Steve Wozniak tells Apple: Sort out the iPhone 7 headphone jack or alienate customers

Woz whacks Apple over iPhone 7 headphone jack issue

Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, has advised the company not to remove the headphone socket in the forthcoming iPhone 7, suggesting that the company would "tick off" a lot of loyal customers if it did - including Wozniak himself.

However, it's arguably too late in the design cycle for the company to do anything about it now.

Nevertheless, speculation has strongly indicated that Apple will remove the 3.5mm headphone jack with the iPhone 7 in favour of a Lightning port in a bid to make the device even thinner and, potentially, waterproofed.

However, that also means that customers will have to upgrade to Lightning or Bluetooth-enabled headphones, or hook up their existing ones via a 3.5mm-to-Lightning adaptor.

This hasn't gone down well with Wozniak, who believes that it will annoy a lot of Apple's customers too.

"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.

"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."

Woz also pointed out that he's a fan of his custom-made headphones, which will need to be connected via an adaptor when he, naturally, upgrades to the iPhone 7.

"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.

That is, he noted, unless Apple upgrades the Bluetooth in its next smartphone to improve the audio quality.

"If there's a Bluetooth 2 that has higher bandwidth and better quality, that sounds like real music, I would use it. But we'll see. Apple is good at moving towards the future, and I like to follow that," he said.

Wozniak is probably referring to Bluetooth 5, which was announced in June. It is expected to be faster and have a longer range and a higher transfer rate.

While Wozniak isn't a fan of Apple's Lightning port, he is a big fan of the USB Type-C connectivity standard and said, perhaps a year too late, that he expects it to be "the future".