Full Digial Audio. What a con! All it's doing is moving the DAC to the headphones! It's just a reason to charge more for headphones. Technology companies need to remember that headphones are also used in HiFi and musical instruments etc. It's going to become adapted hell in this new world.
If I want to have a nice expensive external DAC then fine. But I want the flexibility to choose my DAC separately from my head/ear-phones.
Yep, I'm with you on this one. Don't get me worng, I totally understand the desire to have a digital audio standard, but the 3.5mm audio jack is so universally compatible, restricting it to something else will result in it actually being compatible with less things, not more. So while I'm a tech junkie, and I love progress, I do still feel like replacing the most universally supported audio interface is a downgrade and not an upgrade, simply because so many things will no longer be compatible with it. (and let's face it, while you could use adaptors, it not only defeats the object of the fractions of a mm in device thickness that it saves, because you have to carry the adaptors around with you anyway, so you haven't really saved space, and have actually made it less convenient). Plus in regards to the analog/digitial argument for doing this, it doesn't really solve that issue either, because the adaptor method will still in all actuality just be an analog signal being passed through a socket with the shape of a digital port, so no improvement in audio quality either.
For these reasons, while I tend to have a habit of always buying the new iPhone when it comes out even when my old one is fine, this audio jack thing is something that would actually put me off buying an iPhone 7 if they did away with the 3.5mm socket. That being said, I think you may be onto something with having both methods available. (in other words, keep the 3.5mm jack, but allow digital audio to be passed through the lightning connector it has anyway), as this would make for a much more 'best of both worlds' scenario, and then I probably still will buy the new iPhone when it comes out.
As for TypeC, when this was first announced as a new USB standard, I was initially quite excited about it, because it showed alot of promise in terms of things like Apple devices having a cable compatible with everything else, and also loved the fact that it didn't matter which way up you plugged them in, rather than the constant fumbling of original USB. (we've all been there, right?).
However, in practice, what actually came to be with TypeC was that it turned out to be not quite so universal as once thought. (lots of issues with devices getting fried due to the electrical specs being passed through the cables being quite different from device to device). -Some supporting fast charging and others not (which meant the resistor that had to be used in the cables was completely different, and users were often not even aware). But what happened was, devices that didn't support fast charging had to have a resistor in the TypeC cable that let less electrical flow through it, and those that did support fast charging had to use a resistor which allows more to flow through. So of course if you had a fast charging device and a TypeC cable that was for most standard TypeC devices, then you wouldn't get fast charging (because the cable was the bottleneck). Not the end of the world when done that way round, but on the flip-side, if you had a standard charging TypeC device but used a fast charging capable TypeC cable, then too much was being passed through the cable, which is what fried the devices. (many users not even realizing this until it was too late, simply because the cables and sockets are identical, and were thought to be universal). Needless to say, this one has not exactly gotten off to a great start. (shame really, because TypeC could potentially have been great progress).
I think they could probably solve this though through better device detection in the communication protocols, but so far this is not the case yet. (at least not in any standard way for all devices that use a TypeC socket). Good to see the main post in this thread mentioning that detection mechanisms is something they are working on though. Until then though, for Apple devices, the lightning cable seems to make the most sense for any kind of digital data transfer until this TypeC issue is resolved on a more universal level (that part at least isn't really Apple's fault, it's more a flaw in the universal TypeC standard, or lack there of). -For the record though, I will reiterate that I don't mean use lightning cable instead of the 3.5mm audio jack. I just mean instead of making everything TypeC until its universal compatibility issues are resolved. I think if they ever finally get it to the level of universal compatibility that the previous USB standard is (meaning that if the socket fits, it is guaranteed to work, and you can rely on it being safe), then and only then will TypeC ever truly be able to replace it. (I do hope we get there someday though). But it does concern me how the same socket but different specs issue kinda slipped through the net. This was kinda the whole point of specific socket shapes for specific connectors. Even the layman could use them safely without actually being an electrical expert. Anything less is not progress, it's a step backwards.