I'm amazed at the rage around this, a good friend of mine is about as anti Apple as the come and back in July he asked what I, a Mac and iPhone user, thought of

I'm amazed at the rage around this, a good friend of mine is about as anti Apple as the come and back in July he asked what I, a Mac and iPhone user, thought of them removing the headphone socket in the then rumoured 7. I said I was, and still am, largely indifferent. He on the other hand was full of praise for Apple, he said he can't remember the last time he or his wife plugged head phones in to their phones and with bluetooth headphones being so cheap now (he as some of the MPow £20 ones) there is no reason to keep a piece of legacy equipment around for nostalgia purposes. I was amazed given his usually anti Apple stance, but then I remembered that while he is anti Apple he is very pro progress, any kind of progress and technology change. Try something, see if it works and then move forward or try something else. The phone market has become relatively stale, this is at least a company attempting (along with Motorola let's not forget) something radical. I didn't think it was radical but based on the online eruption it clearly is, people seem to have forgotten that there's a lot that's not great about 3.5 headphones that, I think, equally balances out the issues with wireless only. If you don't like it that much then just don't buy the phone, if enough people do that then Apple will respond to market forces and backtrack. No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone.