Apple patent points to smaller headphone jacks

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Apple patent points to smaller headphone jacks

A newly-published Apple patent application suggests the company is working on ways of reducing the internal size of the headphone jacks featured on its portable devices. Entitled “Audio Jack with Pogo Pins for Conductive Contacts,” the patent describes an audio headphone jack that employs retractable Pogo pins to conserve space. AppleInsider reports that the pins, which are a registered trademark of Everett Charles Technologies and were named after the pogo stick, would become depressed upon insertion of an audio plug, meeting the contacts on the plug. This would replace the traditional, larger “cantilever beam” design; it is unknown whether Apple has used this or a similar audio jack in any shipping products.

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Comments

1

Wow that’s like forcing us to start using their headphones too. I love my iPod but their headphones suck.

Posted by Kn on September 23, 2010 at 9:42 AM (PDT)

2

No. This port would accept standard 3.5mm headphone jacks. It’s simply a more streamlined design for the internal contacts allowing thinner packaging…

Posted by chris on September 23, 2010 at 9:59 AM (PDT)

3

They’re not forcing you to use anything. It’s just a headphone connector that takes up less room inside the phone.

Posted by Dan T on September 23, 2010 at 10:00 AM (PDT)

4

but it does remind me of that ghastly
time when we had to use those annoying and bulky adapters to be able to use our own headphones

Posted by nick fletcher on September 23, 2010 at 10:06 AM (PDT)

5

While I think the “pogo pin” design is clever and perhaps will eliminate some of the weaknesses of the cantilever jacks used today, I cannot believe Apple is looking forward to using even smaller jacks to reduce device size further. I already cringe at seeing the ridiculous matter of most non-Apple headphones (and even older Apple headphones) having male plug housings noticeably larger in diameter than the device is thick they’re plugged into. The exposed male plug on this year’s touch is particularly exemplary of the extreme Apple has pushed this matter - they give us this “super cool” angled edge to the 4G touch, and then we plug headphones into it and the impracticality of the design is like a watermelon to the face.

Posted by Code Monkey in Midstate New York on September 23, 2010 at 3:34 PM (PDT)

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