A new development has been released on the road to making the iPhone 7 a completely different experience for Apple users. The next Apple smartphone is reported to be ditching the headphone socket.

According to Venture Beat, the upcoming iPhone 7 that will come out in fall of 2016 will no longer have the 3.5mm headphone jack that the older models do. Instead, users will have to make use of an all in one Lightning connector, according to a reliable source.

9to5 Mac notes that the move is necessary to remove more than 1mm in the phone's overall thickness to make the iPhone 7 even thinner than it is now. Years ago, Apple tried making the switch to a much thinner 2.5mm headphone jack, but abandoning plans after complaints from users about the original iPhone's recessed 3.5mm port.

MacWorld further adds that Apple has been in the business of rendering obsolete many features on older generation devices. Take for instance when the iMac ditched the floppy disk drive and ushered in the era of the flash drive.

Apple's attempt at a headphone jack absent phone won't be the first though. HTC G1, the first Android-based smartphone, launched out of the box without a headphone jack as well. However, given Apple's market size and dominance in innovation, shipping out an iPhone 7 without a headphone jack might force other smartphone builders to follow suit.

Other iPhone 7 specs being rumoured nowadays include a shift from LCD to OLED for displays, 3GB in RAM, a waterproof enclosure, and a protection mechanism to protect the screen as the handset is in falling motion.

Apple is expected to ship out a total of 260 million iPhones in 2016, a 12.5 percent gain compared to 2015 shipments. However, this will not be able to compete with Anrdoid's forecasted 350 million shipments next year, even if those figures show a 4 peacent decrease in shipping.