Which is bigger, the anticipation of the new iPhone release, or the number of rumors surrounding it? With likely 8 months to go before the iPhone 7 release, a whirlwind of predictions, educated guesses, and side bets are on the rise. News sources are speculating about dimensions, design, resolution, camera optics, and everything else in between. The rumor causing the most controversy? Is whether Apple will remove the standard 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Many contend that the removal of the jack is Apple’s way of trying to continue to shave off the iPhone’s thickness and weight. Let’s face it, we’re not foreign to Apple’s sacrificing useful features to secure its thin physique, after all, we’d all like a bigger battery if it didn’t compromise the thinness and lightness of the phone — and maybe even if it would. This time though, this particular move has many people outraged. In fact, so far 200,000 people have signed an ever-growing petition to convince Apple to keep the port. Removing the port means users would either have to use headphones via the lightning port, or through a bluetooth connection. It’s like a one-two punch of both your inconvenience and parting with hard-earned money to buy the new accessories and adapters.
Sounds like a sleeker phone is probably not worth the sacrifices, right? Well yes and no.
There’s got to be a decent upside, I mean, Apple is one of the smartest tech companies in the world. BGR posted an article on January 13th stating that size is motivating Apple to remove the headphone jack, but not in the way that many of us think.
BGR reports that Apple wants to remove the jack for space inside of the phone, not to cut down on the thickness of the device. You read that right. Apparently, one of Apple’s long term goals is to remove the home button to make a bigger, curved screen design. If this is the case, the headphone jack is a “real estate” obstacle to that plan — frankly, it’s in the way.
Does it seem premature? Maybe. Before the home button can be removed, Apple needs to figure out a way to implement Touch ID into the screen. In reality removing the jack on the iPhone 7 won’t make much of a difference on the screen. It’s a planning step towards Apple’s long-term design goal. We can’t blame a company for being methodical and careful when making a big change. History shows that we should probably trust Apple to bring us a sleek, highly efficient, cutting edge phone, it just may hurt our wallets a bit.
Personally, I like the idea of a bigger, better screen, I just hope they can do it without much inconvenience. What do you think of the removal of the standard headphone jack? Leave your comments below, we want to hear from you.
Featured Image credit: Engadget
