Over the past several months there have been plenty of rumours suggesting that Apple will remove the 3.5mm headphone jack from the next iPhone. Rumours suggest that the old-school prong will be removed in favour of the Lightning connector.
A video from Vietnam, which was first posted by 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall, shows the 3.5mm headphone jack to Lightning adapter.
Daring Fireball’s John Gruber hopes that Apple does not decide to go with an adapter, but instead ship the new iPhone with wireless ear buds. In his blog post, Gruber said:
“I don’t think they’ll ship this adapter in the box, so I’m betting options 2 and 4 are out. If they ship it in the box, the implied message is that a 3.5mm headphone port is something every iPhone should have, which is contrary to the decision to remove the port from the device itself. If they’re eliminating the port, they’re saying most people should not need it. If most people shouldn’t need it, there’s no reason to ship the adapter with every iPhone. I’m hoping they sell it separately for $19. I worry they will sell it separately for an exorbitant $29, like they do with the 30-pin to Lightning dongle.”
The most annoying problem with the adapter is users would not be able to charge their device and listen to audio at the same time. The move for Apple should not be to move from one wired headphone solution to another, but move away from wired technologies to wireless ones.
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and option #5 – move to android?
If this phone sells well enough, Android will be doing the same thing.
My current iPhone may be my last. As a professional musician I often need to connect my phone to things like mixing boards using the headphone jack. Never seen a mixing board with bluetooth, and making me have to buy an adapter – that I might not have on me when I need it – is just goofy. The headphone jack is so small, how much ‘improvement’ could they really be doing to the phone by removing it.
Are you proposing the headphone jack should be around forever?
You never know. Now that the headphone will be gone. It might force them to innovative.
You can have the adapter “on you” when ever you want by leaving it connected to the headphones.
There are currently Android phones without headphone jacks and with the iPhone doing it I’d assume everyone will follow. I’m sure there’s going to be that in between period that Android phone makers use the fact that they have a jack as a selling point but when the smoke clears they’ll follow suit ( ie. removable battery, expandable storage, flash).
I have not used a 3.5mm headphone jack since the second gen ipod touch, i dont know why people are making a huge deal out of this; everything is 99% wireless now (aka bluetooth)
Look around! You don’t have to look far to see people using wired headphones with their devices. If you don’t use headphones that’s fine but let’s not pretend that no one else does.
Oh my!! I can’t listen to music while I’m charging my iPhone! Darn! Life is soooo though!… I’ll have to abandon my iPhone! but wait…. Other phones are also removing the 3.5mm jack!!!?? Arrg! I wanna die!!
Common!!! Grow up!
They should sell it separately for $5 because it probably costs less than $2 to make.
I have wireless headphones but still frequently use my white earbuds simply because they are convenient. Another device to charge or adapter to keep track of isn’t really progress. If they offer a compelling solution that avoids those two pitfalls, then we’ll talk.
For now, it sounds like they’re going to be selling a device that offers little advantage over my current device but with fewer options. Also, in terms of elegant solutions, one need look no further than the Apple Pencil charging setup to see how clumsy Apple has become. And that’s from someone who owns and like the accessory itself.
I hate wires as much as the next person but I can think of three reasons why I would not buy an iphone without the ability to plug in headphones.
1. Wireless audio quality is not as good as wired.
2. Wireless doesn’t always connect or can disconnect by itself.
3. Wireless is not allowed on airplanes.
4. Running out of power and have no where or time to charge headphones.
9 years as an iPhone user and a long time apple user. I don’t want to switch but unless they release some sort of updated SE edition with the headphone jack it looks like I’ll be heading to android for the first time. :/
The adapter looks like a real PITA when you’re say, working out or running, and is just inherently less user friendly as it’s a second thing you have to have with you at all times. No thanks. I own over a thousand dollars worth of headphones and don’t intend to replace them anytime soon. Sorry apple, no new beats headphones for me.