The Lack of a Headphone Port and Potential AirPods

There’s been constant rumours and opinions, but it seems pretty clear now that the next iPhone will be lacking a 3.5mm headphone port.

I’m not going to ramble on about whether I think it’s a good idea or not, because the decision to remove it has already been made, so there nothing anyone can do to bring it back.

My question is that, will Apple provide a pair of Lightning EarPods, or even a pair of wireless EarPods^[1]? And also, which one will be included in the box of every new iPhone?

I can see it being the wired version included in the box, but I will definitely be purchasing the wireless pair if they are available. That’s if they’re reasonably priced. I won’t be spending any more than £50 on a pair.

Once you get a pair of wireless earphones, the power becomes another issue, and they will obviously need internal batteries. So how will they be charged? I’m hoping they will be individual buds, so there’s then two extra batteries to charge.

I also don’t want another charging cable, because that means keeping my iPhone, iPad, Watch, and potential AirPods charged up, will be a nightmare!

I think that they should be charged the same way that an Apple Pencil is, via a male Lightning pin, which can then connect to your iOS device to charge. In my opinion this will need the 80/20 quick charge method that the Watch has, to make sure you can quickly get a decent charge, and get back to listening. Because you don’t want a situation where your away from a power source, your earphones go flat, and you have no way to listen to anything!

A small idea I had was if the earpieces themselves would have a kind of dock/case, like the case the current EarPods come in, and then they would both be charged simultaneously by an internal battery in the case. Which then could be charged by a lightning cable like your iPhone/iPad. This would be a middleman battery, but more bearable than having to charge two buds separately, or having to wait until you get home to charge them.

Anyway, we will all see what happens at Apple’s September event.