Apple has confirmed that the iPhone 7 does not include a headphone jack. In its absence, owners will have to use Lightning or Bluetooth headphones, both of which will be more expensive than a pair that ends in the traditional 3.5mm connector.

Read next: Our iPhone 7 and 7 Plus review

Knowing that plenty of criticism would follow this announcement, Apple tried to address the jack's removal onstage by laying out three reasons for its removal:

A Lightning dongle can adapt older devices It frees up space inside the phone for other tech It furthers Apple's vision for better audio

But what it all really comes down to, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said, is "courage." Yes, courage.

A pair of Lightning earbuds, as well as an adaptor for traditional headphone jacks, will be included in the box with the iPhone 7.

There are a lot of things to feel about this, and many of them have already been felt on this website: such as here, where my colleague Vlad Savov lays out the benefits of Lightning headphones, and here, where our editor-in-chief gets mad about proprietary formats.

A quick rundown of some of the positives and negatives of this move. The positives:





[REMINDER: definitely don't publish this without finding even a single legitimate upside]

The negatives:

Most existing headphones are unusable

New headphones are more expensive

You're definitely going to find yourself needing a pair of headphones and someone will say, "Oh, I have a pair," but then you'll have to explain that they won't work because they're too normal

Basically, it's not a stretch to say that in the short term, this is going to be a huge inconvenience for a lot of people. The 3.5mm headphone jack is a technology standby and isn't going to die quickly or easily.

Getting rid of it does start to accomplish certain goals for Apple. It frees up more space inside the iPhone, which is supposedly already being used up for other tech, and it begins shifting technology as a whole away from an analog standard and toward newer, digital alternatives. It will also sell more Beats headphones.

Those digital alternatives do have their benefits. Headphones connected by Lightning should be able to deliver higher quality audio than headphones connected over a 3.5mm jack. Of course, that's been true for as long as there have been Lightning headphones; now you're just being forced to make that choice.

This quite possibly marks the beginning of the end of the headphone jack. Many will applaud — and already applauding — Apple for taking the plunge. And it's fair to see this as a step for technological progress. But in this case, it's very much a case of long-term progress begot by short-term frustrations and limitations. Potential buyers will want to keep this in mind while looking at the iPhone 7.

Check out our Apple iPhone and Apple Watch live blog for the latest updates and our iPhone and Apple Watch event hub page for all the news!

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