Apple iPhone 7 to ditch headphone jack; might also have a 'Panic Buton'

Apple might drop the headphone port from the next generation iPhones starting with the iPhone7 to make it slimmer than ever. The current iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are only three months old but there’s already word the next gen iPhones will have radically different features.

Apple will remove the 3.5 mm headphone jack on the iPhone7 and incorporate an all-in-one Lightning connector, reports Japanese website Mac Otakara. The Lightning connector will have an in-built Digital to Analog Convertor (DA). The connector will support Lightning-equipped and Bluetooth headphones for backward compatibility.

The iPhone7 might be the thinnest iPhone ever and will also feature a major overhaul in memory. The next-gen device will be only 6.1 mm thick like the sixth-generation iPod touch. But the iPod still has a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The new iPhone 7 will be 1 mm thinner than the current iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. The report also mentioned Apple might install Lightning-equipped EarPods for the new iPhones.

The EarPods will be separately sold for future iOS devices. In June 2014, Apple introduced the MFi Program to enable third-party manufacturers to develop headphones that connect iOS devices via a lightning cable, reported Mac Rumors.

In the past, Apple has eliminated features from its devices’ hardware. In 1998, Apple killed the conventional floppy drive on the iMac desktops. Currently, Philips has Lightning-equipped Fidelio M2L and Fidelio NC1L headphones.

The iPhone 7 will see quite a few innovations on its display screen. The device might sport a sapphire display with an anti-reflective coating and eliminate the Home Button. Apple probably won’t consider using AMOLED displays before 2018, according to the grapevine.

Apple is also said to have filed a patent to include a new security feature, a ‘Panic Button.’ The patent filed in May 2014 has been approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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