3.5mm headphone socket

Two '3.5mm headphone socket' stories December 2015 - January 2016

Over 200,000 people petition Apple to abandon rumored plans to ditch the 3.5mm headphone socket

Ben Lovejoy Jan 8 2016 - 6:04 am PT

Reports that Apple plans to ditch the 3.5mm headphone socket on the iPhone 7 in favor of Lightning headphones have been growing in number, and a recent poll found that 70% of you expect Apple to go this route. However, it appears some 200,000 people aren’t very happy about it.

A somewhat hysterically-worded petition calling for Apple to retain the 3.5mm socket had attracted some 204,000 signatures at the time of writing. The opening paragraph sets the tone …

Apple is about to rip off every one of its customers. Again.

Apple introduced MFi specs for Lightning headphones last year, and a few models are already available. The latest report, from Fast Company, suggests that Apple will also be introducing noise-cancelling technology, which it will be encouraging third-party headphone makers to adopt.

Opinion: Will future iPhones lose the 3.5mm headphone socket? What will Apple do instead?

Ben Lovejoy Dec 2 2015 - 8:22 am PT

108 Comments

Apple has consistently worked at making the iPhone ever slimmer, and has been willing to make compromises to achieve that, most notably in battery-life. But with the iPhone 6 and 6s, it is close to the limit on how slim an iPhone can be – and the reason for that is the oldest piece of tech in the phone. The iPhone 6/6s is not very much thicker than the diameter of the 3.5mm headphone jack.

The latest iPod touch shows that Apple has a little more room for manoeuvre (above photo Anandtech, below iFixit).

But really not much. If Apple wants to continue the iPhone’s diet, at some point very soon it’s going to have to ditch the 3.5mm headphone socket in favor of an alternative. There are four possible options open to it …
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