Most people don't like wire and don't care about genuinely good sound through wire vs. artificially sweetened (DSP-ed) sound through Bluetooth. That's what Apple is targeting at, the mass consumer.
Honestly that "most people" seems to be more marketing driven than real opinion.
When you simply can't purchase one thing, then you move to the next thing.
I have several wired and wireless headphones, all for different uses, and the existence of wireless headphones don't make the wired ones less useful for their particular strenghts.
lol
That decision had a lot of detractors at the time, but it ultimately seems to have been correct.
I don't know if I agree.
People who moved to bluetooth got arguably worse sound quality.
For wired headphones, there were very few lightning headphones and they mostly sucked.
Now with usb-c you can get a broader range of headphones (because other phones have gone with usb-c).
either kind needs a dac inside the dongle, or the shell of the headphone, or have a bulky external dac.
3.5mm is still king for decent wired headphones/earbuds.
Most people don't like wire and don't care about genuinely good sound through wire vs. artificially sweetened (DSP-ed) sound through Bluetooth. That's what Apple is targeting at, the mass consumer.
Wired headphones are making a comeback though. They're even considered trendy/fashionable now.
https://www.cnn.com/world/wired-headphones-comeback-spc
https://mashable.com/article/wired-headphones-instagram-acco...
Honestly that "most people" seems to be more marketing driven than real opinion.
When you simply can't purchase one thing, then you move to the next thing.
I have several wired and wireless headphones, all for different uses, and the existence of wireless headphones don't make the wired ones less useful for their particular strenghts.
It was wrong then, it is still wrong now.
All my three phones have a headphone jack.
I don't have or plan to have an iPhone.
It still has a lot of detractors but it is hard to beat such a sheer market flex.