The little hole you’ve spent your entire life clicking a thin rod of ringed metal into when it was time to listen to something, anything, is not going to be a part of the most ubiquitous piece of technology on earth.
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Apple took the stage Wednesday to announce the iPhone 7, the new Apple Watch, and the AirPods that are supposed to replace headphones.
The lightning adaptor will be required for existing headphones, which fits into the charging socket on the mobile. You know Apple has a potential problem when even sports bloggers are making fun of this. After all, most people aren’t early adopters anyway, and no one’s coming to rip the headphone port out of older devices. More likely is that the lack of a headphone jack on the iPhone – and increasingly, on Android phones as well – will lead to an uptick in sales of Bluetooth headphones.
Consumers will be scrambling to preorder Apple’s newest iPhone and watch. Most people won’t care, at least most of the time.
You don’t need special headphones to hear all the griping about Apple nixing the headphone jack.
Apple is also moving its focus to selling peripherals around the iPhone. The company has killed before, often to widespread protest.
Apple’s decision to kill off 16GB iPhones shows the company is acknowledging the difficulty of living with that amount of storage space. As Paczkowski wrote, “It’s hard to imagine Apple’s hardware design team hamstrung by a diminutive legacy port”.
The app will also take advantage of the iPhone 7 Plus’ telephoto zoom lens, which will be usable by dragging a single finger up and down when taking a photo or video within Instagram. A circuit board had to be moved to accommodate the new camera module.
Reason 3: Wireless is the future!
But, according to social media users, the AirPods seem like they could easily slip through your fingers, go missing in the depths of your bag, or fall out of your ears altogether. Priced at $159, the Bluetooth headphones contain Apple’s W1 wireless chip and charge via a battery in their case.
Other physical changes are invisible.
Some, including Philips, Brightech and now Apple also sell corded headphones that connect to the Lightning port. You guessed it: Courage. This figure has been steadily climbing over the years as Apple released its latest and greatest every year. And, like the iPhone, Samsung supports an eco-system of companion products including watches and, in Samsung’s case, a virtual reality headset. Apple finally does it with one button and the company has the gall to try to spin that as some sort of innovation? This abandonment of the headphone jack will, in all likelihood, signal to Apple’s competitors that it’s safe for them to dump the headphone jack, too. “I think Apple has a real victor here”.
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Update: Apple says that eligible upgrade program customers will be able to reserve an iPhone 7 when preorders begin on Friday.
