An iPhone So Thin You Can't Plug In Your Headphones?

• Will the next iPhone be so thin it won’t support 3.5 mm headphones?
• A few days ago, Japanese blog Macotakara published an article claiming that a reliable source had told them that Apple Inc. AAPL would be removing the headset jack from its iPhone 7.
• Apparently, headphones will be connected to the phone’s Lightning (charging) port instead.

Rumor has it that the next iPhone will be so thin you won’t be able to plug in your regular 3.5 mm headphones. According to Japanese blog Macotakara, a reliable source assured the iPhone 7 would keep the screen shape and radius of its predecessor, but that the company was aiming at making it more than 1 mm thinner.

So, instead of using a 3.5 mm jack, the headphones would be plugged into the iPhone 7’s Lightning (charging) port, using a DA (Digital to Analog) converter, which will allegedly be incorporated in the phone. Of course, Bluetooth headphones or earphones would solve this issue as well.

But, eliminating the 3.5 mm port would not only make the phones slimmer. Lightning-connected headphones would bring an additional benefit: they would be able to draw energy from the phone, thus eliminating the need of an internal battery – and consequently making them lighter and potentially smaller.

However, as several sources have noted, Apple would not be the first to come up with this idea. Philips has already launched a pair of headphones -Fidelio, which use a Lightning connector. According to the company, they supply “a pure digital signal directly to the headphones. Keeping the signal digital helps to reduce crosstalk interference and improves stereo separation,” they explicated.

Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above.