All this crazy talk about Apple deleting the defacto industry standard headphone jack in favor of a proprietary connector is a red herring. Such a move would create massive discontent and alienate hundreds of millions of customers while providing incremental value too a tiny few. If there is truly a need to change the standard audio connector and disrupt hundreds of millions of customers, it should be done through a consortium that also includes audio equipment suppliers. The change should be rolled out under a pre-defined schedule, much like the transition from NTSC to HDTV broadcast standards.
The 3.5mm audio jack should be treated like the physical layer specification in a communication protocol standard. If Apple independently breaks ranks with the standard they will be widely and publically ridiculed, whether or not they stick a converter dongle in the box to allow legacy audio products to connect to the new proprietary socket. With such a tiny signal and so much noise I just cannot see Apple risking its reputation and customer loyalty in this area. It doesn't matter whether Lightning is technically better than 3.5mm. Customers are perfectly happy with the current standard and give it no thought. Remember what happened when IBM changed its expansion bus socket from ISA to Micro Channel? It caused a lot of backlash against IBM and spawned organized alternatives against IBM's approach. The alternatives won and the rest is history.
Except Apple is not replacing the "standard" analogue audio jack connector. They are removing it. There is no consortium that says a device must have a 3.5mm audio jack. I just bought a Samsung TV that has no way to get audio out of it at all, much less a 3.5mm jack which used to be standard -- I have to split the HDMI output from my TV 4 to route the audio to my stereo system.
If Apple does this, they are betting on the new "standard" being wireless -- nothing wired. If someone wants to use analogue only headphones, there are Lightning adapters, or they can buy the iPhone 6s.
This is article is classically slap-worthy. I've been seeing "buy now or wait?" articles for thirty years now.
If you need something now, buy it and he happy with it. If what you already have will be okay for the foreseeable future, wait a while. No matter when you buy something, a year later it will be outdated. If having the absolute cutting-edge gear in hand at all times is that important to a person, let them spend their money.
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If Apple does this, they are betting on the new "standard" being wireless -- nothing wired. If someone wants to use analogue only headphones, there are Lightning adapters, or they can buy the iPhone 6s.
I going to wait to see the new 7 before buying my iPhone.