Apple to drop headphone dongle, says Barclays analyst

It seems that if there’s one thing that Apple is really good at, it’s making life uncomfortable for its loyal buyers.

When Apple introduced the iPhone 7 two years ago, it became the first smartphone manufacturer to drop the headphone jack. This decision raised a lot of controversies then, and many customers had serious criticisms.

To help keep the storm of outrage at bay, the firm sold the iPhone 7 with a dongle that connected to the phone’s charging port and that owners could use to attach headphones.

This meant that you could only do one thing at a time though – either charge your phone or listen to music through the headphones – but not both. Unless, of course, you own a wireless charging pad and one of the latest iPhones.

Apple continued to include this dongle with the iPhone 8 and later with the iPhone X – but that is reportedly about to change.

If a research note from a Barclays analyst that was viewed by MacRumors is correct, then the new 2018 iPhones will cease to come with the jack adaptor that’s necessary to connect a headphone to the charging port.

Cirrus Logic, the company that makes the dongle, has according to reports confirmed this to Barclays.

The Barclays note went on to say: “Cirrus didn’t update its FY19 guide … but they did finally confirm the dongle loss, adding more support for our below estimates.”

Should this turn out to be the case, it is very likely going to leave a sour taste in the mouths of more than one Apple user as most of them still consider the dongle to be essential.

It won’t be a train smash though – if you really want one, then you can buy it for around $12 (about £9.25 at current exchange rates).