Does this picture PROVE Apple’s going to infuriate tech fans by ditching iPhone 7 headphone jack?
Dramatic plan to phase out tried and tested technology could push millions of people into forking out hundreds of pounds
Apple is planning to remove an audio jack from the iPhone 7 and render millions' of people's expensive headphones obsolete, it has been claimed.
The controversial design decision would push millions of people into replacing pricey headphones and accessories because they will never again work properly with Apple's latest smartphone model.
A series of published by a have appear to confirm rumours suggesting the jack will be given the heave ho.
In the image above is actually a picture of the unreleased iPhone 7, it shows there is no traditional 3.5mm headphone socket, meaning anyone wanting to use their old headphones with Apple's latest smartphone will have to buy a pricey adaptor.
Apple recently paid $3billion to buy Beats, so it is likely to want to nudge users into buying new headphones - and what better way than making sure their old ones don't work any more?
The news has sent ripples of rage rushing through the tech world.
: "My gut reaction: pure and utter contempt.
"I’m seriously considering switching to Android, that’s how annoying this is to me.
"It seems like a real strong way to alienate users."
Tech bible The Verge said the "stupid" plan was "hostile" towards Apple fans.
It claimed the plan would allow Apple to control how people listened to music and clamp down on piracy.
Currently, there is a phenomenon called the "analogue loophole" which means you can play pretty much any audio recording on your iPhone and pipe it out through the headphone jack.
If Lightning headphones were able to enforce a copyright protection system called "digital rights management", it could mean Apple would have the ability to simply stop the iPhone from playing songs which weren't bought from certain online stories.
This would help the music industry by cutting back on the losses caused by piracy.
However, it would really annoy a lot of music lovers, who could face difficulties playing files they had recorded themselves and encounter all sorts of niggles which would inevitably make listening to tunes a bit more frustrating.
To understand what this means, just think of the good old days when we all bought records and CDs.
Once you had bought these items, you could store them carefully and they were pretty much guaranteed to play on every turntable and CD player in the world.
But if you purchased songs with digital rights management built in, they could be programmed so you can only open them using a certain program - like iTunes - or on a certain device using special headphones.
The headphone jack removal plans could also mean users are pushed into joining the world of Spotify-style music streaming, where you don't actually own the music you listen to and simply opt to pay a monthly fee for the right to listen to it.
Project iFear starts here.
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