Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak speaks out against removal of 3.5 mm jack, says Nexus 5X is among his favorite smartphones

Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs back in 1976 and left the company in 1985. He's still an engineer passionate about tech, who isn't afraid to criticize the company that he worked to start over its current direction choices.

In a recent interview, given to the Australia media Financial Review, the Woz gave his opinion on the now prominent rumor that the iPhone 7 will be lacking the universally-used 3.5 mm headphone jack. In case you aren't up to date on this — there is a ton of rumors and leaks from various sources, claiming that Apple will omit the jack from its upcoming flagship, and users will have to use special headphones that only connect to the Lightning port if they want to use them with the handset. There are talks about a Lightning-to-headphones adapter, too, but it's yet unknown whether it would be included in the iPhone 7's box, or if it would be sold separately. Though, with Apple's track record on accessories, it's very probably that it would be the latter.

Steve Wozniak's take on this design choice is that it will alienate fans of the iPhone and will lead to customer backlash. He also commented that he's no fan of wireless audio, as Bluetooth sounds flat and lifeless with the current tech, and said that advances in the field need to be made before the omission of a 3.5 mm jack is even considered as an option. He continued to lament the fact that his headphones with custom ear implants, which he enjoys very much, will now need an extra adapter attached to them to work with an iPhone. Sure, it's maybe not a huge pain to keep the adapter permanently attached to the headset's cord if all you use it with is your iPhone, but if it's a favorite set that gets plugged in a variety of your devices, having to remember to always bring that Lightning-to-headphones gizmo can get tedious.

On a slightly different note, The Woz continued to say that he is currently enjoying USB Type-C very much and that Apple should follow “the lead” of its competitors and implement it. The reasoning behind his feeling wasn't explained thoroughly, but he shared that one of his current smartphones, the Google Nexus 5X, is given “a higher level” just for having USB C.

Wozniak is far from the only person on the Internet to be against the apparent lack of a headphone jack on the new iPhones. Ever since the first rumors started circling the Web, tech fans worldwide voiced their irritation at the design choice, and Apple competitors are already mocking the omission of such a basic feature. Well, Apple does what it does, we all know that, but we wonder if Woz's prediction of a backlash will actually come true, and if Cupertinians will choose to change course because of it.