It seems like only yesterday that the latest and greatest thing in smartphones was Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S. However, like most things technological in the second decade of the 21st century, the speed with which the latest and greatest becomes yesterday’s news grows faster and faster.
And so, now it seems as if the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s is being cast aside for the iPhone 7. However, over the past several months, some interesting changes in the latest iteration of the iPhone have come to light, and some of them have Apple and iPhone fans scratching their head.
The latest rumorsurrounding the iPhone 7 is about the 3.5 mm headphone jack. Apple is purportedly doing away with headphone jack in favor of a “lightning” headphone jack. Why? The reason apparently lies in the size and thickness of the phone. If the iPhone doesn’t have a 3.5 mm jack, but, rather a lightning-based jack, the iPhone will be able to be designed and produced much thinner than the current models. How much thinner? The iPhone 7 is purportedly over a full mm thinner than the iPhone 6. While Apple might think that a thinner iPhone is just what its users want, they will inevitably be angering many consumers when they realize that the headphones they might use for other devices aren’t going to work in their iPhone 7 without some sort of adapter.
The iPhone 7 actually won’t be the first ever smartphone to eliminate the 3.5 mm headphone jack. The HTC G1, an first Android-based smartphone, originally did away with the headphone jack. However, HTC is not Apple. If the iPhone 7 does not have a headphone jack, it is a very distinct possibility that a majority of smartphone developers will follow suit.
Earlier this year, several headphones appeared from developers that worked on lightning-style headphones. However, the lightning-style connectors are still very rare. The 3.5 mm jack has basically been used in every audio jack from record players to stereos to Walkmans to smartphones, and changing that technology probably won’t happen overnight. Last year, Philips unveiled its Fidelio NC1L headphones that work using the lightning-style jacks. Harman JBL also offers lightning-enabled headphones. If the iPhone 7 utilizes the lightning-style jacks, as the rumor suggests, it is almost certain that Apple’s Beats headphones will be getting rid of the 3.5 mm headphone jack as well.
The iPhone 7 is reportedly going to be released in 2016. Besides the lack of a conventional 3.5 mm headphone jack, tech insiders are trying to determine what the major selling point of the iPhone 7 will be, other than it’s simply the latest iteration of the iPhone. In the past, all the iPhone releases have focused on one, major new feature. For the iPhone 6 it was the size shift, and for the iPhone 6s it was the Force Touch feature. So what will it be with the iPhone 7?
Some tech watchers believe that Apple will be getting rid of the iPhone’s “home” button. Still others originally thought that there would be a “flexible screen,” though that notion now seems to be unlikely. The iPhone 7 will have an A10 chip — that much has been verified — which will make the iPhone 7 much, much faster than the iPhone 6 or 6s, and it is supposed that the iPhone 7 will have 3 Gigabytes of RAM. At the end of the day, however, everyone is still in the dark as to that one key feature about the iPhone 7 that will blow everyone’s mind and make it the “must have” smartphone.
The iPhone 7, with a lightning-style headphone jack, is rumored to be released in the late summer or early fall of next year.
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
