Can Apple make listening easy without a headphone jack?

The iPhone has traditionally shipped with a pair of Apple's iconic earbuds, made famous in early advertising for the iPod music player.

[...] tech analysts and industry bloggers, citing leaks from Apple's Asian suppliers, say it looks like the tech giant has decided to do away with the analog headphone jack in the next iPhone.

[...] Apple uses a proprietary design for its charging port, known as "Lightning."

Co-founder Steve Jobs famously decided the first iMacs didn't need a floppy disk drive in 1998, years before Windows PCs followed suit.

[...] this year, Lenovo's Motorola division and Chinese smartphone maker LeEco have released phones without analog audio jacks, relying instead on cords that plug into a new digital port known as USB-C — which, of course, is different from Apple's Lightning port.

"The market is changing," said Jim Thiede, head of global product marketing at Motorola, who expects to see a number of manufacturers producing "USB-C headphones, earbuds and what have you" over the next three to six months.

Apple has already cut the number of ports on its latest MacBooks, encouraging owners to use wireless features like Apple's AirDrop and AirPlay for sharing files or streaming music and video, he noted.

Widespread adoption of wireless headsets might also encourage people to try streaming music using the Apple Watch, said Carolina Milanesi, a mobile tech analyst at the research firm Creative Strategies.