iPhone 7 could lose its Headphone jack!?

31st August 2016

The rumourmill is swirling concerning the upcoming Apple iPhone 7 relrease this Autumn. Rumours posted online state the tech giant is to ditch the legendary 3.5mm headphone jack on the new iPhone later this year.

Apple of course is no stranger to ditching standard technlologies in their products. Famously in 1998 they ditched the floppy disk drive from their, then new, iMac G3, instead touting CD-ROM and USB technology which was new to the industry at this point.

The iPhone era opened up in 2007 with Apple’s entry into the mobile telephone market lacking any form of physical keyboard. Though we shudder at the thought now of typing on tiny physical keys (BlackBerry anyone?).

2008 saw the axing of the same disc based tech they were pushing in the late 90′s, with the MacBook Air launching with only a single USB, a micro-DVI port and… a headphone jack. This new iPhone rumour though, feels different.

The iPhone 7 won’t necessarily come with any tangible benefits to losing the Jack. It won’t charge faster, be slimmer, or lighter to any great extent and of course (aside from rendering most people’s headphone incompatible) will prevent charging and listening to music at the same time. The headphone jack has been around since 1978 and is a staple in elecrtonic audio products far and wide. So why would the worlds leading tech company do such a thing?

Bluetooth.

Apple see’s wireless technologies such as bluetooth to be the future. No doubt there will be a slew of adapters to restore 3.5mm functionality if this comes true, but the push towards bluetooth headphones looks to be the clear intent. Could Apple be working on their own set of wireless headphones perhaps? It was only two years ago, in 2014, that they purchased market leader Beats from Dr. Dre for an estimated $2.6 Billion. Beats of course produce a range of wired and wireless (Bluetooth) headphones which are sure to become ever more popular once the iPhone 7 hits stores. So the benefits for Apple are clear.

How this will affect consumer mood and influence purchasing patterns, we’ll soon see!

Update:

During the iPhone 7 keynote announcement yesterday (16th September, 2016) Apple did indeed announce their own wireless pair of earbuds alongside the new Apple Watch Series 2. The new earbuds are named AirPods and utilise bluetooth technology to play music and audio from the iPhone 7 over the air and come with a charging case. AirPods will go on sale next month and interestingly are said to be compatible with any bluetooth device that supports Bluetooth 4.0 or higher (including Windows laptops and Android devices).

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