All I hear and read is the same regurgitated pissy comments about the lack of headphone jack...I have several solutions to this mindless complaining that's taking the world it seems...
-Attach the adapter to your good headphones that you prefer to use. Yes this simple...Leave the adapter connected to the 3.5mm headphones (it won't just fall off if you handle them by the headphone cord)
-Use included lightning headphones
-purchase dock or another adapter if you need to charge at same time(ps... There's better battery life now so not as much of need to do this)
This is the direction technology is going and for me the benefits of the new iPhone 7 outweigh this issue. As an audiophile I agree Bluetooth sound quality isn't as good....yet....but just use adapter or get a pair of good lightning headphones for ease of use. You don't have to only use older iphones or switch to android...you will cope I promise.
1) As you say, BT technology isn't good enough to replace wired headphones yet, so that's out for some, and the W1 chipped earbuds won't be available until almost November for those who were relying on them as a wired headphone replacement, so that's out for everyone. That leaves only the same low quality, hard to pair, BT headphones that have been on the market for years for those who don't care about quality. So P eople who already have them are set, those that don't aren't likely to invest in something lesser, so that leaves ...
2) Lightning EarPods should offer the same quality experience the current EarPods do, but they offer the potential to provide much higher quality headphones than was possible before. Unfortunately, out of the box on Friday, they won't be compatible with much more than the iPhone 7 and some newer iOS devices, including Macs, as there aren't any adapters for anything else, not even USB-C, much less 3.5mm. And if they want to charge and listen at the same time, they'll need a $40+ adapter. So, Lightning is anything but more convenient, or easy to use at this point. But I'm sure that will change, eventually. Maybe by November? Until then ...
3) Old 3.5mm headphones can be used out of the box with the free adapter, and can be used on any other device with a 3.5mm Jack (which is pretty much everything) in every way they could use them before, and hopefully the adapter will provide at least the same quality as the 6s internal DAC and amp, since it's only $9. Unfortunately, customers will still need a $40+ adapter if they want to charge and listen at the same time on the iPhone 7. So as long as they don't lose their adapter while using their headphones on another device, then it will be as if nothing ever changed, except it's less convenient to use with their primary device now.
So the first day out of the box at least, it looks like the best solution for most is to keep using their old 3.5mm headphone jack, which has now become more complicated and frustrating. Now that's real innovation! Or courage?
