It seems that if there’s one thing that Apple is really good at, it’s making life uncomfortable for its loyal buyers.
When Apple introduced the iPhone 7 two years ago, it became the first smartphone manufacturer to drop the headphone jack. This decision raised a lot of controversies then, and many customers had serious criticisms.
To help keep the storm of outrage at bay, the firm sold the iPhone 7 with a dongle that connected to the phone’s charging port and that owners could use to attach headphones.
This meant that you could only do one thing at a time though – either charge your phone or listen to music through the headphones – but not both. Unless, of course, you own a wireless charging pad and one of the latest iPhones.
Apple continued to include this dongle with the iPhone 8 and later with the iPhone X – but that is reportedly about to change.
If a research note from a Barclays analyst that was viewed by MacRumors is correct, then the new 2018 iPhones will cease to come with the jack adaptor that’s necessary to connect a headphone to the charging port.
Cirrus Logic, the company that makes the dongle, has according to reports confirmed this to Barclays.
The Barclays note went on to say: “Cirrus didn’t update its FY19 guide … but they did finally confirm the dongle loss, adding more support for our below estimates.”
Should this turn out to be the case, it is very likely going to leave a sour taste in the mouths of more than one Apple user as most of them still consider the dongle to be essential.
It won’t be a train smash though – if you really want one, then you can buy it for around $12 (about £9.25 at current exchange rates).