The con arguments are plentiful. For one, it probably means you have to go buy new stuff — either new headphones or a new attachment to modify your old headphones — which is never a happy thought for folks already buying a $550 phone. If Apple does this and doesn't include a set of Lightning-enabled headphones with every phone, it will look like a particularly soulless money grab.
Secondly, it tightens Apple's control on the accessory market and possibly over digital music as well. Nilay Patel at the Verge makes the argument that these headphones would tacitly support DRM — a.k.a. digital rights management, a.k.a. the thing that keeps you from being able to freely move media files between devices. Get rid of the analog headphone jack, he argues, and you lose the motivation to support anything analog. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber isn’t so sure about that argument but does point out in his rebuttal to Patel that anyone making Lightning headphones will require certification from Apple.
Beats, one imagines, would be among the brands to support the new standard.
No matter what, that’s more control for Apple, which can be a bad thing for consumers. Moving from an open standard to a closed one often leads to confusion and higher costs for consumers.
Finally, if Apple doesn’t add a second Lightning port to the phone — an addition that seems unlikely if Apple wants to make more room inside the phone — it will also mean that you can’t charge your phone and have your headphones plugged in at the same time. Even the one-port MacBook, which has its own power port pull double duty, lets you do that.
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