what you originally said was "but that doesn’t really answer the question of “why remove it?”". You're shifting the goal posts by saying "apple has not given any legitimate reason for removing the audio jack. there is simply no need to remove it." I've given a reason for removing it. You don't just get to declare a reason as not "legitimate". You say "the fact of the matter is that there is zero benefit to the consumer of an iphone for having the audio jack removed.", which just ignores the cost benefit, without arguing against that benefit.

Apple has always removed design features that they don't think are where things should head in the future. That's important to do in the longer term. If you consider any single one of the things they've removed from their computers, it might not seem a big deal, but together they are. Removing things they don't see as part of the future helps them to push technology in the direction they think is best. And removing what they see as unnecessary features can save on costs - costs that might be small per unit but large in terms of the sorts of volumes they are dealing with.