If all the current rumors prove true (and I think they will), Apple’s iPhone for this year will skip a traditional earphone socket. Deleting this option, which is based on technology that’s older than your grandparents, has, predictably, got a certain type of internet complainer up in arms. Yet if you apply just a little logic, you can see how the decision makes sense: It removes a big chunk of hardware from inside the phone, freeing up space for much more useful technology; it is one fewer place for water to get inside the phone; it allows for thinner circuitry and therefore casings etc. etc. etc.
A more interesting issue is to ponder what Apple will do about letting its iPhone 7 users listen to music, make hands free phone calls and so on.
What will Apple do about headphones?
Everyone, everywhere from John Gruber to The Verge (with some cognitive dissonance) to Horse & Hounds — just joking — is talking about the matter.
There’s a lot to talk about you see. Will Apple include headphones that have a Lightning socket in the iPhone 7 box? (The leading argument). Will Apple include wireless earbuds in the iPhone 7 box? (An interesting, impressive and industry-changing option that could hit the hardware giant with a tiny-but-perceptible dip in profitability per iPhone sold, given consideration of pricing etc.). Will Apple go for some kind of in-the-box Lightning dongle and include traditional cheap headphones with a decades-old socket tech? (Probably the best for Apple’s bottom line, at least in the immediate term, but less “cool” etc. etc. etc.).
Forget about all that, I’m just here to suggest something that occurred to me.
So… To start with, let’s suppose Apple is favoring some kind of wireless option for iPhone 7 headphones. This idea seems expensive in terms of tech, development and so on, and likely to wind (a certain type of internet/real-life complainer) up, no?
Of course.
And let’s just say Bluetooth has, while improving every year, never been the “seamless” and “easy” and “reliable” short range wireless connection we all need, has it? For years there was awkwardness in pairing and passwords. Then things got better, but there were signal dropouts, power issues, re-connection issues and so on.
Nowadays Bluetooth, a.k.a. Bluetooth 4/Bluetooth LE, is way less hassle, much more reliable and less likely to cause you battery problems. But it still isn’t perfect, and if you’re like me then using Bluetooth often causes a bit of uneasiness.
Ok, we agree.
Now… think about headphones. Bluetooth ones. Modern ones.
Even if you do have a favorite set of reliable, high-audio-quality Bluetooth headphones right now, you know you have to consider charging them as well as your phone, and that this may include a separate cable etc. You know they sometimes unpair. You know they don’t quite work as well as you’d love them to. You wonder if they were worth the price.
So if Apple goes the wholly-wireless way, and tries to get iPhone users from now on to use its own wireless headphones (no matter what design they use — lanyard, clip-on, dual earpieces etc.). The company is going to have to make the things seamlessly connectable, easily chargeable, and capable of producing decent audio quality.
Oh, and they have to be “simple” and “Apple-y”, if they’re going to impress people enough to overlook the affront of the deletion of the headphone socket.
Wait a minute.
Apple already has an “Apple-y” device that’s portable, wireless, pairs (pretty) seamlessly and is chargeable wherever you have your main computing device with you.
It’s the Apple Pencil.
This stylus got a lot of Apple limelight alongside the launch of the iPad Pro last year, and still does. It is tiny. It is smart. It is super-sensitive (in terms of clever stylus specific features). It has a Lightning plug, which sticks into the Lightning socket of your iPad to both set up an instant paring partnership, and also to charge the minuscule battery in the thing — which nevertheless lasts a very useful amount of time. It is quite elegant. In terms of use it is astonishingly, impressively simple (which necessitates all sorts of extremely clever, proprietary, Bluetooth and other tech working flawlessly behind the scenes).
So what if Apple uses these ideas for a wireless EarPod option for the iPhone 7?
- They would charge via your phone, so you wouldn’t have to worry about charging them separately (though you’d have to take a tiny hit on your phone’s battery life)
- They would pair, reliably, by plugging in so you wouldn’t have to fiddle with Bluetooth passwords and so on, and your friends wouldn’t have to worry about your earphones crazily connecting to their iPhone when you’re in the same room
- They could offer better-than-typical audio quality over Bluetooth thanks to Apple cleverness in the earphones and the phone (and software) they connect to
- They could include a “working as wired headphones without eating your battery” option, which could also make them friendly in terms of on-an-airliner use
- But best of all, this idea is very Apple-y
Am I crazy?
I’ve no idea what Apple will include with the iPhone 7 in terms of headphones, of course. I suspect they won’t include wireless headphones in the box, though I would be pleased if they did — it seems like too much of a leap. I do think they may sell such things separately, and if so I hope the price is something publicly appealing, something that’s of the not-quite-but-nearly an impulse buy price, of, say $79 or €79 (remember the Pencil costs $99). Plus there is a patent precedent.
All of this is subject to, of course, Apple being Apple. The iPhone 7 may have a traditional headphone socket after all, or a dongle, or a free doughnut in the box. It’s a delightful mystery.
