Apple could offer a jack-to-Lightning adapter in the box

Jun 21, 2016 09:56 GMT  ·  By

Rumor has it that Apple is planning to remove the 3.5mm audio jack on the iPhone 7 and replace it with just one Lightning connector that will be used for multiple purposes, including connecting headphones and charging.

But as far as headphones are concerned, there was speculation claiming that Apple might launch a new type of Bluetooth-based EarPods for the next-generation iPhone in order to cope with the removal of the audio jack, but it turns out this isn’t the case.

According to a report coming from MacOtakara (Google Translate version), Apple is actually planning to offer the very same headphones with the iPhone 7, with one key difference: the box will also include an adapter to help you connect any typical 3.5mm jack to the device.

This makes sense for two different reasons. First of all, Apple can thus offer the same EarPods with the iPhone 7, without having to spend more money on research and development of a wireless version. And then, it allows customers to use basically any headphones with the iPhone 7, as many were afraid that, without such a converter, it could be nearly impossible to use more high-quality accessories with the upcoming phone.

Why the need to remove the 3.5mm jack?

In case you are wondering why the company is planning to do that, it’s all because it wants to make the iPhone thinner, so removing the audio jack is the first step in this regard. Furthermore, there’s talk online that Apple is also planning to remove the audio jack in order to waterproof the iPhone, but the chances are that this won’t happen in the next generation.

Instead, the next year’s model has bigger chances to come with such a change that could bring the iPhone in line with other Android devices featuring waterproofing, including the Samsung Galaxy S7.

The aforementioned report also points to other rumor changes that we’ve heard about before, including 256 GB of storage, but once again, these are all just rumors for the time being and don’t take them for granted.