iPhone 7 might kill the headphone jack to become crazy thin

Apple could be planning to do away with the 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7, if new reports are to be believed.

The normally reliable 9to5Mac cites a Japanese blog as the source of the murmurs. The thinking, apparently, is that by doing away with the standard headphone port the company can make the next iPhone "more than 1mm" thinner.

Instead, headphones would connect via either the iPhone's Lightning port, or wirelessly using Bluetooth. In what is no doubt a massive coincidence, Apple happens to own Beats, a company that makes expensive headphones and which can presumably expect a massive uptick in sales if Apple does decide to do away with the decades-old headphone standard.

Bluetooth = better?

This move could raise issues over audio quality, with those committed to cable unlikely to react favourably to Apple's removal of the jack. Apple may build new headphone hardware into the iPhone 7 to improve its digital audio output, and thus delivering better audio to our ears, but there's no guarentee in that.

This isn't the first time such a change has been rumoured. Earlier this year there was talk of the iPhone switching to the much less common 2.5mm headphone standard.

Last year Apple introduced audio support through the Lightning port, while Phillips beat the competition to become the first company to release headphones that connect through that port – the Fidelio M2L.

Such a move would no doubt cause huge controversy, so it'll be interesting to see if Apple dares to make the switch.

• Here's our review of the Phillips M2L Lightning headphones.