
Intel wants USB-C to replace the headphone jack - buro9
http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/27/11516410/intel-usb-c-audio-no-headphone-jack
======
jsnell
Discussion on the source article from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11575550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11575550)

~~~
buro9
Apologies for not seeing that.

I was actually submitting [http://hackaday.com/2016/04/22/hackaday-dictionary-
usb-type-...](http://hackaday.com/2016/04/22/hackaday-dictionary-usb-type-c/)
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.

------
gwbas1c
The 3.5mm jack will be very hard to give up. It always works, and (usually)
there's no interference / hiss.

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.

~~~
sesutton
>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.

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.

~~~
TrevorJ
I've found that HDMI connectors are not nearly as resilient to constant
plugging and unplugging.

------
mrpopo
This is somewhat unrelated, but I find that switching from analog to digital
hardware is also forcing consumers to replace their hardware instead of fixing
it. Turntables and tape recorders, you could somehow tweak it and it would
"work again". It's becoming increasingly difficult with new tech.

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?

~~~
logfromblammo
When my headphone jack broke on my laptop, I desoldered the microphone jack
and resoldered it into the headphone jack's slot on the motherboard. It had
seven pins, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get a
replacement part for it that would fit the existing PCB holes in any other
way, short of buying an entirely new motherboard.

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!

------
rob74
"The 3.5mm headphone jack is one of the elder statesmen of the personal tech
world, having become ubiquitous with the rise of mp3 players, smartphones, and
other mobile devices" \- maybe the author is too young to remember that, but I
think the "mobile device" that really helped make the 3.5mm headphone jack
ubiquitous was the Sony Walkman back in the eighties.

~~~
pmarreck
came here to say the same thing.

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 (!)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_\(audio\))

------
cuckcuckspruce
>Moreover, as AnandTech points out, with the extra power and programmability
on offer, in-ear headphones could also be used to track health data like
temperature, which can in turn feed into the growing array of fitness-tracking
databases.

I'm glad that they're just straight up admitting that the reason that they're
doing this is snooping. That's quite refreshing.

~~~
wernercd
One mans "Snooping" is another mans "breakout feature".

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...

~~~
cuckcuckspruce
How long until this technology is used to get a discount on your insurance?
How long after that until it's mandatory for insurance?

~~~
wernercd
It's amazing that you are here... in a Faraday cage behind 8 layers of tor on
a secure linux cd distro...

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...

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thebaer
The great thing about the 3.5mm and 6.35mm jack is that I can use old hardware
that still works great with new headphones. The equipment I spend money on
_lasts_ and continues to work as I upgrade individual parts over a long period
of time. The consumer wins.

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

------
untog
99% of my complaints about the headphone jack could be solved by manufacturers
simply making stronger plugs. Other than that I really don't see a persuasive
reason to go through this change - requiring a USB interface will surely make
earphones more expensive.

~~~
VLM
Because you're not a manufacturer.

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.

~~~
petra
Definitely true, it's manufacturer driven.

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.

------
alex_duf
Great, so now you can't charge your phone and listen to music at the same
time.

~~~
Kequc
Hey man either we increase the size of the exceedingly tiny interfaces we
interact with every day in order to get work done or we start to use more
dongles. /s

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mnkmnk
This seems like a terrible idea. I don't really have any complaints with my
analog headphones. Why fix something which is not broke?

~~~
Finnucane
Because most of the tech industry has no other reason to exist?

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ComSubVie
I hope that nobody get's the idea of encrypting the audio data for playback. I
still can remember the problems of trying to play movies over HDMI which
didn't work because some device didn't support the encrypted channel.

~~~
klagermkii
[http://anandtech.com/show/10273/intel-proposes-to-use-usb-
ty...](http://anandtech.com/show/10273/intel-proposes-to-use-usb-typec-cables-
to-connect-headsets-to-mobile-devices)

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.

------
twoodfin
If Apple does introduce a Lightning-only iPhone in the fall, I am increasingly
convinced they'll include some whiz-bang EarPods to sell it as a feature.

Any reason they can't miniaturize some ADC/DACs for nifty adaptation to
ambient noise run on the phone?

~~~
mynegation
You mean I will be able to listen to the music on my phone only using god-
awful horrible-sounding hard ear-buds from Apple whose only redeeming quality
is proprietary lightning connector?

Thanks, I'll pass.

~~~
twoodfin
Surely they'll offer a dongle to give you the old analog jack.

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).

------
theandrewbailey
> What's their big problem with the established headphone connector? Well,
> it's an analog, single-purpose port on digital devices that are now defined
> by their multipurpose efficiency.

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!

------
satysin
I would be ok with this as it would mean I can get noise cancelling headphones
that are powered via the connection to the phone and don't need their own
power source.

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.

~~~
logfromblammo
It just works until the plastic housing on the receptacle cracks, and you can
no longer get a good electrical connection. The big problem is that the jack
acts as a lever that can transmit enough force into the receptacle to destroy
either one or the other rather than breaking the connection.

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.

~~~
perilunar
I hate proprietary connectors, but I love MagSafe—it's saved my laptop many
times. Why can't all connectors be magsafe?

~~~
logfromblammo
In short, that's because Apple flat-out refuses to license the patent to
_anyone_.

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.

------
daemin
If a phone only has one USB-type C connector on it, how will you both charge
and listen to music with your headphones with it? Is there going to be two
connectors, one at the top and one at the bottom?

~~~
buro9
A small USB type c hub, powered from the thing it's connected to.

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.

~~~
chiph
If I'm on an airplane listening to music/watching a movie on my device, the
last thing I want is another dongle to keep track of.

------
woliveirajr
As always, the problem is all those old earphones, headphones, and so on. The
only chance of such thing prospering is if all those main cellphones come with
earphones using such connection.

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.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The proposal sends analog audio out on the auxiliary pins, so adapters will be
passive and dirt cheap.

~~~
Robadob
Presumably this also means it won't fix the issues of noise mentioned in the
parent comment.

~~~
bryanlarsen
You've got analog on the aux pins and digital on the main pins. The digital
isn't active unless selected, so it doesn't induce onto the analog. Best of
both worlds. (except for the adapter required part).

~~~
nix0n
You'd still have to worry about the power lines, and it'd be nice to have
audio while charging.

------
leecarraher
finally the audio drm'd connector we've been clamoring for!

------
scurvy
With Intel backing this, it's almost doomed for failure. Their track record
with most things entertainment related is terrible. Think about all of this
various smart home, smart TV, IP TV streaming, media hub things that Intel
made splashy announcements on and then flopped. Intel just gets stuff like
this wrong.

------
pc2g4d
Suddenly headphones become an attack vector.

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.

------
cgtyoder
That's awesome - I have to buy more shit now.

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.

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pmarreck
I'm as huge a fan of USB-C as anyone, but this is simply not a good idea

------
headgasket
A true advance, a Jobs and Ives worthy advance, would be to superseed it. Use
the 3 prongs of a jack with mic for ground tx,rx,and keep it backward
compatible with analog only devices.

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sebastianconcpt
The 3.5mm jack always works! I have some digital headphones and my next ones
are going to be analog because of its digital issues every now and then

------
perilunar
Why not use Mini-TOSLINK or something similar? Digital connection but
backwardly compatible with existing 3.5mm audio.

