[zyxley]

You don't need to buy a dongle - it comes with one.

[csommers]

I seriously question the quality of the DAC in that dongle.

[Gorbzel]

Clearly you've never seen any teardowns of Apple adapters. Usually the best (cleanest power, data throughput, etc) in their respective categories.

[jdminhbg]

If you cared about the quality of the DAC, wouldn't you have bought a great one already?

[cortesoft]

And you think the built in DAC on the old iPhones was better?

[wl]

Audio DACs have not been the limiting factor in the analog signal chain for a long time.

[astrange]

There are no bad DACs anymore and there haven't been for a decade. You'll probably be getting slightly better analog environment since the DAC isn't near the antenna and CPU as well!

[Zombieball]

That's a key benefit of this change. Ditch the legacy analog port that is wasting space. Allow consumers to use a DAC that meets their quality standards, be it a cheap one in the dongle, one built into headphones with a lightning connector, or an external / improved DAC dongle.

[awj]

Why do you think it would be any different from what they built into previous models?