Headphones: The Least Known iPhone Accessory

Rumors of the iPhone 7 headphone jack, which look like any other accessory, have made the headphones one of the most valuable iPhone accessories users have.

iPhone 7 rumors have been heating up for the past few weeks, and many reports say Apple plans to ditch the headphone jack on its next iPhone to make the device thinner, or at least improve other iPhone features without headphones. Jack intervenes.

Apple did this with the iPhone 5 when it introduced a smaller charge/sync connector called Lightning, which replaced the larger 30-pin connector that Apple had used since the third generation iPod in 2003.

However, instead of replacing the headphone jack this time around, it might be gone completely.

Instead, Apple will likely include redesigned EarPods that connect with the iPhone 7 via the Lightning port, or users will be able to use Bluetooth headphones as before, and Apple is said to introduce its own wireless EarPods. Bluetooth is getting more popular and this should become a growing trend once the iPhone loses the headphone jack.

Of course, these are just rumors at the moment, so nothing is official until Apple says so, but it has become clear that more people care about a headphone jack than I previously thought possible.

Has the headphone jack been underestimated all these years? When the headphone jack was first invented, everyone was probably surprised at how you could plug in headphones and listen to music privately, but it’s become a technology that messes up and doesn’t really seem like such a big deal.

The 3.5mm headphone jack as we know it today is at least since the 1960s and it became popular in the mainstream when Sony introduced the Walkman portable cassette player in 1979, so it’s pretty impressive but odd that the iPhone uses 50 years of technology that has remained completely unchanged for most of the time.

I don’t think many people realize how important headphone jacks are to them. They’re pretty much everywhere now, and you can usually find them on any device, so we don’t think twice about plugging in headphones, but now there are rumors that the iPhone might get rid of the headphone jack, consumers are losing their minds.

That should tell you that headphones are used more often than you think. We talk a lot about some of the best iPhone accessories you can buy, but we rarely focus too much on headphones, and when we do, we usually focus on Bluetooth headphones.

Will Bluetooth largely take over in 2016 and beyond? Will the headphone jack be forgotten? This wouldn’t be too surprising. While consumers are no doubt upset at the prospect of Apple getting rid of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7, it’s very possible that the mass chaos is likely to end.

After all, over the years, Apple has killed a lot of technology that many users were initially upset about (CD drives, floppy disks, ethernet, etc.), but it eventually got better. It’s always a riot at first, but after a few years it’s not always a big deal.

Also, as Bluetooth technology improves and sound over Bluetooth gets better, it shouldn’t surprise us to see wireless earbuds become more and more popular.

Sure, these few audiophiles will stick with their wired headphones, but that’s what the Lightning port will be for on the iPhone 7, and we should see some new accessories out of it when the iPhone 7 comes out.

In the end, it’s pretty surprising that so many people are quietly using headphones with their iPhones, but if the headphone jack really does go out of the picture, Bluetooth is a technology that should and will replace the headphone jack.