The guy I replied to 20 days ago here on HN, talking about Apple: "Don't buy their shit. Period."
No, they were never going to buy this headset. They are not the target market. What they demand would actually be detrimental to the target market.
Of the actual target market, the majority will have no problem with it needing a lightning cable. Their iPhones use lightning. Any iPad but the newest use lightning. The AppleTV remote uses lightning. The Magic Keyboard and the Magic Mouse use lightning. It just seems to be something that a person who would have no interest in this device would see as a problem (in the same way that people who don't use the Magic Mouse are absolute certain that the charger port on the bottom is an egregious deadly fault, while actual users just enjoy a fantastic mouse and it's an utter non-issue. It's why Apple should never listen to these people).