Even though it feels like you bought your new phone yesterday, surprise, surprise — the iPhone 7 is being rolled out, and the reaction to the latest iteration of the world’s best-selling smartphone has been mixed at best, for good reason. While there are numerous positives and negatives involved with any new product (does it really have to cost $700?), the removal of the headphone jack is one of the most anti-consumer moves that any tech company has ever made.
The biggest problem made by removing the headphone jack is that the newest generation of phones makes it harder to perform a basic feature. If you forget to charge your wireless Bluetooth headphones, then you’re out of luck until you do. If you want to use a friend’s device, then you might need extra equipment, where in the past your own pair of headphones would suffice. Essentially, if you want to do what you do right now, then sorry — you can’t, or at least not as easily.
The one-two punch of the iPhone 7 and the brand-new AirPod is also disconcerting. A thinly-veiled pyramid scheme disguised as innovation, these new wireless earbuds cost $159, and they are exactly the kind of product that a student will almost inevitably lose or need to replace once they break.
Those looking to buy even more accessories to get a new phone to work like an old phone will be happy to find out they will need dongles and adapters if they want to stick with their ancient wired-headphones. Either way, you’re stuck buying another unnecessary gadget so that this gadget works.
Universal compatibility is another great feature of a world with headphone jacks, but forcing consumers to use a Lightning-port-only device is incredibly limiting for that device’s functionality. The days of being able to use someone else’s device interchangeably with your own are on their way out, at least until everybody bites the bullet and is forced to abandon their old headphones for the AirPod 2 in a few years.
That’s to say nothing of the potential decrease in audio quality as a result of the change. While Apple swears up and down that sound quality will actually improve, Bluetooth audio is notoriously dodgy and compressed enough already. If you’re an audiophile or just somebody that owns a nice pair of headphones, you’ll have to make another purchase (whether it’s a high-end wireless earbud or a series of dongles and adapters) to enjoy your music the same way you do now.
Troy Wolverton in the Providence Journal also points out that the switch to all-digital connections paves the way for Apple to potentially restrict a user’s ability to use those ports via its own software. That means certain devices could become iPhone incompatible, or even certain audio. While Apple says it has no plans to do any of that, plans change, and the loss of the headphone jack as an equalizer between devices makes consumers forced to play by Apple’s rules.
Tech upgrades are bound to make people unhappy, and the iPhone 7 is no exception. It could very well be the case that, given a few years time, the headphone jack seems as antiquated and obsolete as Apple is furiously claiming it to be today. But it could also be the case that this upgrade is really a massive downgrade, in more ways than one.