It’s been 75 days since Apple first announced the iPhone 7. That’s 75 days where customers were promised the solution to all of our headphone jack-less iPhone’s would soon come to an end. 75 days where iPhone owners were required to either purchase a third-party solution or use an adapter to connect Apple’s own headphones to its flagship mobile device.
It’s also nearly 11 weeks, one missed deadline, and a rumor that we wouldn’t see the maligned earbuds until 2017.
Today, though… today could be the day we’ve been waiting for.
According to Mac Rumors, an email from Apple CEO Tim Cook reveals the ship date should happen “over the next few weeks.” The email, for what it’s worth isn’t verifiable, and Mac Rumors makes no claims as to the legitimacy of it all — we don’t either. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, but in typical Apple fashion, the company is remaining mum — at least for the time being.
Customer’s comment: “Give us a release date. I really bought in to the wireless vision you painted. Now I’m stuck waiting with my EarPods but can’t charge my 7 at the same time which I need to do at work. Let us know if it’s a month or 6 months, because then I’ll just buy some other wireless headphones.”
Tim Cook’s response: “Thanks for your note. Sorry for the delay—we are finalizing them and I anticipate we will begin to ship over the next few weeks.”
After originally planning for an October roll-out, the AirPods were delayed, and then rumored to ship sometime in 2017.
Strictly speculation on my part, but seeing the mixed response of demo models sent out to members of the press, it seems Apple is taking its time to get them right. It’s tough to sell headphones north of $150 that are reported to, well, suck. Again though, we can’t be sure why they’ve been delayed or if this is a legitimate answer to the question we’ve all had about a first-party solution to our headphone woes.
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