The iPhone X, iPhone SE and iPhone 6s are not the only things Apple ditched as a direct effect of its September 12 event. While, as a first, the company offers unlocked iPhones from day one, these new iPhones will no longer come bundled with a dongle inside the box. Apple is either trying to spare the cost of those or knows for a fact that iPhone owners don’t use them and prefer Apple’s Lighting or wireless earphones.
A Barclays analyst cited by Reuters claims that Cirrus has confirmed the move to ditch dongles on new iPhones. Cirrus is making analog chips used in Apple devices, which account for more than 80 percent of its total sales. Additionally, the analyst claims that after inspecting iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 pages from last week and same pages today, these dongles are missing from older versions of the Apple phone’s box as well.
Neither Apple nor Cirrus officially commented on the matter, but the analyst said: “While CRUS did admit the dongle was out in current generations, it’s an additional negative that they are also removing the dongle from the older products”.
This could be a strategy to boost Apple’s own AirPods, or simply a reaction to user feedback. The dongle will still be available to purchase separately from Apple and third-party official resellers.