Apple to treat AirPods as a premium accessory; to bundle wired EarPods with iPhone 7: Analyst

Everyone’s favourite Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo has announced his belief that Apple will not bundle Apple’s rumoured wireless EarPods (AirPods?) with iPhones. Kuo believes that AirPods will be classified as a premium accessory and thus, will be sold separately. He adds that the devices will use a custom Bluetooth-like chip that will probably not be compatible with the Bluetooth standard. The chip in question will offer a greater degree of power management and lower power consumption, believes Kuo. He also believes that TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor) was the company that developed the chips. Considering that Apple is expected to kill of the headphone jack this year (Damn you, Apple!), Kuo believes that Apple will simply bundle the regular EarPods along with a lightning to 3.5mm adapter or maybe even a lightning-only set of wired EarPods. While not an ideal solution, it does seem like a workable one. I still fail to see why Apple is so hell-bent on killing of the 3.5mm jack, however. The iPhone 7 (sans 3.5mm jack) is expected to be announced at Apple’s September Keynote tonight at 10:30PM IST. Keep an eye on this space for live updates as the event unfolds.