Apple Removes Headphone Jack & the Real Home Button – Gives You Courage and a Free Dongle

Rafia Shaikh
iPhone 7 headphone dongle

Apple has just confirmed removing the 3.5mm headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. The good news? The company is giving you a separate dongle to connect headphones that use a standard 3.5mm jack. iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will ship with this adapter in the box. Kind of a consolatory gift?

Included in the box, this awful-looking adapter will allow you to plug now-irrelevant and outdated headphones. The adapter is designed simply to allow for headphones to be plugged into the Lightning port. As has always happened, we might see other manufacturers following Apple's steps. Which means that you need to start saying goodbye to these headphones, and taking tons of photos as a memento for your kids.

Not many are happy with Apple's decision to let the headphone jack go, which seems to be the reason why Apple is including a free tool to help people keep using older headphones with the new phones. You won't be able to use the Lightning port for charging at the same time, so the purpose is actually lost to many.

The bigger news - removal of the real Home button in iPhone 7

While we had heard a lot about the removal of 3.5mm headphone jack, not many talked about the same fate for the Home button. Previous rumors had hinted that Apple is planning to completely do away with the Home button with the launch of iPhone 8. In today's iPhone 7 keynote, we saw Apple dropping off the traditional Home button from the new iPhones.

It's still there though, but doesn't physically move anymore. The new iPhone 7 Home button is static and uses Apple's Taptic Engine to simulate when clicked or tapped. The design change in the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus appear to be paving way for the complete removal of the Home button. We have already heard several reports that next year's iPhones won't a Home button at all, and this seems Apple's strategy to make its users ready for that change.

Takeaways? Next year's iPhone would probably bid farewell to both the Home button and the headphones completely, as Apple focuses on wireless airpods. Whether we are happy or not, change does after all come at its own pace - or Apple's pace. What you need? A free dongle and lots of courage. As Schiller said, the reason Apple is moving on is "courage. The courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us." Right.

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