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Niles North High School | Skokie, IL

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Niles North High School | Skokie, IL

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Apple tunes out fans’ demands

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Senior year has reduced practically all of the stresses in my life. At the moment, one of the biggest troubles I have been experiencing is how my LifeProof case cannot fit the auxiliary cord in my car. I have been constrained to playing music from my phone itself, and the quality is laughable. However, with the announcement of the iPhone 7 on Sept. 7 at the Apple Keynote event, it seems millions of consumers will experience even harsher problems than I have as the phone has removed their standard headphone jack in favor of headphones with lightning cords.

There are a lot of fantastic new features on the iPhone 7: the camera (or cameras, on the plus version) is sleek and the quality is outstanding, the dual speaker system is neat, the new home button that vibrates and has force sensitivity is an awesome addition, and water resistance is long overdue. Most of these features are fairly ambitious and could lead to an impressive phone. Still, the lack of a headphone jack may turn many away completely.

The phone comes with an adapter that connects to the lightning port and can allow users to utilize their own headphones. Still, adapters are prone to being lost, tend to be clunky, and also conflict with some types of cases. Apple fanatics who also love headphones (that are not made by Apple) may be stuck with the iPhone 6 for now.

However, several news outlets believe customers will quickly grow accustomed to the change. “Customers invariably react badly to big changes in beloved products. But after a few months of grumbling, they usually accept the change and quickly forget about it,” Timothy Lee of Vox said.

One major concern about the removal of a headphone jack is Apple’s ownership of Beats headphones. At the keynote, Beats unveiled several different models of headphones. Apple, without a headphone port, may be attempting to force their consumers to buy Beats products, which have notoriously bad sound quality. Hopefully, all of this will backfire on Apple and they will learn to give their fans a choice of how to accessorize their phones.

Apple will be giving away a pair of headphones that can connect via lightning cable with every phone purchase, however this inhibits users from being able to charge their phone and listen to music with headphones at the same time. To remedy the situation, another product was revealed yesterday: the Apple AirPods, a wireless headphone alternative. The AirPods seem like a great idea, yet Apple plans to sell them for $159. The AirPods are probably great headphones, and ignoring the fact that they are bound to get lost as well, they are dangerously overpriced. Nonetheless, overpriced items never seems to divert Apple fans, so that should not prove to be too big of a problem.

“I think it’s a bold move on Apple’s part. It’ll take people a lot of time to get used to it. You’re switching to wireless and people don’t want to pay the price for wireless,” Zev Blumenthal, junior, said.

The problem with Apple’s decision to remove the headphone port is not their desire for creativity and change; it is the sense that Apple is attempting to limit our choices of headphones and force us to pay them more money for products that are not always of the highest quality. It is up to consumers to prove to Apple that they will not be forced into buying anything.

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Apple tunes out fans’ demands