Intel wants to kill the three.5mm audio jack, update with USB-C

For the remaining 50 years, audio playback devices have relied on the 3.5mm audio jack (its predecessor, the 1/four-inch audio jack, dates lower back to 1879). We’ve previously heard rumors that Apple wanted to nuke the three.5mm jack altogether for the iPhone 7, and now it appears Intel is onboard with that plan as nicely.

Intel is running on USB-C for audio to cast off this ultimate vestige of traditional analog verbal exchange, Anandtech reports. because it stands, the jack internal a modern iPhone or Android cellphone is reasonably big and strolling the audio signal thru the device with out causing interference or distortion is a non-trivial engineering trouble. doing away with the 3.5mm jack additionally might help companies make thinner, lighter products.

USB-C can switch analog audio already, however Intel is also running on a virtual audio trendy for the records switch protocol. Intel is updating and expanding the present USB Audio device class 2.0 specification. this can theoretically allow for headsets with included audio processing generation — think DACs, acoustic audio suppression, and noise cancellation, except the generation would be incorporated into the headset, no longer the smartphone.

On the one hand, this may lessen power consumption in smartphones when gambling media — however handiest due to the fact that power consumption would instead be moved to the headset (whether or no longer this will be a net wonderful is some thing of an open query). The content industry helps this pass for an apparent motive — junking the three.5mm jack allows them to sooner or later near the “analog hollow” in such gadgets and prevent clients from the use of audio jacks to make copies of media. virtual headsets would use HDCP to save you copying.

This move could pressure expenses up on headsets and different era, and it risks decreasing telephone application until cautiously carried out. one of the benefits to a separate headphone jack is that i'm able to plug my phone right into a transportable battery and nonetheless pay attention to music at the identical time. A device that could’t rate and output to headphones simultaneously is less beneficial than a tool that may do both, and while wi-fi headsets are one manner to get round this trouble, in addition they have a tendency to cost more than a primary pair of earbuds.

Apple has a history of doing away with features it believes are not applicable, but other device manufacturers have had much less success with this method. Samsung famously killed microSD slots with the Galaxy S6 best to reintroduce them with the S7 after quit customers complained and S6 income had been negative. Of route, someone will possibly locate methods to build USB-C to three.5mm adapters, but those will upload fee and the loss of a separate port on smartphones and pills is still an difficulty. past tries to kill the three.5mm popular have resulted in failure; we’ll have to be patient if this one sooner or later works.