Before Christmas, the Apple community spurred a huge controversy as Macotakara claimed that the iPhone 7 will ditch the 3.5 mm standard headphone port completely, to enable further thinness and internal space savings for other components. The 3.5mm jack is a hundred-year old technology based on analogue signals, so although it is ripe for replacement, almost all headphones sold today rely on the 3.5mm jack. Cutting the port for the iPhone 7 could be a painful transition. Today, the Chinese media has posted further news confirming the original story, claiming that Apple will drop the next-gen iPhone’s 3.5mm headphone jack in favour of wireless headphone standards and Lightning …
Chinese site Anzhou says that supply chain sources have confirmed the removal of the 3.5mm port on iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and Apple will instead focus on wireless headphones to output sound. The site claims Apple will make wireless equivalent of Apple’s ‘EarPod’ headphones. Feng notes that Lightning headphones will be the wired alternative option, but Apple ‘expects’ most people to move to wireless particularly if Apple starts bundling wireless EarPods with the iPhone 7 as suggested.
It’s worth noting that Apple did make a wireless headset for the original iPhone, but it was a pricey optional add on. Today, the company produces all kinds of headphones (3.5mm, Lightning and wireless) through the Beats subsidiary. Although headphones with Lightning ports do exist on the market today, they are a niche market and often expensive, and it’s unclear if the ecosystem will be able to catch up in time for the iPhone 7 launch. Part of the reason the 3.5 mm port is ubiquitous because it is a cheap, simple port and an industry open standard. This is another concern if Apple preaches its proprietary Lightning connector as the new ‘wired’ alternative, which has licensing fees.
The iPhone 7 (or whatever it is actually called) is expected to be released in the fall with major external and internal changes, potentially including larger batteries and a 256 GB storage option. Do you think Apple should abandon the 3.5 mm jack? It’s been a few weeks since the initial rumor so we are interested in hearing your follow-up feelings in the poll and comments section.
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Very bad idea… Nah, man… Please. I love the classic 3,5 mm headphone jack. *sigh* … Will buy iPhone 6s Plus soon then.
Honestly, I have never used the 3.5 mm jack on my iPhone 6, and I have never used the included earbuds. I like Bluetooth, which has advanced greatly over the past couple of years. That said, I think I will miss the opportunity to use the 3.5mm jack. And despite some, I think analog is fine. After all, sound -is- analog.
I think my big loss will be in an airplane using noise cancelling headphones. I haven’t flown in the past year (new job, etc), but I see that as a serious concern.
If Apple can show that they’re eliminating the audio jack for good reason (clear & obvious space savings, robust water-proofness far above and beyond Samsung’s lame attempt, or other clear advancement that I can’t imagine), then I’m all for Apple unloading the jack. However if eliminating the jack basically makes my life harder without good cause, then that is very lame of Apple.
I do like the idea of wireless but I am sick of having to charge everything. Phone, watch and now headphone. Meh!
In the first line, I think that you meant to use ‘spawned’ not ‘spurned’
Spurned = to reject with distain
Spawned = to give birth to; give rise to:
Thanks, typo.
Why do you only mention wireless ?
Does Lightning ring a bell ?
If their concern is thinness and room, that sounds logical.
They will probably give Lightning EarPods with your brand new iPhone 7, not a Solo2 Wireless…
And because everyone would complain about this if they didn’t, I really think they should also give a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter. If they sell it, people will get really mad.
Sorry, you actually mentioned Lightning. But I maintain my point about an adapter to cool people off.
honestly I don’t think Apple would include a free adapter unless it’s mandated by law.
Anything that you get when you buy a product has a cost. There is no “free”.
As far as I’m concerned, Apple can stop selling iPhones with an AC power adapter. I have about a dozen power adapters. And I certainly don’t need earbuds. Yet every iPhone comes with these things. And they all have a cost that lands in the lap of the buyer.
Admittedly, hoarders may think differently.
Their phone prices have been consistent for years ($649 with $100 premiums for storage increases). You think if they removed the AC/USB/headphones they’re going to drop the price by $50? Unlikely. So yeah, if they stop providing any of those and keep the price at $649, it’s only to help Apple’s bottomline and give a big FU to their customers. I don’t think they do that.
I certainly hopw so, I also hope that they bundle a couple of okay-good Bluetooth earbuds instead of a stupid adapter or a pair of Lightning earbuds.
This will only be good news if Apple provide wireless EarPods with the iPhone!
“It’s worth noting that Apple did make wireless earbuds for the original iPhone”
Do you have any link or info about this? I was aware of the Bluetooth headset but not wireless earbuds.
Isn’t Bluetooth a form of wireless?
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Changed to ‘headset’. Apologies.
I think Apple should do away with Lightning and just man up and go with USB-C. Sometimes they put themselves in corner when they come out with proprietary technology. USB-C connector accomplishes the same thing as Lightning and I believe USB-C is the future. As far as removing the 3.5mm headphone jack? Dumb idea. the iPhones are plenty thin enough and there are infinitely more headphones/earbuds with 3.5mm and I just don’t think there is a valid reason to get rid of them. It will piss off a lot of mfg that make 3.5mm headphones/earbuds. I think the only need for a Lightning/USB type connector are for using with a headphone that has built-in DAC, etc., which are only a small handful as that connector bypasses the internal DAC, etc.
Wireless is the future. Soon there will be no headphone jack or charging port. The phone will be perfectly encapsulated and everything will happen wirelessly and Apple is the best company to do that. People will hate it, they will be venting and screaming, but Apple can take the heat because they were the ones that got rid of floppy disk in 98′, they were the ones that got rid of optical disk drives in 2007 and they once again will make the next paradigm shift and mainstream it.
You can’t claim that Apple getting rid of the floppy disk in ’98 and disk drives in 2007 changed the world my friend. Changing 10% of the worldwide PC market doesn’t change anything, which is why the VAST majority of PC’s worldwide STILL ship with optical disk drives. That isn’t “mainstreaming” anything.
Aunt T – it is mainstreaming but with a more niche market – before apple did away with optical drives, every company thought it impossible to do so and refused to compromise but look at the market now – hundreds of lightweight PCs have appeared absent of a optical drive helped by the continuing prevalence of cloud technology
They didn’t get rid of the CD/DVD player for me. I bought and use an external one for my desktop as that’s where I rip my CD collection to AIFF files. I typically buy CDs for music unless there is a Lossless or uncompressed version that’s better than 16/44.1 OR if I can only get the content in MP3 format. I don’t use it every day, but I still use it. I’m just happy to use an external because I can unplug it when I don’t need it, and it’s a lot more reliable than the internal models. Apple got rid of them for a variety of reasons, here’s a few reasons why.
1. They added a cost to the computer.
2. They require additional power that may impact the size of the power supply or battery life.
3. It required additional space, so for models where they want to make as thin as possible, removing the CD ROM drive allowed for a thinner computer.
4. More people are downloading apps, content so there is less of a need for it.
I wouldn’t say CD/DVD’s are completely dead, but they certainly aren’t used as much as they were, but there are still users (PC and Mac) that still use CD/DVDs.
I just looked on Amazon and couldn’t find a 3.5mm female to Lightning Male adapter. I’m not saying no one makes one, but so far I couldn’t find one.
far as sound quality? I don’t know typically wireless doesn’t sound as good as wired for music applications. Just saying.
Optical drives in 2007? Sorry, they kept shipping those through at least 2012. Floppy? It was useless even before Apple ditched their drives. The headphone port and the venerable 3.5mm connector is not obsolete and Apple won’t be able to make it so even if they leave it off the iPhone.
Audio is analog when it reaches our ears. The iPhone has a DAC in it, we don’t need to pay for another external DAC just to use a set of cans.
Bluetooth audio is mediocre at best right now and performance would greatly improve with support of AptX which Apple doesn’t offer.
Apple won’t do away with aligning but they should. Apple made the weird choice of having USB-c port in the back of the new Apple TV, but made the charging port on the Siri remote Lighning. The new Magic mouse, trackpad and keyboard are all Lightning. The updated IMac’s skipped USB-c ports for whatever reason.
Apple seems heavily invested in Lightning and unlikely to ditch it for a charging or headphone port on iPhones. If Apple amended its MFI program I would have.no problem with them using Lightning for the headphones. Look at the lack of HomeKit devices, AirPlay devices and aligning headphones now and you will see the MFI program sucks and is holding back innovative products.
MFI makes me avidly against Apple switching to Lightning. My choice would be a port that accepts both USB-c and Lightning cable or ditch the SIM card for a USB-c port for the headphones.
MFI is garbage for sure, but because of how they do it, not the idea. The idea of locking stuff down to specific specs is good, but it absolutely destroys some things, like MFI restriction for gaming controllers. Most idiotic idea from Apple. The fact that you have to purchase a piece of garbage controller instead of using or purchasing the best controller in the world (PS4), is beyond embarrassing. They completely screwed up there. Moreover, the Apple TV 4 could have decent games on it, ESPECIALLY if they let you use the PS4 controller, but instead they locked it to forcing developers to support the Siri remote. If I were Tim I’d fire many people for that, just saying.
I won’t be buying wireless headphones, it is just like a microwave for the head. I won’t buy iPhone 7 if it uses only wireless headphones. This is so insane.
Really? What about Tv, radio, cellular… Its all microwave. Are you gonna leave them?
The idea is to minimize the effects as possible. Being reasonable, not paranoid, still I would prefer to have that choice.
The idea is to be reasonable with your choices, not paranoid, but still to have the ability to choose. I would like people to have that option and not to be forced one way. Make sense?
Your phone is also a microwave to the head so this makes that argument invalid by the fact you own a cell phone
Not if you use a wired headset, it doesn’t.
If you think the (non-ionizing) radiation from a set of BT headphones is bad, just look at all the dangerous stuff coming from the Sun!
There is no scientific evidence that shows it is harmful in the slightest.
I called this when the iPhone 4 came out, let’s see what happens
I understand people who are concerned about their headphones etc. But imagine that’s the way to water-proof iPhone? So imagine iPhone 8 (which is due to release in 2018 or something like that) with much improved camera which can shoot underwater (and compete with GoPros and others). That would be cool. And by then, nobody will care about the 3.5 jack. We’ll just adjust to the reality – which I personally like. I would go in a heartbeat wireless. No wires, no worries. :)
Well you need a waterproof iPhone for future sensors that scan water and draw 3D maps of what’s in the water using sonar. And no, I’m not being entirely serious, but sensors will happen.
You can tell from my name I’m happy with this rumor. The jack port takes up waaaay too much space. Just like the sim card tray.
Like most of the people who comment, I agree that the removal of the headphone jack is a smart choice. Especially if every iPhone will bring its own wireless earbuds. I’m especially curious what they will do with the extra space it provides, as it seems quiet a significant amount if one looks at the current iPhones. And just as you said, the SIM card tray they can take as well. With every iPhone I’ve owned, I have just used the sim card tray twice. The first day it arrives, and the day it leaves. Seems just as old fashioned as the floppy drive (just by the form ;))
Absolutely right. But the problem with the sim card tray is that Apple needs to get approval from some governments to do that. I read that last year that that was the reason why Apple still hasn’t killed off the sim card. Because we know they want to, it’s obvious.
What will they do with the freed up space? They will slim the device down untill they reach the same battery life today’s iPhones have. No way will they increase it’s battery life.
But just imagine a jack, sim card and home button free iPhone… It could be as slim as 5mm thanks to all that freed up space. Would be awesome.
Yes the headphone jack and sim tray will go. The logic board will be reengineered to put useful chips behind the flash chips where the sim tray rests now, and the entire logic board will be able to be significantly condensed. It’s probably how they’ll be able to put the 256GB chip in as well, if that rumor pans out. You can imagine why the 256GB chip will only be in the Plus model, as it takes up more space, but they’ll be able to condense the logic board and fit the 256 in the Plus.
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It does not matter what Apple does, the so-called “Apple Fanboys” will still follow it blindly.
Of course. Every iPhone owner is an “Apple Fanboy”.
Just like every Android and Windows user is an Android and Windows “Fanboy”. 2 way street.
And then the Microsoft and Android crowd will eventually follow not blindly? Really? Apple has set trends that eventually the PC and Android crowd follow. Look at Samsung, they got rid of the user replaceable battery, and the MicroSD cards for their top end phones, and the whole Android phones and tablets are a rip off of the original iPhone and IPad.
Seriously, the thing you don’t understand is that Apple users use Apple because they don’t want to use Microsoft or Android based devices and they learn to work around any major paradigm shifts. It’s called change, something you have to get used to when using computer products. Sometimes the change is for the better and sometimes not, but there is always going to be change. Or are you still stuck on Windows 7 or earlier because you don’t want to upgrade your OS? Remember, over 70% of the Windows users are using a very old version of Windows. Yeah, that tells me that Windows users aren’t stuck in the past and aren’t willing to change. Same thing can be said about Android users, most of them use an outdated OS. Hmmmmmm….
It’s not so much that Apple set trends. It’s that instead of voting with their wallets, hoards of blind sheep buy into anything Apple does, irregardless if it’s good for the customer or not. In order for the other companies to stay relevant, they have to adopt whatever Apple does—whether they like it or not.
And may I also add, probably the biggest reason why many Android users are stuck using an outdated OS is because of the carriers, and to some extent, the vendors (but you wouldn’t know that, because you’ve probably never used Android). I know for a fact that Google would love for everyone to be on Marshmallow, but that’s because Apple strongarms everybody—carriers and users included—into updating. That’s why you see Microsoft doing what they’re doing with Windows 10. They know that if many people are left to their own devices, they are going to leave their device as-is (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).
I follow good decisions, intelligent people do that. If Apple put a FaceTime camera in the next watch id declare them absolutely beyond stupid.
Nobody dares to or will succeed in this “needful move” except Apple.
I would like to see that ugly port ditched for more space.
my problem with this rumor is this…
apple keeps preaching “good for the environment” blah blah… the 3.5 connector does not need a power source… a wireless one would need recharging…
would need batteries that has to be disposed in the future… or can these batteries now be recycled?
Batteries have been recyclable for decades. Many recycling centers have a separate area for them because it is hazardous to just throw batteries in the trash like most of us do
Trying to find a readily accessible recycling centre, is the problem.
Hmm, that would be the problem. I mean I live in a small town, 1×1 mile, but it has its own. But this isn’t for every town as is evident from your situation. For me, even though I don’t have an issue getting to one (although ludicrous hours, from 9am to 12 lol), I recycle batteries once a year, and even then I have like 12 batteries to recycle, but doing something like that could work even if the center is farther away. Or even set up a cumulative collection with neighbors and take turns dropping them off :P
If they drive this through, they should really include a pair of wireless EarPods with the iPhone and not try to sell them at 69 USD or something. A Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter would probably also be a good idea, but I can live with that being a separate purchase.
If the rumour is true then it makes me feel better about moving to the Nexus 6P when I had the chance. What has bugged me isn’t the hardware (although improvements such as a larger battery and a USB-C wouldn’t go amiss) but the bugginess of iOS and what appears to be is the focus on trivial features rather than nailing down those fundamentals and working with third parties rather than believing that they must ‘do it all’.
Assuming this is true, I hope Apple includes some type of rapid charge technology.
They will, and the iPhone 7 will be capable of quick charging the AirPods for either 30min or 1hr of use, in 30-60 seconds of charging.
bah that awful for running longer than an hour.
Th poll should have the option for USB-c not just Lightning. Because the disaster that is the MFI program Apple should adopt USB-c and have an open standard that any manfucture can use and make headphones for. I am all for Apple ditching a tech from 1878. It’s time for iPhone to produce a higher fidelity sound and you can not do that with the old jacks, you can on,y get cd level quality.
Apple needs to either make the Lifhtning port able to accept both Lightning and USB-c or go with embedded SiM and use that space for a USB-c connector to use for headphones. Apple has several patents for multiple io in a single port but has not used it yet or other space saving mechanisms for io ports.
USB-C would not fit into the current iPhone without having to make it thicker to accommodate it.
However, the Lightning port can be upgraded as in the iPad Pro, which doubles the number of pins and increases speed.
In order to get CD quality, you have to play Lossless or uncompressed audio files, unfortunately, they take up a considerable amount of storage and they take longer to download, and they aren’t as readily available to download and are many times more costly, unless you rip from CD. I do think going with USB-C is the right route since they don’t pigeon everyone into a cable that’s Apple-only.
Higher quality audio is still far smaller than video.
People have no problem streaming video so I don’t think this is much of a problem.
You write: “Today, the company produces all kinds of headphones (3.5mm, Lightning and wireless) ”
So tell me, what Lightning headphones do Apple produce today?
Bad move for Apple if this is true. Why does the iPhone need to be thinner anyways? Its already very thin, which makes it harder to hold. A move like this just wouldn’t make any sense. Not at this point. No, Apple. Bad, Apple.
It’s not necessarily about making it thinner.
There is no room for the 3.5mm Jack behind the screen, so this would allow the screen to extend to the bottom of the phone without the phone getting any thicker. It creates space for things like more battery or perhaps the iPhone can finally have stereo speakers.
Wireless is convenient and works with the Watch. Lightning allows higher quality audio. 3.5mm is the past.
Use your head. Like Robert said its not about thinness. Everyone comments, and no one knows the engineering of the internals of an iPhone, I guess they just assume there is infinite space because they can’t see in there. Well, I suggest you go look at ifixit teardowns of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. The headphone jack is one of the most space wasting things inside the phone. It is huge.
Plugged headphones are far less power hungry than bluetooth ( I use both ).
Making my $400 headphones obsolete would make me think long and hard about any decision to buy.
Apart from that I can see no problem, but then they are important.
My only issue with wireless is the latency when trying to use music creation apps or dj apps. Wired is currently the only way to get zero latency. Wireless latency has gotten better, but still not perfect.
If they are going to replace the 3.5 mm headphone jack, then I think they better include some ear buds that are compatible either wirelessly or via lightning.
I’m OK with this idea, but not looking forward to upgrading my headphones and cars. OTOH, I’m looking forward to the end of audio hum, buzzes and intermittent connections that have always plagued TRS style connections. There’s just not enough surface area touching between the connector and the jack to be reliable. Ask any guitar player how many times they’ve had to repair cables or clean and adjust 1/4″ jacks.
I’m sure there’s going to be some sort of adapter, in fact today you can use a camera connection kit to connect many USB audio dongles to Lightning devices. And the added cost of having to put a DAC and lightning chip in the headphones is really trivial these days (a few cents in bulk), even for the cheap stuff.
This is good. I await the delicious tears:
“Once again Apple has to make everything hard and do things their way, why can’t we have a choice???”
“Nobody wants wireless headphones, they sound 3,457,893,803 times worse than wired headphones, fact!”
The iphone earbud cables get tangled all the time (yes yes, I know you can tie them a certain way), but if you look on Amazon you can find bluetooth earbuds for $15 to $50. Look at how nice and short the cables are and (don’t get tangled).
Apple will have a commercial for the iPhone 7 with people working out and dancing while wearing the bluetooth earbuds that come with the phone. You’ll be able to charge them by plugging them into the lighting port (like the pencil and other apple things)
How will I charge my iPhone at the same time I listen to music then?
The Lightning headphone standard (published by Apple) makes it possible to listen whilst charging.
In fact it will be possible for those big headphones people like to wear to carry a battery that will top up their phone as they listen. This could utilize similar software as Apples battery case.
I already have headphone and won’t replace them until they break. So I would have to carry around a idiotic adapter just to plug them in, and I couldn’t charge the phone at the same time.
This idea is so beyond stupidity it will become one of the tech industry’s greatest blunders should it come to pass. It will make antenna gate look like a non entity. The headline will write themselves once Apple announce this train wreck. Still, great news for Samsung.
So let me guess, in order to use your favorite wired headphones or your cars AUX connection you will need to by the $20 or so lightning to 3.5mm adapter. Great just one more adapter to carry around with you if you need it.
Carry around or have in your car, plugged into the AUX port? Haha…
If you use wireless headphones, it’ll consume more battery. If you try to use your old, high quality headphones using lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter, it won’t be ideal cause the size of the adapter would be big just like the 30pin to lightning adapter. The new adapter will have to have built-in DAC as you may know Lightning port can’t send analog signal unlike the old 30pin connector. So either way, this won’t be a good choice even in the long term.
Yea, I’ve been wonder exactly how much power difference it is.
All the info for ble 4.1 chips are available in their data sheets. I couldn’t find data sheets for the specific Ble 4.2 chip the new iphone is using. There is a unidentified TI part labeled 6BB27. Apple might have a chip that hasn’t hit the market yet so maybe that is it. Anyway here is a data sheet for a 4.1 compatible TI chip. So nominal operation voltage is 1.8 – 3.8v (2.8 average) and amps used for sending data (TX) ranges from 6.1 to 9.1 mA (7.6 mA average) so my estimate is 21.28 mW.
how much power do your average headphones use? According to this page, I guess most would use under 1 mW to produce pretty loud (probably too loud) sound. So that’s a pretty big difference.
Now, how much can filling the headphone jack hole with battery increase battery life? I estimate removing the jack could increase battery size by 4%
4% of 10 hours is 24 minutes more of internet use.
4% of 10 days is 9.6 hours more standby.
since 4% of a 1715 mAH is an extra 68.6 mAH our music listening with BLE would go 2.25 hours before it negatively effected today’s watermark for battery life.
Of course these are rough estimates based on my limited understanding of electrical wizardry. I’m probably way way off and I think there are a lot of other factors I’m not accounting for. Like does a standalone chip from TI need more operating voltage than one built into Apple’s SoC? How much better could a brand-spanking-new Ble 4.2 chip be with the TX amp usage. What is the real average transfer power needed? Wikipidea says 0dmb will get you 1m range so maybe in most cases it will only use 6.1 mA. Does increased battery size proportionaly increas mAH or is it a curve? And of course we don’t know what other things Apple could and would do to increase internal space and power efficiency in a new phone. Either way I thought this exorcise gave me some perspective.
Consider that there are people who are already using wireless for their audio consumption needs. Removing the jack is only a benefit to them. People who hardly use headphones at all maybe only using them a couple hours a day – likely wouldn’t effect them much either way. And then plenty of people this would effect in some way.
I’m pretty sure Apple knows the better choice over you haha. No offense.
Terrible idea. I can’t stress how much I hate this idea. First of all earbuds are the absolute worst way to listen to music. They hurt after not very long being stuck in my ears, they don’t stay in properly making me unable to hear any bass unless I push them in even further. I have expensive over the ear headphones. They better come out with an adapter to convert the 3.5mm plug on my headphones to whatever system they decide to use. I listen to music for at least 3 to 4 hours every single day using headphones. I have for the last 45 years or so. I’d hate to buy an new iPhone, which I was going to do this year, and find out I can’t use my headphones.
Of course they will have an adaptor….
I still think it makes more sense for that to happen in the new 4″ model first. It has the most to gain from small internal space increases and the least to lose as far as “controversy” since it’s a more niche product. Let it break the ice first like the macbook air broke the ice for dropping disk drives.
The iPhone needs internal space. The iPhone 7 has the most to gain from internal space. Look at the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus teardowns. The iPhone 6S Plus literally has a much different Taptic Engine just to squeeze as much battery into it as possible. They design these devices to push every cubic mm they can, and they need that garbage old headphone jack out of there on all models. No joke the iPhone 6S will look soooo dated when the iPhone 7 comes out without that port.
If this is true, then we can likely expect Apple to release Wireless EarPods or Lighting EarPods in the box of this new phone. It is tradition of Apple to include headphones with an iPhone, and I doubt they’d stop now. There’s no way they’d include a pair of wireless Beats earphones, either, given their cost.
I’ve been wanting to buy Wireless earbuds, but fear their quality would be too lacking for my taste; and I like my EarPods. If they included Wireless Earpods with the iPhone 7 line, I’ll have no complaints. Worst case scenario, I’ll have to invest in a market I’m already looking into anyway.
They’re likely calling them AirPods based on trademarks and that’s a cool name I think. Really catchy.
I sure hope this is true. Let’s move on.
I really hope this is false , I own a pair of jaybirds blubuds X2 and their are always issues with the blutooth sharing. Also battery life is a issue along with sound quality. I m sure apple will say they have some new tech that delivers the same music quality SO HEY GO BUY SOME BEATS HEADPHONES smh. One more way for apple to get you to buy bullshit you don’t need. Until batteries get better along with blutooth , this is a big mistake. Apple is slowing turning into Microsoft the writings on the wall , we just need to take out (jobs colored glasses) to see it.
Nah theyll release lightning EarPods and AirPods which work because they’re Apple designed. There will also be new beats with lightning cords instead of 3.5mm and there will be adapters.
Apple can’t seriously expect all their customers who buy an iPhone to spend another $30k on a new car that has car play. A (fairly standard at this point) line-in jack is the way the vast majority of smartphone owners are able to play the audio in their car. Getting rid of a standard jack (that has been a standard on audio devices for decades) in favor of relying on some franeknstein contraption to do something as basic as output audio in a car that is more than two years old is not a very good way to sell your product to consumers.
They’ll release a crazy contraption called an adaptor.
Many cars have bluetooth built in. Others can charge and play audio through a lighting cable plugged into a usb port. For all the rest, a $30 or less adapter that just sits in the car all the time will be no big deal. I even had an old ipod car adapter that worked really well. It plugged into the cigarette lighter, had a 3.5mm line out at the bottom and got audio and charged the ipod from 30 pin. Problem solved. No need for alarm.
Nobody has mentioned the fact that Apple may be moving from just 2 iPhone per year and move to many iPhones per year.
They already have a Plus model.
So it may be that Apple will market a particular iPhone model for Techonology Visonaries that may have inductive charging no 3.5mm jack and larger battery.
Then the regular iPhone/iPhone Plus and a iPhone C model
In a similar move the auto industry did years ago when Ford just had a Model T, GM arrived and came about to offer different models to dominate the market.
Apple can’t “dominate” the market in terms of unit sales, they don’t have the production capacity. They can barely keep up with demand for several months when the new iPhones hit the market, so they have to roll them out over time to all of their markets, and they have a limit on the number of units they can make per day. They just dominate the market in terms of models that actually make a profit, which is just being smart.
Even if they bring out inductive charging models, they still have to have the ability to charge via a cable. I doubt they’ll completely remove the Lightning or USB charging port. I wish they would adopt the USB-C port, that would make sense. Adding inductive charging would be great, but it’s not necessary since you still have to have a base station plugged into an AC outlet or USB port on a computer.
why? The Apple watch doesn’t have one. I think it makes the least sense to have both since redundancy is the whole reason the 3.5mm jack is even rumored to be removed. I think all they really need is some kind of diagnostics port somewhere.
Inductive in the phone would be a waste. You can’t transfer data over it so that means you’d still have to have a port for data transfer, unless you go fully wireless, which the world isn’t prepared for yet, considering they’re crying about a headphone jack. Even assuming you didn’t need to transfer data, inductive isn’t as fast and it still requires a place to put the phone, it also is really great (pure sarcasm) because you can’t use the phone while it’s charging because it would have to be laying on a pad.
The smart connector on the other hand would be awesome for the phone because it’s inherently water resistant, and it takes virtually no internal space (see iPad Pro teardown), and it transfers both power and data two ways. It’s only a matter of how fast it can do those.
Smoothies, Yea that connector is interesting. I wonder if it’s really able to do meaningful data and power throughput. The ipad is only using it for keyboard for now and still charges and syncs with lightning. I like the idea for a battery case though. Maybe since that’s a more slow charging accessory it would work and solve that chin problem you mentioned.
I’m not sold on inductive but I also don’t think it’s that bad. It could have a magnetic spot on the back like the watch and while fast charging is nice, I mostly charge over night or for hours at my desk. If the smart connector can handle everything than yea, we really don’t need it.
Inductive charging in a phone is garbage. Induction charging in a watch is great.
The reasons are simple if you think about it for 2 seconds.
There is nothing wrong with wireless/bluetooth headphones. But it eats your battery like anything. Already iphone’s battery sucks with bluetooth on. I think it might not acceptable for people who uses earphones everyday for hours in public transport. They wont like to drain battery of their phones when outside home. And if Apple is providing a solution by making an adapter. I am sure evil business mind of Tim Cook will misuse this need of consumer and will sell it for $49
even if he sold it for $70, 3rd party people will make one cheaper.
I’m seeing more and more people commuting in the subway with wireless. They would probably get more life with the jacks removal.
This is ridiculous! Bluetooth sucks. If they did this, I will not consider an iPhone anymore. I hate this “thinner iPhone mentality that Apple keeps pushing.” I mean the iPhone 6s is barely comfortable in hand with its thin design!
It’s not about thinner.
An unimaginably idiotic and ideologically driven decision which will annoy and alienate many. It will also be a great selling point for Samsung and HTC.
It will also remove the iPhone from cars, as it will no longer function as a GPS device (as you need both power and audio out for in car navigation).
But hey, it will allow Jony Ive to shave off another 1mm and make the phone even more uncomfortable to hold. Great job!
They almost certainly leaked it early to get people used to the idea well before it happened – and to test the waters before production began, to see if they can get away with it. Judging by public response, they’ll get away with it.
It surprises me to hear anyone (and the poll results here suggest a surprising number) supporting this decision, as it seems to be one comprised exclusively of downsides. I don’t believe I’ve ever read a review of the iPhone which complained it was too thick, but I bet the lack of a headphone jack will dominate every review of the iPhone 7.
Even if Bluetooth headphones were commonplace, and they aren’t, or were good quality, and they aren’t, or were cheap, which they aren’t, this would still make redundant many millions of pairs of perfectly good headphones. And for no logical reason. Analogue sounds better than digital anyway, so this doesn’t even make sense from an audiophile perspective. It’s grotesquely anti consumer and bad for the environment too, as it will force new headphone purchases and send countless perfectly working pairs to landfill sites. It’s simply a bad decision, one with no evidence to support it and driven entirely by a perverse design fantacism which has long since become extreme and pointless.
Just to be clear, I personally think it’s an idiotic move — right now, for a variety of reasons — and have absolutely no desire to see it happen, say nothing of the inevitable negative consequences it will have.
Having said that, Apple has recently made a bunch of moves that I’d personally characterize as idiotic, but has “gotten away with them.” Just a few:
(1) Apple Watch. The list of things that are wrong with the first-gen model is too long to list. Millions of people bought it anyway.
(2) Apple TV (4th-Gen) Siri Remote Games Mandate. It’s impossible to judge how many console game developers abandoned or opted never to start projects solely because of this single dumb decision. But the Apple TV will keep selling to non-gamers and Apple will just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it off.
(3) MacBook (12″) Single USB-C Port. It’s astonishing to me that Apple couldn’t find a way to include a second port on this machine.
(4) iOS 7 Redesign. No one was asking for this, and it was literally the most backwards, amateurish, poorly-executed UI shift in Apple history. Two years later, iOS 9 still bears its scars.
I would personally be thrilled with a thicker iPhone 7 that had a 5″ screen and awesome battery life. But that’s not the product Apple wants to sell. Instead, it’s probably just going to take this year’s models and make them thinner with small battery improvements, because keeping people mildly dissatisfied encourages biannual updates. This strategy will work until people who are upset start voting with their pocketbooks, which frankly won’t happen unless they have superior alternatives.
If you think it’s just to make the device thinner, you’re too stupid to be commenting. I genuinely feel sorry for you that you don’t know that the headphone jack takes an insane amount of space in the device. Especially after many of us have tried and failed to drill it into your mind.
Please go away. I have no interest in rude or illogical people.
I’m rude, not illogical. You’re illogical in your complete dismissal of any positive that removing the headphone jack has, which there are plenty. Just because you don’t know them, doesn’t mean others don’t, namely Apple.
One of the worst things about the Internet is the proliferation of misinformation and completely ignorant opinions. What I mean is everyone commenting here, including me, is not one of the engineers, or numerous other professionals that make the decisions as to how and what the iPhone will be comprised of, hardware wise. There is significant engineering that goes into what is in the iPhone. Ignorant people and I say ignorant because they have no knowledge of what Apple is thinking, assume that removing the headphone jack is just to make the device thinner, because they read that in a rumor article…use your head people. Go look at the ifixit teardown of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S plus. You will immediately see the large white headphone jack in the bottom left of the device, you will examine that it takes significant space which can be used for far more important things. Even the iPhone 6S Plus is internally engineered quite differently than the iPhone 6S, as you’ll see that the Taptic Engine was shrunk so they could pack as much battery into the device as they possibly could.
List of possible benefits of removing the headphone jack in order of importance:
• Reduction of bezels
• Increased battery
• Thinner device
• Increased water resistance
Cons:
• Need to use adapter on previously purchased headphones
• Cannot listen while charging without wireless, or adapter
• Cars without a USB port must use an adapter
Power and audio out? Uhh the lightning cord plugged into the USB will output both audio and charge the device, I don’t know what you mean here.
That makes no practical sense. In my car I run an audio cable from my iPhone to the stereo and a lightning cable to the cigarette lighter thing for power. There is no USB port in my car, nor is there in most cars.
When I’m listening to audiobooks at work I plug my expensive headphones into the audio jack and a lighting cable into my PC to keep iPhone alive through the day.
Neither of those functions would work without an audio jack on the iPhone. It’s as if Apple are deliberately pushing people towards other phones.
I’m sure Apple will take the opportunity to sell a US $50-70 lightning-to-3.5mm adapter that does NOT come bundled with the phone and bundle in a cheap bluetooth stereo headset instead, or, more likely, a wired lightning headset (hopefully with a charging bypass).
I personally always use Bluetooth and I keep a good pair of wired headsets in my bag for when its battery dies. But pretty much everybody else I know uses a wired headset.
Sound quality-wise, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to move the DAC outside the phone, to some shoddy Chinese manufacturer’s chipset. We’ll see how this rolls out, but I’m certainly skeptical.
Yeah every moron will think Apple is just doing it for money from adapters. The simple fact is, it’s 100% necessary for continued innovation in the iPhone. Anyone that doesn’t understand that is just simple minded.
I really hope this does not happen. I have several pairs if wired headphones for different occasions and i always carry emergency buds incase all else faild and of course those never run out of battery
When i tried a pair of beats bt headphones their sync with video was shocking even after an update. senheizers work fine
One option that doesent seemed to have been metion is rather than lightening to 3.5 they could do a 3.5 to BT but its yet something else to be charged
My god people need to not cry so much about beneficial change. Yeah it sucks that you’ll need to adapt, but adapting is how progress happens. Adapting is how evolution happens. Adapting is the only reason the human species exists.
3.5 mm is an obsolete technology and Apple is the leader of deprecating obsolete technology. I understand their desire for thinner but the phones are pretty thin already. I would worry about structural integrity with a thinner phone but if this helps with better waterproofing then I am for it. Somebody will come up with an adapter for 3.5 mm phones but not having wires is what people want now.
Also would like to share the sound with friends, I think wireless would make this possible.
Which do you think is more valuable to the typical smart phone user – a headphone jack, or the ability to take their phones into a swimming pool?
Headphone jack by far. The thing is, it’s removal isn’t for water resistance, that’s just a bonus.
As far as people that commute by plane using the the iPhone 3.5 jack get rid of it… They use there laptops or iPad with the noise cancelling headphones anyway… Ditch the 3.5 from the iPhone considering the iPhone is a highly portable device and keep the 3.5 for all the other apple products like mac, iPad, etc….Streamline that Flagship (iPhone 7) Baby!!! YEAH… LOL Why Not?
Like I’ve mentioned previously, the iPhone 7 will be able to charge AirPods via the Lightning port. One of two things will happen here; the iPhone 7 will have a Smart Connectir instead of lightning because lightning takes significant internal space, whereas the smart Connector takes absolutely none; the AirPods will have a smart connector on the playback model, and they’ll include a lightning to smart connector cord to charge the AirPods without the need for any port on the AirPods. The most likely thing to happen is the latter, as the smart connector probably won’t reach the iPhone until the iPhone 8.
Almost a deal breaker for me. My car stereo does not have bluetooth, and I’m unwilling to replace it. It does have an Aux jack, which is what a currently use.
I said “almost” because I’ll dedicate an iPad Mini to my car, which does have 3.5mm, and tether to my shiny new iPhone 7.
But I’m not happy about it.
There will be adapters, I’m guessing there will be an adapter for lightning to 3.5, and lightning to 3.5 + lightning so you can charge whilst listening.
If apple throws in their beats headphones with an iphone 7 purchase..I’ll be fine with it :)
I don’t think they are gonna make it only bluetooth or only lightning, i think Apple is gonna make bluetooth headphones that charges when you plug in to your iPhone, how they are going to sell headphones (beats for example) that you can only use on one device? so if you have a lightning headphone you can’t use it on a mac, Apple is not going to make headphones with lightning only, just doesn’t make sense. I mean not from Apple.
yea, that seems like the only real solution to me. It has to be BLE because that’s a standard that works with a bunch of stuff. We’ve seen from Apple’s other accessories how they using lighting mostly as a charging cable and to easily pair BT.
There needs to be a way to connect 3.5mm headphones, My favourite pair or B&W headphones are the only thing I like listening to music on. I use them every day on my iPhone with Apple Music, as well as a set of Bluetooth Beats in ears for the gym.
I don’t want to use any other headphones, I’ve spent years hunting for a a pair I really enjoy listening with
That’s why you can choose not to buy it, i mean the iphone 6S will be a great phone now and in one year or even two, im sure apple will steal sell it by then, So if it is a must for you to have a minijack you would not buy an iphone 7, however, if you do, that means the minijack isn’t the most important thing for you.
Of course I’ll buy it, I’ve had every iPhone on day one since the first, but it’ll mean I have to carry around some sort of lightning / USB C audio interface or an iPod which will be a pain in the arse / ass.
Wouldnt be the first time that Apple gets rid of some antiquated standard to make room for something newer and be called crazy. PS2 Ports, CDROM, FLASH to name a few. A decision like this comes with a set of bad news for a lot of people using the old standard but, sometimes… a push in the forward direction makes the world advance. Lightning headsets are unlikely to gain traction for me personally but, wireless… now there’s potential. especially in the noise cancelling area where having a battery and having to recharge is already something you do.
I agree, and for those who want to wait they have the 6s that is a great phone until they can upgrade to the wireless side :)
I think we would/should anticipate a slew of Apple and 3rd party branded 3.5 to lightening adapters just like when lightening replaced the previous 30 pin plug.
wtf was Apple thinking, smh