Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press
The iPhone 7 and 7 plus were unveiled in San Francisco on Wednesday but a familiar feature was excluded in the new design.
Both the 7 and the 7 plus will not have an analog headphone jack.
Instead the new smartphones will only have lightning charging ports. Although each new phone comes with a pair of compatible wired headphones and a lightning to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter, Apple is encouraging their user-base to transfer to wireless technology.
This is evident with Apple also revealing their own wireless headphones called AirPods, but for Brad Stanton, a senior at Missouri Western State University who regularly breaks or loses earbuds, the price isn’t worth it.
“To spend $160 on two little things that you stick in your ear, that I think I would lose even quicker, seems outrageous to me,” he said. “And to not even have the choice to plug in headphones without a special adapter also seems crazy to me.”
Apple has been on the cutting edge of smartphone technology since the release of the first iPhone in early 2007.
During their recent announcement, the huge technology company shared its dream of a “wireless future” and its new smartphones will help influence society toward becoming wire-free.
But according to Tanner Sturdevant, a Best Buy customer service specialist, wireless technology is nothing new and we have been in a transitional phase between wired and wireless for quite some time.
“Almost all of your computer accessories are wireless, and almost all your speakers in the house are wireless,” he said. “Most people buying headphones are buying Bluetooth and there is even WiFi headphones too, and most of the wireless headphones come with the an option with a wire. It’s usually easier to run wireless because you don’t have to worry about the cable, and it getting tangled.”
The iPhone 7 is also water resistant, which is something that Android phones, like Samsung Galaxy, developed before Apple, and similar new features have transformed the smartphone marketplace to be more competitive than ever.
Over the past year iPhones sales dropped by a large margin, and Apple also announced that they will not reveal launch weekend sale numbers of the iPhone 7, thus breaking a long-term tradition they’ve kept with every other smart phone.
“When iPhone first came out, it was you have an iPhone or you have a flip phone,” Stanton said. “Nowadays, it’s you have an iPhone or you have an Android phone that can do just as much, if not more. I definitely think that’s probably why Apple has kind of lost market share, and I think whoever chooses the right technologies will drive the future of market share.”
The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are available for pre-order now and will be in the hands of customers on Sept. 16.
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