Apple have grudgingly replaced their firewire socket with the USBC socket and this will make things easier for consumers. I think every bit of kit on this planet could use just USBC and HDMI and products could be simpler to make and cheaper.
Apple don't need to change their business model and feature set, because they know they are still going to sell lots of phones. If their was a real change in the music codec/hardware market, they would only respond if they thought they'd lose sales by not adopting this tech.
I'm not an Apple basher, as they make some really nice stuff, but it's so expensive and I would never own any Apple product. The specs are great on these phones, but £1600 for a top end phone is absurd, considering my £199 Oppo does everything I want.
There are spec wars these days and people (not me) get really excited and feel the need to have the latest gadget/toy to show their peers. I used to chase the specs and was an early adopter, with so many products, but now realise a lot of this stuff is just for bragging rights.
It's going to be very interesting over the next 5 years, seeing what can be added to a phone, to make it interesting enough to buy. If I could replace the battery on my Oppo phone and 5G signals were available, I doubt my phone would get replaced in the next 20 years.