Apple likes to rip the band-aid off cleanly. No half measures, just a sharp and briefly painful leap to the next thing.
That’s how it was with the dearly departed 3.5 mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7 and that’s probably how it will be for the iPhone’s lightning port, which, if the rumors are true, will soon be replaced with a single USB-C port on the eagerly anticipated iPhone 8 (or X).