Its mostly true when the integrating company cares for the user experience. Which apple clearly does.
The example you shared is the opposite. I am imagining a kernel today written in a manner that airpods would be able to use it to extract the max out of it. Now, it has to support 10 other third party pods, so at the minimum, kernel would be more generalized.
Modular in the sense you have to support multiple hardwares (of different kinds) instead of just one. Eventually you arrive at a place where software is good enough, and hardware + kernels cannot do the exact heavy lifting that is happening today in conjunction. Not the intel level but directionally similar kind of tradeoffs.
> told disgruntled iPhone 4 users that they were holding their phones wrong
That was never proven. Although their PR response was atrocious.
> That was never proven
“All phones have sensitive areas,” Jobs wrote. “Just avoid holding it in this way.”
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/06/jobs-on-iphone-4-ant...
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/24/steve-jobs-describes-ip...
Jobs wasn't exactly wrong - bridging the antenna with your finger was not a good way to hold the iPhone 4.
What's hilarious is how they "fixed" it in software - by changing the signal bar display curve, and then making the lower bars appear taller.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/10/08/a-15-year-mystery-solved-the-...
I guess if apple changes the way it works completely it would be different, with the kernel and such but like
Aren’t peripherals inherently modular kind of definitionally?
You should check that GitHub, it makes AirPod functionality mostly agnostic. The warts could (in some world) be mere bug reports for the manufacturer firmware team.
Personally, I think the Bluetooth standards suck a big one even recognizing how good it’s gotten and I _almost_ resent apple for not pushing this out as anither standard.