The iPhone 7 has been released and amid the excitement, there were mixed reactions on one particular change.
Speaking of changes, the "innovations" that Apple introduced in the latest iteration had the "been there, done that" treatment.
It's water resistant and dustproof but while those are updates for Apple, that has become par for the course for their major rivals. A feature on the iPhone from CBC already asked the question of whether it's "innovative" and are the changes enough to warrant another purchase.
They point out that the main conversations about the phone revolve around the two cameras (but it's only on the Plus model) and the notorious death of the headphone jack.
There were already rumors about this possible move and right off the bat, the criticism poured. The earbuds are notoriously easy to lose and proven to be a choking hazard. Owners of older devices need to purchase an adapter to use wired headphones. These seemingly obvious downsides led many to question the reason why Apple decided to make such a move.
One reason cited is that the smartphone has already peaked and they had nothing new to show for. While Apple started it all with the first iPhone, they are far from being a monopoly when it comes to innovation. Rivals like Samsung and Sony among others continued to tweak their own "iPhone killers" which had Apple biting the dust.
This competition has led to the swift development of the device and now there's not much more to improve. "Smartphones look to have reached their apex, with a lot of dubiously useful gimmickry now proliferating from all manufacturers in an attempt to differentiate their products," CBC observed.
Which is why the elimination of the headphone jack was seen more as a cop-out rather than a move of "courage" that Apple CEO Tim Cook wanted to impress us with. Was there really a practical reason for taking out the headphone jack?
In a Buzzfeed feature, Apple VP Greg Joswiak revealed that the move was part of their principle to eliminate features that they feel are outdated.
"The audio connector is more than 100 years old," Joswiak says. "It had its last big innovation about 50 years ago. You know what that was? They made it smaller. It hasn't been touched since then. It's a dinosaur. It's time to move on."
It sounds like change for the sake of change which is rather risky considering the downsides, but Dan Riccio, senior VP for hardware engineering at the Cupertino-based tech titan, admitted there is a more practical reason.
"It was holding us back from a number of things we wanted to put into the iPhone," Riccio says. "It was fighting for space with camera technologies and processors and battery life. And frankly, when there's a better, modern solution available, it's crazy to keep it around."
Which led to the hypothesis that iPhone 7 was an "in-between" product. The theory was that Apple is looking ahead to major innovations, like Virtual Reality, for the 10th anniversary iPhone next year. Killing the headphone jack was a precursor to whatever they are planning.