I know we're now past the subject and I risk a bunch of blowback from other posters who want to talk about the next $300 mediocre Chinese me too phone, but
If Apple had any plans to switch from Lightning to USB-C, why wouldn't they have switched last year with the iPhone 7, when they started making tens of millions of pairs of Lightning ear buds? Why did they put a Lightning port on the AirPods case? My expectation has been that iPhones will never switch to USB-C — that Apple would stick with Lightning until they can do away with external ports entirely.
If there's any truth to it, I'd bet this year's iPhones will ship with USB-C chargers, that use a USB-C to Lightning cable to connect to the phones. That makes sense.