I don’t understand excuse my ignorance please: isn’t Bluetooth “Bluetooth”? Won’t any third-party Bluetooth headset work with the new iPhone?
If so, why all this talk about how it’s a dumb move on Apple’s part to introduce Bluetooth headphones? They can charge what they want for their own proprietary headphones. A Bluetooth headphone can be picked up on Amazon for less than $50. (Maybe small earbud type Bluetooth headphones aren’t easily found cheap?)
Yes, you can use any bog standard Bluetooth headphone set with the iPhone 7. However, you will not get the advantage of the W1 chipset and the direct to sound ability of that chip's capability to process the sound, nor will you get instant syncing with multiple devices, nor can you get the broader bandwidth of the music. Sorry, Bluetooth's limited in the kind and quality of the music it can handle but Apple's new approach is not.
Apple will be licensing their technology, though, so others can make headsets for it.