Ever since it rolled out the first Macintosh computer over 30 years ago, Apple has been on a mission to make products that are smaller, sleeker, and minimized. That ethos has played out over and over again thru the years. The first iMacs had no floppy disk drives. Then, Apple stopped installing optical drives into its desktop and laptop machines. Now, in the modern age of the iDevice, this practice is repeated with Apple designing phones and tablets that are increasingly thinner and lighter. It was pretty obvious this trend wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. And while it seemed Apple couldn’t possibly make these devices any smaller, they still found a way.

Rumors began circulating earlier this year that the iPhone 7, the latest edition of Apple’s wildly popular smartphone, would ship without an analog headphone jack. And those rumors were confirmed today during an Apple event that announced the iPhone 7. Apple’s Phil Schiller made his case for a bold, wireless future by rolling out a quaint image of an old-timey switchboard operator that was meant to enforce the analog headphone port’s origins in old technology. Indeed,  Apple is all about the future. The bright, shiny (and most importantly), wireless future.

Thanks to a proliferation of audio/video apps and accessories for iOS, these devices have become invaluable tools for many podcast producers. And while the death of the headphone port may be discouraging, it’s not the absolute end of the world. Apple will provide an analog adapter that’ll plug into the Lightning connector, allowing users to connect headphones and other analog-driven devices. It’s also a good bet that a whole new line of third-party products will hit the market to service those who’ve been abandoned by the headphone port’s disappearance.

Of course, another alternative would be to just hang onto older devices instead of trading them in right away for the iPhone 7. But just like that telephone operator, I know this is also a quaint notion for most modern technology users.