People were mad at a lack of cd drive in the macbook pro, but guess what? It still sells. The App store is the new norm,
Apple removed the 3.5 inch floppy disk. They're doomed!
Apple removed the CD/DVD drive. They're doomed!
Nice bit of dodgy logic there. "Apple removed X and it wasn't a problem => therefore removing Y isn't a problem - QED".
1.4MB floppies were already becoming useless when they were dropped (and had been optional extras in Powerbooks for some time) and the alternatives were head-and-shoulders better. By the time optical drives went, people like me were already choosing to rip the superdrives out of their MacBooks to fit in extra HD drives. You certainly didn't need them "on the road" - a USB drive in a cupboard at home was fine
and worked on all of your computers - PC or Mac.
It's not so clear that the 3.5mm jack is that obsolete yet. Given the choice, I'd use wireless - but 3.5mm is a useful fallback. The main reason I use the jack is not for headphones, but to plug into a HiFi - in which case, not being able to charge at the same time is a pain. I've got some nice full-size Bluetooth headphones - with an optional 3.5mm cable for when the charge runs out & I've got various cheap'n'cheerful earbuds secreted at home, at work, in bags should I forget the decent ones. The
biggest pain is that I also have non-Apple devices.
(NB: I
think its now OK to use Bluetooth on planes - apparently wireless devices will no longer make planes fall out of the sky, now that airlines have latched on to the possibility of selling WiFi - but do all cabin staff agree on this point?)
OK - in perspective - carrying a lightning-to-3.5mm dongle is not going to break your back and solves all your issues. OK, you can probably contrive not to charge & listen at the same time - and, lets face it, if you think you can hear the difference between Bluetooth and direct analogue, I have some $500-per-yard speaker cable to sell you... No, the problem is that the iPhone 7 doesn't sound as if is going to have any compelling features
other than this minor downgrade.
The 3.5mm jack is a possible point of failure - lightning is more mechanically robust - and that's about it.