“Last year Apple appeared to deliver the death knell to the iPhone jack before going silent, but now it appears to have something far more silly in mind,” Gordon Kelly writes for Forbes. “In its quest to create ever thinner iPhones, iPads and Macs, Apple has obtained a patent to cut the 3.5mm headphone jack and the less common 2.5mm variant down into a slimmer ‘D’ shape.”
“It is totally ludicrous. Let’s look at this rationally for a moment. Where is the real benefit in cutting down the headphone jack?” Kelly writes. “Should Apple introduce the D-shaped port on devices it would gain maybe an extra millimetre (the benefit comes from the proportional decrease to the internal receptor) but it would simultaneously make billions of pairs of headphones incompatible.”
“This gives conspiracy theorists a field day. Apple makes the headphone jack a pain to use in order to ease the path to remove it entirely and transition users to the proprietary (thin and reversible) Lightning port. After all Lightning headphones are already on sale,” Kelly writes. “According to a recent leak, Apple plans to make the iPhone 7 significantly thinner than the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus (which are actually fractionally thicker than their predecessors due to 3D Touch)… Loyalty to the iPhone brand is unprecedented, but if a future model features a D-shape headphone jack I would hope everyone jumps ship.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, puleeze. “Jump ship” to what? Everything else is crap. Over a measly headphone jack? Stick an adapter on your headphone plug.
Hello? It’s 2015. Our earphones don’t even have a cord!
SEE ALSO:
Apple prepares for even thinner iPhones, files patent application for shaved down headphone plug – September 23, 2015
Philips debuts Lightning-powered noise-cancelling headphones, no batteries required – January 8, 2015
Dumping the headphone jack for Lightning and other ways Apple could reinvent headphone tech – June 22, 2014
Why Apple may axe the 3.5mm headphone jack – June 20, 2014
Apple may ditch analog 3.5mm headphone jack for Lightning to make thinner devices – June 6, 2014
Apple introduces MFi specs for Lightning cable headphones, iOS software update to deliver support – June 5, 2014
Apple preps HD audio for iOS 8 plus new Apple In-Ear Headphones and lightning cable – May 13, 2014
Apple patents biometric sensor-packed health monitoring earphones with ‘head gesture’ control – February 18, 2014
Apple paves way for more affordable iOS accessories with lower MFi and Lightning licensing fees – February 7, 2014