I have no problem with the AirPods being highly integrated, nor did I inherently think dropping the 3.5mm jack was an issue. Working wireless is a lot better. But I do really wish Apple would make the W1 chips and associated stack generally available to 3rd parties, that's what really got lost in the transition and they were wrong to keep vertical. Their strategy has surely sold more AirPods, but they will never be able to match all the niches served by a functioning market and it's a bummer to have that kind of variety unnecessarily reduced. For example it's fairly of niche, but I'd love a W1-based MMCX set. That would then allow the use of a wide range of high quality earphones from Shure/Westone/UE etc.

And I wonder if Apple isn't missing a bit of a trick in areas like this, where they do something which will increase the attached revenue value of each iPhone sold but that could reduce the attractiveness of iOS as a platform in general. If Apple made their own wireless implementation generally available but it only worked at its best with iOS/Macs, would a thriving wireless headphone/earphone/music market based around that increase the sales of iDevices and Macs more than whatever AidPod sales Apple lost?