Historical Headphones

Hundreds of thousands of people have asked Apple to reconsider following rumours that the firm plans to get rid of the headphone jack in its iPhone 7.

17:23 12 January 2016

According to rumours, Apple is scrapping the 3.mm socket in its iPhone 7 leaving headphones to be plugged into the lightning port – the company’s own design of socket.

 

Several people said that although the plan will help make the new iPhone thinner, it will render other headphones useless. According to a petition signed by more than 200,000 individuals asking Apple to reconsider its plans, the move would “singlehandedly create mountains of electronic waste.”  In addition, it may be a blow for a piece of technology that has been remarkably resilient.

 

Dr Simon Hall, head of music technology at Birmingham City University, said: "The standard has always been quarter-inch jacks," 

 

"Professional headphones in studios, guitar leads - they all run off quarter-inch jacks."

 

Charlie Slee, a member of the Audio Engineering Society, added: "Technically speaking, it's not a bad design. If the parts are made cheaply they can break and lose contact, but ultimately it does the job it was designed to do."

 

Apple has been known to be the first to abolish things that are then start to disappear from rival products too. It killed the 3.5-inch floppy disk early and one of the first to remove optical drives.