With the Apple event invites out for September 7, we're a mere 9 days away from the collective mainstream tech press losing its marbles over the now-all-but-confirmed iPhone update and the widely anticipated loss of the 3.5mm headphone jack. We can safely prepare for a minor meltdown among the usual suspects, who jump on every other move that Apple makes to proclaim that the company has gone too far, and that all sensible people will finally jump ship.

Of course the world won't really end—all of those existing 3.5mm ports and headphones won't suddenly disappear, disabled by a software update or secretly buried in the Nevada desert for future documentarians to dig up. Those who buy the next iPhone and who don't already have wireless headphones will either (a) use the headphones that come in the box (whether they're wired into the Lightning port or bluetooth—and I expect it'll be the former) or (b) use an adaptor (cheap, if not in-the-box) until they get new wireless headphones.

There'll be some minor irritation of course, but it'll be hard in a year's time to find anyone who's actually dumped the iPhone because of the loss of a legacy port. Most Android phone manufacturers will trumpet their phones still having it, until they all dump it too, spurred on by the continuing growth path of wireless over wired headphones.

Expect too, to hear lots about the extra quality that the new iPhone bring to audio across Lightning/wireless.

Full disclosure: I own, and love, a fairly decent set of wired earbuds. If the next version of these doesn't support Bluetooth I'll be looking for something good that does anyway. I'm already slightly annoyed that I can't walk around the house without my iPhone plugged into them.