On stage, Apple clearly implied that the future of audio was something along the lines of the W1: easy to pair, high quality, low latency. (With this, who needs wires anymore?) It was billed as a forward-looking, pro-consumer move. But the future of audio won't be proprietary. It can't be, simply because most people don't use iPhones. The way I see it, the fact that Apple won't even license their tech spells out the true intent behind the removal of the headphone jack. They don't want to move technology forward; they just want to lock in their users for expensive audio equipment.

The W1 isn't as proprietary as you seem to think it is - you can still use any bluetooth headset with an iPhone, and you can use AirPods with any standard bluetooth audio player, you just don't get the iCloud sharing and quick device switching capabilities that aren't part of the bluetooth standard.

> What possible reason would Apple have to develop a clearly superior BT chipset and then just give it away?

I dunno, maybe for the benefit it would bring to their consumers?

Or do they really need to add a few more billions to their existing pile of money?