You know... I have made the argument before that I think I understand why Apple is doing it. Honestly, a lot of people have disagreed with me, and I'm willing to admit I could certainly be wrong. I wrote a Medium piece on it here. In short: I think hardware manufacturers have hit the point that just being a tiny bit faster with a tiny bit better screen and a tiny bit better camera isn't enough for them anymore, or going forward. Companies like OnePlus and huawei have shown that good hardware can be made cheaply. I think that the headphone jack removal is a way to force consumers to get used to using wireless headphones and communicating verbally to their devices. Heck, the very first thing on the Apple Airpods webpage is about Siri. Apple has brought in a ton of audio engineering talent with the Beats acquisition; it's fair to say that audio is a huge part of their vision of the future. Even the Airpods are stupidly over-engineered for 'just' bluetooth buds.

Basically, I think hardware companies are trying to begin the move to essentially filling a SaaS role, letting their AIs do the heavy lifting. AI is a lot harder for an upstart manufacturer in East Asia to provide.

I could be wrong, though.