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Will Apple Make Headphone Jacks Obsolete?

Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 25, 2014

Consider the humble headphone jack. Whether it welcomes a big quarter-inch plug or a mini-plug, it is the nearly universal analog interface for headphones great and small. Apple is trying to change that with an addition to its Made for iPhone spec. Apple-friendly headphones will use the company’s new Lightning connector to receive 48-kilohertz digital stereo input, or 48-kHz mono for headphones with integrated mikes. Lightning headphones dubbed Standard will include a DAC, while those dubbed Advanced will add DSP and features such as active noise cancellation.

Look for the technology to take hold in an update to iOS 7.1. Apple made waves when it acquired the Beats headphone brand for $3 billion, and this looks like the company’s next move. Whether Apple devices will banish analog headphone jacks from its products has not been announced.

COMMENTS
BadCommand's picture
Submitted by BadCommand on September 26, 2014 - 8:32am

Would you throw away your $200+ headphones so you could use a proprietary jack on a device from a company that is progressively losing market share?

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