Thoughts on the Inevitable Demise of the 3.5mm Audio Jack on the iPhone ⇥ macstories.net

One day, we will no longer use the standard 3.5mm audio jack on an iPhone, and a whole host of other products. It’s painful, I know — they are some of my favourite connectors, and they’re everywhere.

Graham Spencer, MacStories:

Given the premise that I think Apple will (at some point) ditch the audio jack, the next question is how they can possibly achieve that with the smallest adverse impact on customers, which should surely be the top priority.

Agreed.

One thing Spencer didn’t point out is that the current rumour going around — courtesy Macotakara — is unlikely to be accurate, even if the outcome is as predicted. They claim, via Google Translate, that this is to make the iPhone thinner. As Spencer points out in his article, Apple and other manufacturers already make products that are far thinner and have a headphone jack.

Macotakara also claims that their singular source has knowledge of the phone hardware and the accessories included with it:

Apple seems to plan removing the headset jack from the next iPhone 7, according to a reliable source.

Screen shape such as radius will be kept, however, it will very likely be more than 1 mm thinner than the current model.

Supplied Ear Pods will equip a Lightning connector, which means a DA (Digital to Analog) converter is required. The DA will be built in the Lightning connector without sacrificing the size, according to the source.

As “ATP Tipster” pointed out, there are very few people at Apple who would have the entirety of this information, and you’d probably find those who do on Apple’s website. They will remove the headphone jack eventually, but this report isn’t an iron-clad predictor.

Update: And, when it does get replaced, I hope — as Manton Reece does — that it is not a proprietary solution.