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Veeer apple1/31/2024 ![]() If I lose the stereo socket on my phone, I lose 90% of my music enjoyment. That includes plane trips, waiting in line, listening in bed, audio input jacks on rental cars, and hooking up audio to any darn place I wish. Thus, if I’m not sitting at my desk, I’m plugged into my phone. There are two times I use headphones listening to MP3’s on my laptop, and listening to MP3’s on my phone. Posted in Ask Hackaday, Cellphone Hacks, Interest Tagged apple, headphones, jack, lightning, phone jack, USB C, USB Type-C Post navigation So I pass the question on our readers: How do you like to connect your headphones? Would you buy a smartphone without a headphone jack? Let us know down in the comments! Just one more adapter to carry around (and lose). There will be USB-C to ⅛”, Lightning to ⅛”, in all shapes and sizes. Dongles: Adapters, dongles, call them what you like.Charging: How do you charge your phone if you’ve got your headphones plugged in? I’m sure there will be stackable connectors, or adapters with a port for charging – which leads us to….Apple has gone as far as specifying which DACs will be allowed in headphones. Lightning connector devices must pass Apple’s MFI tests. DRM: With Apple, the biggest issue is going to be DRM.Bluetooth: These days every phone has the option of Bluetooth audio, however Bluetooth has a reputation for terrible audio quality.Lightning: Apple’s Lightning supports digital audio at 48 kHz, but does not support analog audio.The connector also allows for analog stereo audio through the sideband pins. USB Type-C: USB-C allows for digital audio at 44 or 96 kHz using a headphone mounted DAC.So if phone companies are going away from the classic ⅛” phone jack, what options do we have? The ⅛” hole is a highway to a phone’s internals for dust, water, or anything else you don’t want getting into your phone. With less plastic in the socket body, these jacks become more prone to breakage – especially when subjected to heavy use. ![]() Thinner and thinner phones have created lower profile sockets. ![]() Phone jacks are orientation agnostic, and can rotate without breaking connection. They have become an issue in phones though. In 1979, the Sony Walkman made the stereo ⅛” phone jack a common consumer standard.Īs connectors go, they’re not half bad. The ⅛” (3.5mm) miniature jack and the 3/32” (2.5mm) sub-miniature versions appeared in the 1960’s on transistor radios. Add a fourth conductor, and you’ve got TRRS. These names are still used in the telephone industry for identifying the positive (tip) and negative (ring) wire of a POTS line. Three conductor connectors had Tip, Ring and Sleeve (TRS). Two conductor connectors had a Tip and a Sleeve (TS). They were used as patch connections in manual telephone switchboards. The original ¼” (6.35mm) jacks were developed back in 1878. The humble phone jack may well be the oldest electrical connector still in common use. All of these manufacturers eventually went with the tried and true ⅛” headphone jack. Many of these connectors were switched over during an odd time in history where Bluetooth was overtaking wired “hands-free kits”, and phones were gaining the ability to play mp3 files. Apple themselves tried to reinvent the headphone jack by recessing it in the original iPhone, breaking compatibility with most of the offerings on the market. HP/Palm used a magnetic adapter on their Veer. Samsung tried a dizzying array of multi-pin connectors. Sony Ericsson’s attempt was the FastPort. ![]() Anyone remember HTC’s extUSB, which was used on the Android G1? Nokia tried it with their POP Port. This isn’t the first time a cell phone company has tried to design out the headphone jack. Chinese manufacturer LeEco has introduced several new phones sans phone jack. On the Android side, Motorola has announced the Moto Z will not have a jack. If you’ve watched the tech news these last few months, you probably have noticed the rumors that Apple is expected to dump the headphone jack on the upcoming iPhone 7.
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