Journal One - There’s a whole new market to explore.

There’s a whole new market to explore.

The new Apple AAPL -0.19% iPhone has something missing: the small socket millions of us have used for years to plug in headphones.

While some fans opposed the widely anticipated move – one online petition urging Apple to keep the headphone jack drew more than 300,000 signatures – equipment suppliers and experts heralded a change in how users will interact with their devices.

Axing the jack, they say, paves the way for discreet, bean-sized earbuds that can simultaneously translate, filter out unwanted noise or let us control other devices by voice – and drive up the value of the so-called ‘hearables’ market to $16 billion within five years.