Just copied this over from the note 7 thread ...

VKoil: Is it just me or does it feel like a lot is being made of a missing 3.5mm Jack?

The Moto Z did it and no one picked on it. I know Apple is a more popular brand but it's customers have always been willing to pay a premium price.

I think a missing jack is not going to affect the average i-user. Surely they're used to the dongle life by now (note apple's change to lightning)? Okay that's a bit tongue in cheek...

I think Apple's biggest problem is this: it's a bit boring.
Customer x goes to upgrade their iPhone 6 to the latest iPhone 7, comes home and an hour later they've restored their content from iCloud...aaaand they have a device that looks and feels exactly like their old 6 or 5...

No new toys immediately noticeable - sure it's a little faster thanks to the new processor (but not everyone's subscribed to geekzone and the layman won't know the power it's actually packing). Maybe the camera if they buy the 7 plus will be novel for a little while.

And the one thing OS fragmentation is good for is that it allows us to feel like things have changed from the last device...The Note 7 for example - even Samsung's customizations change from device to device; there's new functionality - tangible changes in OS behaviour. Whether it be new stylus operations or just the new de-greased look of the latest touchwiz... Something is always a bit different with each android device.

Apple...just roll out the latest iOS to every Apple iPhone at once. In fact the look and feel of iOS has changed very little since the 2007 iPhone (bar the change away from skeuomorphism).

In some ways Apple's like the Porsche of the tech world... If it ain't broke don't fix it - fine tune it under the hood but leave the design unchanged.

There's nothing wrong with Apple's approach though and most of what I say is my opinionated dribble... But does anyone else see it this way?

 For your average i-user, the jack is probably not a big thing. For audio lovers, I suspect it is, but we are a small group in the overall user population. Moto dropping it was probably ignored because Moto is such a small player. I hope other manufacturers fight apple on this and keep it in kit for the foreseeable future as a point of differentiation over apple.

 I agree with your sentiments. One thing about apple that I don't like is that they deliberately underspec some functionality to keep up their sleeve for the next release. Up until this latest release it was the 16GB storage when virtually all other flagships had moved on (name me one flagship from last year other than apple that shipped with 16GB with no ability to expand). This year, it's the 1080 screen when virtually everyone else has upped their resolution. Not too bad on the smaller iPhone, but on the plus version this is a spec deficiency that defies the $1,500+ price.

 But, there's enough apple fans out there to keep buying the underspec'ed kit, so I guess no incentive for apple to change.