Intel wants USB-C to replace the headphone jack
theverge.com
theverge.com
I was actually submitting http://hackaday.com/2016/04/22/hackaday-dictionary-usb-type-... and realised that what had led me to look for that I hadn't seen on HN, and I trusted that HN dupe checker would just upvote The Verge one if it existed.
I find that digital devices are complicated enough that, unless I'm buying well-researched, high quality products, compatibility issues lead to glitches. I still encounter lots of glitches with Bluetooth, so I'm not ready to give up my trusty 3.5mm jack as a reliable fallback.
Furthermore, things like sampling rate and bit density will actually make supporting this somewhat complicated. If it's locked at 16 bit, 44.1khz; then the playback device needs to have an excellent noise shaper and sampling rate converter to play thing like "mastered for iTunes" that decode to floating point and assume a 24-bit DAC.
In contrast, if the format allows any bit per sample, and any sampling rate, then lots of compatibility issues will arise on cheaper devices.
That seems like more of a function of wireless vs wired than analog vs digital. Audio over HDMI or optical seems just as reliable as 3.5mm.
I broke countless headphone jacks, and if I was lucky, all I had to do was resolder the pin. Can I still do that if my USB-C headphone plug now comes with a bloody decrypter + sample-rate converter built-in?
Also, realize that no normal consumer is resoldering pins. You are in the extreme minority. And there seems to be plenty of repair shops that can fix high-end digital components (e.g. iPhones).
I guessed one pin each for tip, ring, and sleeve, one each for tip disconnect and ring disconnect, but then there were two pins left over. Perhaps signal and disconnect for a second ring? I couldn't find a near-enough match for the part from anywhere that I knew to look for it.
If there were a universal 3.5mm TRRS standard, I could just buy the standard jack receptacle and replace the part, rather than cannibalizing my microphone jack.
The other problem is that if I just removed the broken jack, my laptop would never use the speakers again, because it would think that tip signal and tip disconnect were no longer shorted, and ring signal and ring disconnect were no longer shorted. Electrically, removing the part is the same as always leaving a 3.5mm jack plugged in. I'd have to permanently short those contacts on the board to simulate a never-in-use jack, and I didn't know the pinout for the 7-pin device in my hand unless I wanted to disassemble it with forceps.
So yeah, screw the 3.5mm TRRS port. Give me a universal standard. And let's not just specify the mechanical properties of the plugs, but also the allowable locations and spacing of the pins for compliant through-hole, cable-connected, and surface-mount devices!
It's even called the "mini" jack because it's a smaller version of the 6.35mm "phone connector" which dates... all the way back to 1878 when it was used for manual telephone exchanges (!)
I'm glad that they're just straight up admitting that the reason that they're doing this is snooping. That's quite refreshing.
I'd be interested in a set of headphones that do heartbeat tracking for when I run... I don't like wristbands and I haven't ever really been interested in watches.
As with anything, it's a tool in the toolbox to be used for good or ill...
It's either that, or you should be farming cows with the Amish...
because everything goes against this statement...
How long until cash is removed so they can track you via credit cards? How long until the Insurance company requires your credit card receipts to show you've bought local farm grown and not McDonald's? How long until...
You can take the "how long" excuse to extremes...
Who knows where we will be in 5/10/100 years... Who knows what wouldn't happen if "but they might use it to spy on use!!!" blocked all forward progress...
It's just data collection for the sake of data collection. Nobody is going to use the temperature data. It doesn't benefit anybody trying to snoop on you. It doesn't benefit you. It's just a stupid feature that you can throw in and market as "neat."
OTOH, you can't argue with their business model! Decades-old standards are meant to be deprecated, especially at the expense of the consumer. /s
Think of school kids. Because you can't learn without an ipad, and a classroom of kids watching youtube cartoons instead of learning need earphones or earbuds or they'll all go crazy.
Now instead of selling $5 earbuds that last 3 months until they break or are lost, they parents will shell out $20 every 3 months. Also when the jack is ruined by kids yanking on it, instead of having a 99% usable ipad they'll have an unchargable ipad, leading to even more sales.
All which calls to using Android and it's openness in schools. Which didn't take a genius to know in advance.
And now that Google is in bed with the music industry, let's hope they won't shove USB-c down our throats.
As Anandtech points out it gets HDCP, so I'm sure there's going to be some uptake for apps that require a protected path.
Any reason they can't miniaturize some ADC/DACs for nifty adaptation to ambient noise run on the phone?
Thanks, I'll pass.
But I'm pretty excited to see what they can do when they inevitably put computation (and networking to an overpowered phone!) inside each ear & the mic (or in the case of wireless headphones, exploit the existing computation to do a little more than shuffle Bluetooth packets).
You know, we could remove that huge screen using that same rationale. No more lugging around that huge 6" bulky old thing! Now your phone is as small as a chicklet!
Yes it will make the $3 headphones more expensive but considering I would never buy such headphones I don't have a problem with that. Anyway there will no doubt be $2 USB-C to 3.5mm converters available for people who want to use old headphones.
The nice thing with 3.5mm though is it "just works". I worry that with a complicated interface such as USB we will end up with incompatible headsets even worse than we do today with 3.5mm TRRS.
And the more ring conductors you want to add, the longer the lever can become.
I have been really happy with all my devices that have standardized on USB for charging. In contrast, Apple's proprietary 30-pin and Lightning (and MagSafe, while I'm at it) just make me think they're being colossal dicks, doing whatever TF they want, rather than meaningfully contributing to a standards consortium and licensing their patents to it.
Never mind that magnetic power connectors had already been invented, and that Apple's patent is essentially another "this already existing thing except on a computer" patent.
At the same time - sure, Intel should go ahead and implement this. But phones should just have both USB and 3.5" connectors.
May be as small as a cable inter-connect 3 type c sockets, 1 for the phone, and one each for whatever you want to connect to. You could daisy chain these or have hubs that offer 1 in and 6 out, etc.
In computers, on the other hand, I'd love to have a phone with USB connector instead of the 3.5mm. That way I could get rid of those noise (caused by motherboard consuming power in variables ways), without using my USB-soundboard.
That's my main concern with using USB for everything. Imagine a headphone virus that attacks your iPhone when it's plugged in via USB. Imagine a charging station that slurps all your data. (Hence the USB "condom", I guess.) We've discussed this all before.
For the vast majority of people, the headphone jack with built-in DAC and existing headphones are very sufficient. The forced push of new tech which doesn't improve anything other than hw manufacturers' profits is just maddening.