“The reason to move on: courage. The courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. Apple is an international technology company that is best known for its series of computers, the iPhones, and the iPods.  This company started in 1976 as a computer company, but has been booming since with the addition of the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch, the Apple TV and many more. However, with the accumulation of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple decided to remove the headphone jack.

The former headphone jack on older models allowed the acceptance of a standard pair of headphones, or wired headphones. On this advanced model, many headphones are unusable, and new headphones, such as the AirPods, that are compliant are more expensive. Although Apple’s motive is to free up space inside the phone for other technology and to further Apple’s vision for better audio, people are unwilling to believe so. The public deems this an attempt for Apple to gain additional profits, as they would be in the need to buy new, wireless headphones that cost up to $159 compared to standard, wired ones, which cost as little as under $10. Additionally, these wireless headphones in the ears of the consumer can easily plunge out and vanish, further costing the consumer more money to replace them.

Other than just the expense difference, there are many other cons to the AirPods compared to standard headphones. One of which is the adapter. The adapter functions by plugging it into the charging port of the iPhone and then plugging in the standard headphones into the adapter. Even though individuals might consider the adapter that comes with the iPhone family a pro since it only costs $15 as well, there are disadvantages to dragging this bulky device along. First off, it is very inconvenient to carry along and it can easily be lost, thus making the customer helplessly buying a new one. Secondly, there is no way to charge the device while using the adaptor. This means that the purchaser has to either use the headphones, or charge the phone. Contrasting to regular headphones, charging is available because of the separate port of the headphone jack.

As stated previously, another con is the vulnerability of losing the headphones. Since the wireless headphones can’t plug into the socket of the phone, meaning there is no support of the wires, these headphones are subject to descend out of the ears and onto the ground. Furthermore, because of how small they are, it can be difficult to retrieve this roughly $160 product. Compared to the wired headphones, if they drop they are still connected, because the cords are attached to the phone, thus meaning that they can easily be recovered. Moreover, if the headphones do get lost, the prices are drastically cheaper, as mentioned beforehand.

Although, Apple will not release the sales of the iPhone 7/iPhone 7 Plus, there is an estimation that within the first two weeks of the release, only about 3.6% of current Apple devices are of the iPhone 7 family. On the other hand the iPhone 6’s first two weeks of release had about 4.0% of current devices of their group. As a result, the sales of the iPhone 7 family are significantly lower than the iPhone 6’s. Furthermore, from this representative sample, they had lost about 10% of their profits, even with the growing population and age of technology. This loss of profits can deplete to a higher percentage, as Apple sealed off the return of the headphone jack in future models.
Shown apparent in their earnings, many people decided to abandon Apple devices and switch to other companies, because of their decision to vacate the headphone jack. With Apple refusing to fetch back the headphone jack in future models, this 10% decline can potentially become unhealthier and can exponentially decay. In other words, years from now it may be 15% or worse. All in all, with the replacement of the headphone jack to the advanced technology of AirPods, problems such as expense, the liability/cons of the adapter, and the headphone’s susceptibleness of losing/misplacing them surfaces.