I don't see them dropping the headphone jack. They didn't drop it on the Macbook which clearly was intended to be as port-less as possible. This isn't going to happen.
They're not going to drop the headphone jack on one of the lowest selling devices before they drop it on their flagship device.
Actually, this is the best argument I've heard. I could see MAYBE dropping 3.5 if they switched to usbc for the phone. Then at least the same headphones would work on your iphone and your macbook.
But if they say they're doing lightning audio only for iphone, while putting only 3.5 and usbc on a macbook, that just seems like a mess.
They will replace the 3.5mm headphone jack with a Lightning 2 port, likely in September as soon as they announce it on the new iPhone. This would be a mid-cycle refresh similar to the the change from 30-pin connecter on the iPad 3 to Lightning on the iPad 4.
Interesting. I didn't think about Apple taking this approach. It could work, but I think they would absolutely have to include a well designed and compact adaptor right in the box and not as an add-on. At least in the first generation or two before this becomes an industry standard. They ship Beats with the standard 3.5mm jack. They would have to immediately update those headphones as well. That's a lot of hoops to jump through just to get rid of the smallest port on the device. So, I am still skeptical. And the new Macbook released days ago still sports the standard headphone jack. Change seems unlikely.
Apple won't likely include an adapter for several reasons. 1) they want customers to migrate to wireless. 2) They want customers to adopt Lightning as a wired native alternative, not continue using the old 3.5mm analogue standard. 3) They want to drive demand, competition, innovation, and costs down in the wireless market, which won't happen if customers just keep using their old audio products, which is what an adapter encourages.
Lightning Beats are likely already being designed, or more specifically -- multi-connection headphones: wireless, 3.5mm & Lightning, with an optional USB-C cable. The same set of headphones can be used with whatever device you have. This is becoming common throughout the headphone industry.
Not sure why you call the 3.5mm jack the smallest port on the device. It's probably one of the largest ports on any Apple product (besides SD card readers and HDMI ports), when considering the space required inside the case.
And again, they aren't going to update the MacBook before they make the change on the iPhone. And it's going to take 10 years or more before any digital audio connection becomes a "standard", part of which requires all of the legacy equipment people own has been replaced with new equipment which have the new "standard".
