Apple Patents Cutting 3.5mm Jack in Half 369
An anonymous reader writes with an article on a recent patent application by Apple. From the article: "Apple likes thin devices and considers the depth of the iPod, iPhone and iPad as critical component of the aesthetic appearance of a product and has been very aggressive in finding ways to trim fat from its portable devices: The 3.5 mm audio-connector stands in the way of future design improvements: Apple suggests to simply cut it in half."
I'm confused (Score:5, Funny)
Is apple trying to patent an actual invention?
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Funny)
just call it the iJacked your wallet
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Yes and you need to plug in an iHeadPhone.
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You'll note that the patent (you did RTFA right? No, silly me, of course you didn't!) specifies that current connectors would be compatible with the port, but that either it would require a magnetic system to hold the connector onto the port, or a cover would have to be installed to hold the connector on, thus eliminating the need for an adapter since current 3.5mm jacks would work with it.
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Wrong. Current ports would be compatible with the new plug, but NOT the other way around.
And there's already a more standard approach to this - 2.5mm audio jacks.
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA much?
You;re the one that's wrong.
" Current jacks will fit the new port design, but since the port is cut in half and exposed to one side of the device shell, a traditional connector would simply drop out: Apple proposes a magnetic interface that would keep a thin audio connector in place"
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Current jacks will fit the new port design
A "jack" is a female fitting. So is a "port".
jack noun : a female fitting in an electric circuit used with a plug to make a connection with another circuit
8
[2]port noun : a hardware interface by which a computer is connected to another device (as a printer, a mouse, or another computer); broadly : JACK 8
5
THEY MEAN EXACTLY THE SAME THING!!
In other words, whoever wrote that is a moron and failed to successfully explain what they meant.
I'm still not sure whether they meant that current jacks will fit the new plug design, or that current plugs will fit the new port.
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you all of a sudden start calling a screwdriver a hammer, even if you say you're doing so, it still makes you look stupid. Words mean things for a reason. That's how we communicate. If you randomly redefine words to mean the exact opposite of what everyone else understands, it confusizes the meaningness.
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TFA isn't very clear, but the diagrams help. Apple wants to put the socket (receptacle, female*) at the surface of the device. Apple's new headphone plug (male part, found at the end of the headphone cable*) would be flush with the surface. Old headphone plugs also fit, but they would not be flush. Since the plug is only supported on one side, a magnet is needed to keep it from falling out.
To compensate for the ugliness of having the connector exposed, Apple proposes to provide their headphone plugs with a
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The actual patent states this to describe that figure: (well, what I could find [faqs.org], anyway - it doesn't include the figures, but it references the ones that were in TFA)
FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view of a plug connector 800 mated with a low profile plug receptacle 802 that illustrates a magnetic retention mechanism according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment shown, plug connector 800 is similar in general construction to custom plug connector 400 of FIG. 4. For example, plug connector 800 can include a cosmetic cap 804. Low profile plug receptacle 802 is similar in general construction to receptacle 200 of FIG. 2A.
In various embodiments, low profile plug receptacle 802 can include a magnet 806 and plug connector 800 can include a ferrous attractor 808 (e.g., a ferromagnetic material such as steel). In one embodiment, the ferrous attractor 808 can be a discrete object embedded in the plug and/or connector body of plug connector 800. In another embodiment, ferrous attractor 808 can be integrated into the structure of the plug or connector body; for instance, the entire plug can be constructed of a ferromagnetic material.
In other words, a standard plug would fall out of the port, unless it was made from a ferromagnetic material or had a bit of ferromagnetic material embedded so that it would be held in the port by a magnet.
Unless I'm reading that wrong.
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A "jack" is a female fitting.
I propose a movement to start calling the male end a jack, and the female end a jill. Confusion solved! (In a generation or so when it catches on, of course...)
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Informative)
A "jack" is a female fitting.
So, where does the phrase "jacking off" come from?
Turning your own hand into a "female fitting"
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Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Funny)
...both old plugs and new plugs are going to fall out all the fucking time.
Jobs: Obviously, you're jacking it wrong
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both old plugs and new plugs are going to fall out all the fucking time.
Unless somebody does something intelligent, like using a rare-earth magnet. A quick test with a neodymium magnet and a nearby pair of headphones shows that even a line of contact (cylinder/plane contact) is enough to hold the plug while I put it in my pocket. Pulling the magnet out of my pocket by the cord did separate the two, but note that's a shearing motion. A neodymium jack would have much more contact area, so the magnetic attraction would be even stronger, and the physical shape of the tip will hold
Re:I'm confused (Score:4, Insightful)
You need practice in reading comprehension I feel, like every second post on this whole story. If proof were needed that almost no one at slashdot reads the articles, this story is it, with 30 people immediately posting factually incorrect information that is addressed in plain english in the article itself.
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No, GP is correct, the new port will accept current plugs. They've sawed the port in half and put it at the surface of the device, so there's plenty of room for old cylindrical plugs.
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Those pieces (as described in the article) are part of the port - you don't need to add anything new or buy any "adapter". Let me put it this way: you can connect a 3.5mm jack without making any changes to the port.
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I think so. 1.5mm, 1.25mm, and 1mm phonojacks have been around for awhile.
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Why not go from a 3.5mm to a 2.5mm TRS jack?
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Because then the port would not be backwards compatible with 3.5mm plugs, which this one is.
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No it isn't. Not without some mod to the old port to keep the connector from falling out.
The bigger issue I see is that a round plug prevents strain when the cord or plug is twisted. With this you're going to put a lever into your uber-expensive device, and either plugs will get broken off or cases will be sprung open.
So the solution should have been something like a micro-USB shape, rather than this torque multiplier.
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The article addresses that - it is going to be a surface mount connector, that holds the plug magnetically sort of like the current magsafe design.
The thin plug is presumably so that the overall look when it is connected will be flush, but the port will also take a standard 3.5mm plug too - it'll just stand proud of the surface, or (as also explained in the article, with a diagram no less) a 'cosmetic cap' would be fitted that covers the port. I assume that this will be part of the phone itself and work lik
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There are plenty of very powerful, very small permanent magnets already in existence. That's the easy bit.
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And I'm going to put this exposed, surface mount, powerful magnet in my pocket with all the other flotsam? I don't think so.
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Except, that "master machiavellian plan" of yours to make money by licence fees is totally undone because *the port is designed to be compatible with current 3.5mm plugs* - the reason for the new design is simply to enable thinner devices.
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Yes you will. RTFA.
Not sure if I want this (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not sure if I want this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Removing borken 3.5mm tips (Score:2)
Fix her equipment: bend 1mm or so at the tip of a smallish very thin safety pin (safety first!) Insert into the socket, alongside the busted bit using the spring loaded tab inside the socket to your advantage. Pull it back to remove the plug. It might take a couple minutes. Chicks love it when you do this.
Repair shops advocate motherboard replacement. You could however; delay you
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Why not 100% wireless? (Score:2)
Wireless devices ought to be wireless. They already have several radios, including Bluetooth. Headphones and docking should be wireless. So should charging. which should be inductive. Then you can have a sealed, waterproof unit with no annoying connector holes.
I'm surprised Apple hasn't already gone that way on aesthetic grounds. Why should those perfect forms have holes in them?
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Why should those perfect forms have holes in them?
So tempted.
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Not all of the holes are waterproof though...
Jerks. (Score:5, Funny)
Great.
After only recently being able to plug in most phones with the same USB cable and FINALLY having 3.5 jacks a standard on said phones, Apple now wants to go fuck with the standards.
Jerks.
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Personally, I don't mind screwing with standards now and then, as long as the result is a new standard. Given the age of the current 3.5mm jack, I wouldn't be surprised if they could come up with something that was more compact and generally superior. If you got all the manufacturers onboard, it could be good.
Of course, that never seems to be what happens these days. Apple comes up with a standard, and then Sony doesn't like the idea of a standard existing without them collecting patent licensing fees,
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Did Apple ever buy into the microUSB standard? I may have missed the change, but I haven't ever seen an Apple iPod or iPhone that used a standard interface cable.
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Obvious? (Score:2)
The Patent system needs to be reformed.
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The other nine will instead suggest to get off your fetish of ultrathin devices and just make the device thick enough for a normal plug. It's not as if that would be very thick anyway.
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I've noticed folks obsessing over a couple millimeters of thickness. I'm not really sure that 3mm of depth is really that big of a deal. Even with a cellphone, that's not really enough to justify the extra cost in most cases.
What's worse is that this obsession with diminutive devices leads to devices that are less and less usable as they require fingers that are tiny to operate. At this point even if I wanted to buy an Apple device, many of them are way too small for me to use.
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Give this problem to any group of 10 geeks and one of them is bound to suggest this solution.
But none of them have yet, hence the innovation.
Your argument could be applied to anything ever invented. Once you know the answer, the question is easier.
So the lightbulb was invented - no big deal, right? If you would have asked a group engineers of the day to create a device for generating light from electricity, one of them would have probably come up with something similar. That does not mean it was not innovative. Why? Because you did not know to ask the question, and they had not not thought
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But none of them have yet, hence the innovation.
Had they been given the money by an employer and told to solve this problem, one of those geeks probably would have. But I digress.
Patents are granted so that individuals or corporations would have protection to implement a technology that would otherwise not be invented without such protection. If Apple would have had the incentive to make this connector without patents, then it does not deserve patent protection.
It's also awkward to compare the creation of
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And there's your incentive for inventing. Either invent new awesome things (Apple) or get blocked from the market for using other people's inventions (Samsung) or buy other people's work and use that as leverage so you can license the inventions you need (Google).
Invent, pay up, or get out. Patents are a proven solution to furthering progress in the useful arts.
Re:Obvious? (Score:4, Funny)
This invention halves the size of the jack, is compatible with all existing devices, and is less likely to break the device (pull on the headphone just pulls it away from the magnet instead of yanking the whole device). And nobody in 96 years thought of this solution.
This is exactly what patents are for. Rewarding the people that spend their dollars on research to improve things. It's a small but innovative idea, and gives Apple a small advantage over competitors. Stop eating the sour grapes and start inventing.
TRS Connectors Suck (Score:2)
The Worst is ignoring what is (Score:2)
However, basing it on the current standard is perhaps the worst possible way to go about it.
Only if you do not care about cutting out hundreds of millions of existing (some very expensive) headphones.
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The patented design allows semi-TRS plugs to mate with standard jacks, but does not permit the connection of standard headphones to the Apple design--what people will actually want to do, given the poor quality of the usual bundled earbuds.
From my reading, a full male would work with this (the female end is basically like a trench or ditch on the outside of the device), just half of the connector would be sticking out and held in place al a magsafe, but a semi male probably wouldn't work with a full female, as nothing would hold it in contact.
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They could just move to a 2.5mm connector if it's that big of a deal, but devices have gotten to the point where there's little to be gained by making them any smaller. My Samsung Sansa is small enough that I have a hard time finding it if I don't put it back where it belongs when I finish with it. They could make is even smaller by removing the display, but it's hit the point of diminishing returns. And it sports a 3.5mm jack without trouble.
Great ! An even thinner device (Score:2)
With a smaller battery :(
Helps you insert it the right way round (Score:5, Funny)
Another advantage which they omitted from the article -- this invention will help you insert the plug the right way round.
With the current circular 3.5mm jacks, it's actually impossible to know whether you've rotated the plug correctly. Sure, you can try to figure out if you've got it right by listening to the resultant sound quality, but that's inexact and most people don't even have the equipment. Now with Apple's invention, everyone will be able to insert it with the right rotation -- first time, and every time.
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Exactly. It's great that Apple sells a device called iPolarizer to find the exact position. It works by aligning the electromagnetic fields of the connector and the plug to the same plane of reference. The effect lasts for a few weeks until you need to polarize the connectors again. There's also an app to visualize the process.
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I really like the fact that the jack can spin. I can't believe they'd kill that feature for thinness.This means all plugs have to always be straight, or of 90degrees, plugged in the same way all the time.
I'd rather they just invent a 1mm stub plug (1/4 length).
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Why not just use the power/usb connector? (Score:2)
Strength (Score:2)
Prior art (Score:2)
Mohels have been doing this for millennia...
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And me without Mod points!
I'll venture the Orthodox way to shorten audio jacks is not with ones teeth.
WTF??? (Score:2)
Seriously, what?
This is worse than patents that boil down to "a system for doing some thing well known but with a computer".
This is a system for taking a well defined connection and cutting it in half, with a magnet to keep it in place, and putting a rubber thingy on it to make it look pretty. Worse, it's more like "a system to make a cylinder narrower by cutting it in half longitudinally while still retaining all of the connection properties of the original device".
How the hell is this patentable? There
Audio quality must suffer (Score:2)
Apple hasn't patented jack doodle. (Score:3)
This is an application, not a patent.
Design issues (Score:2)
This is a recipe for disaster. TRS connectors are very susceptible to hum: when you touch a live TRS connector, your skin conducts enough to make a circuit between the connector poles.
With the connector exposed on the surface of the device, you'd get loud noises every time you accidentally touched the connector. For this to work, the connector has to be covered, negating at least part of the thickness reduction they're seeking.
Also the magnet they propose for keeping the plug in place is going to have to be
Brilliant! (Score:2)
As if the standard connector was not weak enough, they want to cut it in half!
Why not just use a standard connector that has been about for YEARS that is 1/2 the diameter of the "standard" connector?
You have the large 6.35mm (1/4") jack
You have the medium 3.5mm
Then there is the small 2.5mm jack
OR apple could just make a specialized connector that is flat (like Micro USB) and then include an adapter to allow people to use standard headphones.
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Did you read the article? No? Didn't think so. The design features a method to make the port compatible with current 3.5mm plugs - either by magnetic connection, or via a "cosmetic cap" to hold the plug in place. I assume one that stretches to accommodate the full size 3.5mm plug.
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No YOU didn't read the article. Again I Quote FTA:
" CURRENT JACKS WILL FIT THE NEW PORT DESIGN but since the port is cut in half and exposed to one side of the device shell, a traditional connector would simply drop out: Apple proposes a magnetic interface that would keep a thin audio connector in place"
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You just quoted my exact point.
A jack is a FEMALE connector.
A large MALE connector cannot fit into a smaller FEMALE jack.
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It seems YOU didn;t read the article. Quoted:
Current jacks will fit the new port design, but since the port is cut in half and exposed to one side of the device shell, a traditional connector would simply drop out: Apple proposes a magnetic interface that would keep a thin audio connector in place.
(emphasis mine)
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Good luck on your crusade to stop anti-Apple FUD on /..
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Someone has to do it. I mainly do it because it then looks much funnier when claims are made of just how unbiased slashdot supposedly is when pro-Apple or anti-Google/Android articles are posted.
Comment: "This connector won't work with current headphones! Apple wants me to buy a $20 adapter!" (+5 insightful)
Article: "The connector port will very specifically be compatible with old 3.5mm jacks...."
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RTFA again.
"Current jacks will fit the new port design, but since the port is cut in half and exposed to one side of the device shell, a traditional connector would simply drop out:"
It's a half impression of the jack in the side of the device rather than enclosed port. Hence the need for a cover ( or case ) to enclose the impression and provide the other half of the port or a magnet to allow the jack to rest in the impression and cling to the device.
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Am I really the only person who knows that "jacks" and "ports" are BOTH FEMALE CONNECTORS.
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Or alternatively, they could either not license it at all or license out the male (connector) but but not the female (port), making headphones for Apple products only work with Apple products.
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The port is backwards compatible with existing 3.5mm plugs, so if it remains "licensed" (and there is no indication that it will be - compare to mini-displayport), then it will simply remain on Apple devices only.
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Thanks, but no thanks. For most people, the whole point of a headset on a phone is to move the transmitter farther away from one's head. Bluetooth just replaces the cell transmitter with a different transmitter.
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For most people, the whole point of a headset on a phone is to move the transmitter farther away from one's head.
Huh...silly me. I thought most people used a headset so they didn't have to hold the phone next to their ear (frequently, but not always, while trying to do something that requires both hands, like typing on a computer keyboard or driving a car). At least, that's why I bought a (bluetooth) headset for my phone.
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The proximity of the phone to your head is irrelevant to most people and even driver safety. If you had an elastic holding the phone against the side of your face while you drove you wouldn't need a bluetooth headset.
The number of people I've met who are concerned with cell phone "radiation" are extremely limited ... and I don't recall any of their names. Purposefully.
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How about an audio connector with a break before make connection, where the ground connection is made first, and doesnt pop and blow speakers when you forget to turn off your ipod before plugging it into your amp?
Umm, have you ever used an XLR plug and socket? If you connect the earth to the chassis ground/shield of the XLR connector, the earth is met before the hot and cold pins are engaged.
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Pin 1 and the shield are often not tied on the cables you buy at the store, so ground just gets connected at the same time as everything else -- typically the connector on equipment is tied to chassis ground and pin 1 is audio ground, so if you tie them together in the cable you'll get weird noise from whatever is creating interference on the chassis's ground rail (and whatever that ground rail finally dumps to, like the power receptacle ground pin, which if your house has a wiring fault will be blasting 60
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Optical won't power headphones, which would pretty much defeat the main purpose of a headphone jack. The other option, sure.
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Optical requires the receiving device to have a power source, also, AFAIK the cables are fragile, you can abuse a regular audio cable quite a lot and it will still work, I suspect the optical cable has a minimum bend radius larger than a few mm.
As for the new interface - 3.5mm TRS connectors are common, the new interface would be incompatible with the current one and would not provide a lot of benefit - 3.5mm plugs are usually used to connect headphones and headphones do not care whether the ground is conne
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Make the box lid a flap rather than a slide?
Two-headed matches?
Sell re-heading kits?
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It was kind of hard to do given that they used the term "jack" to mean "plug" and the term "port" to mean "jack" or "receptacle"....
BTW, has anyone ever actually seen an audio plug (other than the old telephone switchboard plugs from the early-to-mid-1900s) that contained any significant amount of ferrous metal? I'd be curious to know how someone could think that standard audio plugs can be held in place by a magnet. I'm assuming, based on the fact that the person who wrote this story got basic terminolo
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Most of them are steel, with either a gold coating or uncoated. It should be sufficient to hold it to the port.
Re:Not what I was expecting from the summary (Score:4, Informative)
No, the idea is for a surface mount 3.5mm port that a half-width plug will sit in flush, but a normal 3.5mm plug will sit in but be proud of the surface, both held in place by a magnet. The patent also specifies an optional cover to make it look more aesthetically pleasing (or as a structural element of the port, depending on magnet strength).
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I'm sure they will. Though that's no reason not to add another patent to their portfolio.
It's a half impression of the jack in the side of the device rather than enclosed port*. Hence the need for a cover ( or case ) to enclose the impression and complete the other half of the port. That impression will not be aesthetically pleasing even with the proposed solutions. It will be interesting to see what wins. Aesthetics or functionality. I have my own bets on that.
* before you say RTFA, I did.
"Current jacks wi
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Right now, we have two types [of audio connector] that work well, the 1/4" jack for pro equipment, and the 3.5mm jack for everything else.
Uh, no. Don't forget the XLR connector, the Neutrik connector, RCA connectors, 4-conductor plugs for devices that transmit mono signals as well as receive stereo signals, and I haven't even touched on optical interfaces for audio signals such as SPDIF...do I need to continue?
Re:Rotated (Score:4, Funny)
(Please excuse the traditional Apple joke, I couldn't help myself.)
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Also, this is really good whiskey I've got here - my sister gave me a bottle to give me dad next time I flew down to visit, only he go