The 3.5mm audio jack. It’s so fundamentally simplistic from a manufacturing standpoint and circuitry standpoint that any headset you throw at it will work identically without fail (the key innovation being the speakers or headphones where the analog signal is sent to).
I disagree. The connector is fragile, subject to dust, contacts can wear out and audio quality suffers. Faulty connection means you have to twist it the correct way to have audio. Tug on your cable the wrong way and the connector on your phone is broken. Multiple standards for pinout for microphone and stereo. May cause shorts because every ring touches when plugging in. Disconnects too easily if the connector is fatigued, no locking mechanism.
At this point it would be better to reserve a few pins on a USB C connector to pass audio data. But not sure if analog can transmit fine with all the serial cables around it.
Yes, and there are examples of headphones that do so, but it puts a lot of strain on the USB-C connector (and the audio quality is reliant on the phone’s internal DAC, which can suck).
The 3.5mm audio jack. It’s so fundamentally simplistic from a manufacturing standpoint and circuitry standpoint that any headset you throw at it will work identically without fail (the key innovation being the speakers or headphones where the analog signal is sent to).
I disagree. The connector is fragile, subject to dust, contacts can wear out and audio quality suffers. Faulty connection means you have to twist it the correct way to have audio. Tug on your cable the wrong way and the connector on your phone is broken. Multiple standards for pinout for microphone and stereo. May cause shorts because every ring touches when plugging in. Disconnects too easily if the connector is fatigued, no locking mechanism.
At this point it would be better to reserve a few pins on a USB C connector to pass audio data. But not sure if analog can transmit fine with all the serial cables around it.
Can you wire a normal headphones to a USB c directly?
Yes, and there are examples of headphones that do so, but it puts a lot of strain on the USB-C connector (and the audio quality is reliant on the phone’s internal DAC, which can suck).
I bet USB 4 will be a jack
Technically 1/4” jacks were first. 1/8” only to make 1/4” smaller.