Well that all depends on why Apple is doing it, and the competitors are doing it, now doesn't it? Since the beginning of this talk of jack removal I've taken the logical high road -- Apple's iPhone sales are declining, so why would they remove a universally used audio jack unless they had a need to remove something their competition is also faced with in order to achieve parity with the iPhone in the same form factor? If Apple removes the headphone jack and the competition has no need to, they will guarantee a fair number of customers will jump ship, not to mention stifle the free flow of new customers moving from the Android camp. And there's no way that MFi licenses and Beats headphone sales will make up for that kind of loss, combined with already declining sales, especially if the rumors of this next iPhone design are even remotely true.
When you consider that some Android manufacturers have already dropped the headphone jack on new models, and Intel is actively pushing USB-C audio as an alternative for mobile devices, the evidence seems to logically suggest that is is more than an arrogant arbitrary cash grab for Apple.
But we will see. The rumor of the dual speakers, which is predicated solely on a second grill showing up on rumored "leaks" -- I've not seen any actual dual speaker parts, dissapoints me because I can't get behind a company that removes something useful when they don't have to. And a second speaker is something totally unecessary on the iPhone, offering little if any actual improvements for the average user. It's also detrimental to sales for the reasons I mentioned above, especially since the next iPhone is not rumored to introduce any new compelling features to drive sales.
That said, I don't really follow your complaint about recharging your wireless earbuds on a trip from Detroit to London. Why wouldn't you be able to? Or are you saying you won't be able to use them while they're recharging? That's really something we can't know yet. And you're also saying you won't be able to use them on the inflight entertainment system, which again we don't know.
Here's what I do know. When I fly any great distance I like to pack my sound isolating, noise canceling headphones. I would expect new wireless versions to last the whole flight, but given they don't, there would be an option to plug them into any 3.5mm Jack with a detachable cable. Most flights I've been on over 5 hours have entertainment systems with USB ports for power, but they almost certainly support data even if it's not currently used. They might even have BT built-in, but not currently utilized. So theoretically, a firmware update will allow me to plug in my headphones to charge and listen to the inflight system. Or maybe even use BT.
And, even BT earbuds might have magnetic inductive ports for attaching physical cables to pass power and possibly data in the event they need to be recharged during such a flight, even allowing a person to keep listening at the same time. The worst case scenario now would involve me carrying a small $20 BT dongle to plug into the in-flight entertainment system, providing a BT signal to whatever headphones I want to use.
The final bullet point to using headphones while you travel is this -- everyone is in the same situation when traveling on an airplane, which is, there's a lot of prep to ensure they have everything they need for a trip -- charger for the phone, charging cable for the phone, charging cable for the watch, headphones, extra batteries for noise cancelling headphones, extra power cell for the phone, splitter for headphones in case your travel partner wants to watch the same movie you are, headphone extension cable for your partner, etc. None of these hypothetical problems can't be overcome by altering a person's existing travel prep, without even necessarily adding additional burden.
So until Apple announces what they're doing, there's two ways to look at this -- the logical, positive way in which this move can be beneficial, or the negative, conspiratorial way, which assumes the worst of Apple including reckless fiscal irresponsibility.
