicate how many units will actually ship this weekend, but something fascinating is happening here. I just wonder whether similar results will come from AT&T and Verizon, and from carriers around the world.

And people are still lining up around Apple Stores to pick them up this weekend.

I suppose Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7, and its burning batteries, may convince some to go iPhone this time. But will a huge sales potential convince Apple that they need to release some numbers? Probably not, but the stock market reacted positively to the early results on Tuesday. Let’s see how long that holds.

Consider the impact. What if Apple produced a brand new iPhone that caught fire or blew up in normal use due to a defective battery system? This would be a product defect way beyond Antennagate and Bendgate in impact. It would endanger the safety of tens of millions of customers. Despite all the apologies in the world, Apple would never hear the end of it, and don’t forget all the lame late night jokes about “hot iPhones” that disappeared “in a flash.” It would be relentless.

What’s more, you’d hear about it in the halls of the U.S. Congress, as Tim Cook and other executives were called in to explain the reasons for this abject stupidity or extreme recklessness, this nasty deed that put people in danger. Worse than Volkswagen’s problems with fake diesel emissions ratings, Apple would receive verbal and written tongue-lashings from politicians and pundits alike, maybe even the President.

The stock price? You’d see it fall rapidly, as Wall Street expressed its distrust the company’s future prospects for success.

But that’s the Apple of 2016. Back in the 1990s, Apple planned to use a lithium-ion battery on the PowerBook 5300 series. Amid reports that early production units burst into flame, Apple switched gears and downgraded to nickel metal hydride batteries. My 5300ce had no battery issues, but it was returned to Apple multiple times for repairs of one sort or another, including a problem with the lower screen bezel where an adhesive constantly leaked from it.

That was then. You expect better now with 21st century manufacturing techniques, so the slow rollout of media coverage of Samsung’s very serious battery issues wth the Galaxy Note 7 phablet is especially troubling. Back on September 2, Samsung initiated a voluntary recall of an entire manufacturing run of several million units due to reports of dangerous battery defects. It’s not that the story was ignored, but it was mostly fodder for the business sections of newspapers and online publications.

Then came a published report in a tabloid paper, the New York Post, that a 6-year-old boy in Brooklyn was watching videos on a Galaxy Note 7 when the unit suddenly exploded in his hands. His family had to call 911 to get the medics to rush the child to the hospital, where he’s being treated for burns on his body. I can imagine the lawyers lining up to handle the liability lawsuit against Samsung.

But if the media did the right thing and made a better effort to get the word out about that recall, would that child have even had access to the Galaxy Note 7, or would the announcement have been missed? It’s hard to know.

Without doubt, this is perhaps the worst possible side effect of a defective consumer electronics gadget. The recall decision was reportedly made due to 35 episodes of batteries overheating and catching fire. One of those fires damaged a motor vehicle that was charging the phablet at the time. In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration warned passengers not to operate or charge a Galaxy Note 7 on airplanes, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission is said to be working with Samsung on the problem.

It’s not that Samsung is ignoring the public implications of this recall either. According to published reports, the company stated, in response to that child’s injuries:

“We take every report very seriously and have contacted the Lewis family to learn more about their situation. As we are currently looking into this case, we are unable to comment further right now.” I also expect lawyers are lining up to plan class-action lawsuits.

While the story has received coverage, it hasn’t quite taken over the news cycle. Not even close. But things went from bad to worse when the company’s stock price plunged on Monday, 10 days after the recall, costing Samsung $14.3 billion in its market cap. It’s a lot, but Apple has fared far worse for far less.

But this is not a serves ’em right article. I doubt anyone believes that Samsung deliberately paid less attention to quality control when the Galaxy Note 7 was developed. I’ll assume the usual amount of Q&A was performed, and the company clearly had high hopes for sales, with several million reportedly sold before the rug was pulled from under it. It’s just that battery technology isn’t perfect, and even minor unexpected glitches somewhere in the production process may have nasty side effects.

Now you may think Samsung is selling lots of kit, but the early numbers don’t come close to the expected sales of any iPhone. But Samsung’s troubles could boost sales for Apple even further. Still you won’t hear the results of launch weekend sales, at least according to that recent press statement using the excuse that Apple can’t produce enough product to fill demand, implying the sales figures would be unrealistically low.

Or perhaps they knew last year’s totals couldn’t be matched, and there will therefore be no official word about what really happened. On the other hand, there may be some clues when Apple releases its numbers for the September quarter late in October. From there, you can expect unofficial estimates of both iPhone 7 launch weekend sales, along with Apple Watch Series 2 sales.

As to Samsung, I wonder how many people are going to put Galaxy smartphones in their shopping list after this tragic episode. There is likely to be a long-term impact, assuming the press does its duty and continues to pay attention.

If you can believe Apple’s corporate spin machine, it took “courage” to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack, a venerable connection port that has been in use in one form or another since the 1950s. On the surface, this seems to be true. Beginning with the 1998 Bondi Blue iMac, Apple began to ditch legacy ports that it perceived had outlived their usefulness. The floppy drive and optical drive also received their walking papers. On mobile gear, the original dock connector gave way to the Lightning port.

Between adapters and external devices it was usually possible to work around these changes. But that didn’t mean that you didn’t have to endure a little pain along the way. While external floppy drives would generally support HD disks, not so for the single-sided or double-sided floppy formats. I still cannot live without an optical drive, but since a client sent me one as a present for my iMac, it’s just a matter of occupying yet another USB port. Thank heavens for hubs.

The headphone jack is obviously a huge deal, however, since it has been installed on perhaps billions of devices over the decades. Building a device with audio output capability that doesn’t have a traditional jack of some sort may indeed be a matter of courage, or the feeling that there is a better alternative. Or it’s time to move everyone to wireless, so adapters are no longer necessary. But Apple didn’t help the cause by supplying wired ear buds with the iPhone 7. Those fancy AirPods are $159, but that’s not out of line compared to some headgear from other companies.

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You would think that Apple’s periodic decisions to ditch or change ports on their gear would be old hat by now. But when leaks about the iPhone 7 emerged, two issues arose, and one just went way beyond the usual expectations about a the new model. So the case design was going to be essentially the same with some new color choices. Not such a big deal, although some suggested that the model designation shouldn’t go up a full digit to iPhone 7.

So make it iPhone 6 SE or something.

But that wasn’t to be, because the case does look a little different, and the bulbous fitting for the camera is smoothed out. Most cases designed for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus supposedly will fit perfectly fine on the new model. So despite the fact that people might well complain over the fact that it’s not different enough, there are obvious advantages.

It doesn’t matter that there is longer battery life, a brighter display with superior color rendition, an upgraded camera system (or systems), a redesigned Home button, faster performance (exceeding that of a number of Macs) and other improvements. Looks say it all regardless of what’s inside. Harken back to the release of the iPhone 6 in 2014. Do you even remember the new features? It was mostly Apple Pay support and camera improvements, a speedier processor, and — oh yes — the larger displays, in 4.7-inches and 5.5-inches. Aside from the larger screens, how many of you would even remember what else actually changed?

But the iPhone 7 is all about the vanishing headphone jack, and perhaps Apple’s reasons for making the change. This is where it gets kind of dicey. You see, Apple mentions alleged conspiracy theories about the move that it claims aren’t accurate. Senior VP Philip Schiller talked about Apple having the courage to make the change, which may be true, but that isn’t a reason for removing something that just works. After all, the headphone jack may be a very old technology, based on a still older technology that dates back to the 19th century, but that is no reason to give it up.

Is it less reliable? Well, it doesn’t require advanced integrated circuitry — and Apple can’t charge a licensing fee for the technology. It’s cheap to make, but it takes space, and Apple has a problem with some things that take up space. Now perhaps the headphone jack is a point of failure. It also makes it more difficult to make the device water-resistant. In addition to reducing the iPhone’s susceptibility to water, there’s more room for a second speaker and other components, along with a slightly larger battery.

What you give up, however, may be the deal breaker for some. True, Apple provides the headphone jack to Lightning adapter, so your existing headgear should work fine. But what if you wanted to listen to something and still charge your iPhone? Well, suddenly you need yet another dongle, such as the $39.95 Belkin Lightning Audio + Charge Rockstar. You connect Apple’s headphone to Lightning adapter to one of these ports. It looks clumsy, but I’ll assume it’ll work just fine.

But you get the picture.

Now there will no doubt be a growing lineup of Lighting-based headphones and such for the new iPhones, but what about converting them back to a traditional headphone jack for use on Macs, PCs, Android handsets, etc? This can get mighty confusing or at least cumbersome.

Apple is assuming we’ll all accept the change over time, and I suppose most of you might not have a problem getting with the program. The adapter ought to do the job. If you lose it, Apple is charging just $9 for a replacement, and maybe you should get one or two extras in case the one in the box goes missing.

Apple has certainly made a reasonable effort to get you up to speed, done in a way that will impact the smallest number of people, except for those who can’t buy the reasons for the change.

The end game may be more about switching everyone to wireless headgear. Apple’s initial foray is AirPods. It is somewhat costly for such gear, at $159, and may seem like overkill. According to Apple, its custom W1 chip provides a sort of overlay onto Bluetooth to deliver easy setup and other features. It works fine on an iPhone or Apple Watch, but evidently requires iCloud to interface with your Mac.

Despite the complaints, Apple will live this down, and perhaps iPhone users will come to love the improvements, and learn to tolerate the loss of the headphone jack, just as they learned to tolerate the loss of a floppy drive and an optical drive. At least that’s what Apple is no doubt hoping.

I will charitably assume that Apple did some degree of market research to determine how customers will react to the change. It may even be that the early online chatter on the subject was deliberately fed by Apple to gauge customer reactions, pro and con. I suppose time will tell.

It will also be interesting if some iPhone users protest by sticking with older models, or might consider jumping to Android as a result of this move. But switching to Android means they will have to confront security flaws that won’t be fixed, and the recent problems with Samsung hardware are troubling. That includes the Galaxy S7 Active that doesn’t survive the dunk test, and the Galaxy Note 7 that was recalled due to battery defects.