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Apple Replaced the Headphone Jack On the iPhone 7 With a Fake Speaker Grill (businessinsider.com)
Not long ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained why the company felt a need to remove the headphone jack from the new iPhones -- the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. He said, "that jack takes up a lot of space in the phone, a lot of space. And there's a lot of more important things we can provide for the consumer than that jack." His colleague Phil Schiller cited "courage" for the same. As people learn to live in a world where they have to use a dongle to use their existing pair of headphones, gadget repair community iFixit found today that Apple isn't really using that "extra space" it got after getting rid of the headphone jack. BusinessInsider reports: "In place of the headphone jack, we find a component that seems to channel sound from outside the phone into the microphone... or from the Taptic Engine out," they write. Yep -- in the place where the headphone jack used to be there's a piece of molded plastic. "No fancy electronics here, just some well-designed acoustics and molded plastic," iFixit writes.iFixit adds, "Closer inspection shows a new, second lower speaker grille that leads ... nowhere? Interesting." Update: 09/16 21:21 GMT by M : Apple says it's a "barometric vent." The Verge reports: Apparently adding all the waterproofing to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus meant that it was more of a sealed box, and so to be able to have an accurate and working barometer, Apple used that space. The barometer is the thing that allows a phone to measure altitude, and Apple points out that on the iPhone 7 it can measure even minor changes like climbing a flight of stairs.
Should read: Apple Replaced the Headphone Jack On the iPhone 7 With a Huge Taptic Engine
Just look at the pictures:
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardow...
(Look at Step 6)
It's obvious that the huge Taptic Engine is right in the line of fire for where the plug would go.
That said: I do this it's a bit BS to put a "speaker grill" there. It might be aesthetically pleasing (balance) but it's a bit underhanded. I'm not really buying their "it's for the barometer!" schtick either...
In this case, it probably was 3.5mm jack, or sealed case for waterproofness. I'm guessing waterproofness won out.
Nope. There are other waterproof smartphones that have a higher rating (IP68) than the iPhone 7, yet they all have a headphone jack. What won out was a way to push customers into either buying headphones that use the lightning port or bluetooth headphones that use Apple's W1 chip. Either way, Apple gets paid when others make accessories with their proprietary crap. "Oh, but there's a dongle", you say. Indeed there is. Apple knew there would be an even bigger shit-storm if not for some way for people to still use non-Apple headphones, but genius lies in the inconvenience of using the dongle. Which is exactly what will make iPhone users more likely to purchase Apple taxed headphones in the future.