Microsoft Patents Expanding Headphone Port

If y'all listen to Apple tree'southward marketing car, removing the headphone port from the iPhone was "courageous." For consumers, it was a frustration that left us conveying around dongles or investing in expensive wireless headphones and earphones.

The real reason Apple dumped the headphone port is it wanted the space dorsum and to exist able to make devices even thinner (and to sell lots of AirPods). However, equally MSPoweruser reports, a new Microsoft patent reveals Apple could have come up with another solution to go along everyone happy.

Microsoft expanding headphone port patent

Microsoft filed a patent in Baronial last year entitled "Plug receptacle for an electronic device." The patent describes a method of integrating a iii.5mm headphone port into a device, but doing so without requiring the full thickness of a standard headphone jack. Impossible! I hear yous say. Non so, says Microsoft.

The port Microsoft designed sits affluent on a device, but expands when a headphone jack is inserted. Finer, Microsoft reduced the thickness of the port by at least one-half without requiring a headphone plug blueprint alter.

The expansion described can happen in one or 2 directions and would require the apply of a flexible material. Depending on the thickness of the device, the port could aggrandize upwards, or it could expand upwards and downward creating a pocket-sized lump on the front and dorsum of the device. The headphone jack would be registered by bound-like electrical contacts on the inside of the flexible material.

Such a port would certainly add complexity to a device, and therefore cost. There would also be a business organisation over immovability of the flexible material and the electrical contacts with repeated utilize. However, if durability isn't a business organization, this could work. Don't wait Apple to consider information technology, though. Wired headphones have long since been forgotten about in Cupertino.