It isn’t ‘considering a replacement’ that I have a problem with. Lets say for the moment that they kept the lightning port for audio and added wireless charging (that’d work) or a second port for charging (that’d work) or they replaced the 3.5mm with a water proof 2.5mm port to reduce thickness (that’d work). The key thing with all of those options is they don’t require a dongle (dongles suck).
It’s like the MacBook (which I admit is beautiful looking), it’s severely limited by the single port and that’s why I’ve got a MacBook Pro (ports!).
I don’t want a ‘Macbook’ style iPhone, I want a MacBook Pro style iPhone!
There were ‘no tears’ because Samsung chose an open standard for their connector.
But Apple by choosing the Lightning port for audio Apple are further restricting how we choose to use our own products. I like being able to choose a different audio product.
As I stated earlier however this is in line with what we’ve seen from Apple over the last few years and that is to restrict upgrading, restrict 3rd party repairs and parts, restrict 3rd party accessories and in general to reduce the openness of the Apple ecosystem.
As for 6 pairs of head phones I leave 1 at my work desk, 1 at the reception counter at work, 1 at my home office desk, 1 in my work laptop bag, 1 in my motorbike panniers and 1 in the push bike panniers.
1 set of headphones is attached to my gaming laptop and 1 set of headphones is attached to my media system in the lounge.
In my experience carrying around earphones in jeans pockets just leads to them being tangled and messy.