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.