Apple has an adapter for the headphone jack to plug into lightning connectors.
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Why Apple killed the iPhone headphone jack

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

Headphone jacks seem like something sacred on our mobile devices. But Apple’s Phil Schiller explained why Apple decided to make its iPhone 7 smartphone without it.

Schiller, the senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple, said that “courage to move on” was one of those reasons, as Apple engineers decided they could take technology forward if they got rid of the antiquated analog audio connector.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.