Apple inventor and co-founder Steve Wozniak is known for expressing his opinions on Apple’s products and telling it like it is. Unsurprisingly, the legendary programmer has some free advice for Apple regarding the iPhone 7’s most important “issue,” the absence of the headphone jack.
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Apple is yet to confirm the new iPhone will lack a standard audio connector, but pretty much expects the iPhone maker to kill the aging port.
“If it’s missing the 3.5mm earphone jack, that’s going to tick off a lot of people,” Wozniak told The Australian Financial Review, echoing the worries of many others.
His main concern is with audio over Bluetooth, which he says is inferior to the 3.5mm output.
“I would not use Bluetooth … I don’t like wireless. I have cars where you can plug in the music, or go through Bluetooth, and Bluetooth just sounds so flat for the same music,” he said.
However, Apple is yet to confirm whether the bundled headphones that ship with every iPhone will be wired or wireless. Apple is rumored to either launch Lightning EarPods, or introduce its first wireless headphones this year.
Woz would like to use his current headphone setup with the future iPhone, even if that means buying adaptors for them. “Mine have custom ear implants, they fit in so comfortably, I can sleep on them and everything. And they only come out with one kind of jack, so I’ll have to go through the adaptor,” he said.
On the other hand, it’s likely that the company that makes Wozniak’s favorite headphones will come up with Lightning versions if the market demands it.
But the man who started Apple with Steve Jobs in a garage is convinced that Apple is skating where the puck is going. “If there’s a Bluetooth 2 that has higher bandwidth and better quality, that sounds like real music, I would use [wireless headphones],” he said. “But we’ll see. Apple is good at moving towards the future, and I like to follow that.”
Wozniak also praised the USB-C port, and saying that the new port is going to be “the future,” and implying Apple should use it in smartphones too. Interestingly, Intel has recently explained why audio over USB-C will be so much better than current 3.5mm musical experiences in the near future.
