Apple and its headphone jack

Hello there , recognise this port ? you probably would , given that an average american listens to music for about 4 hours a day . Why are we talking about this ? Well , rumour mill seems to believe that Apple , one of the most powerful companies on this planet has finally decided to ditch this port in favour of a purely digital port (orts in our phones are an analogue port) . Usually the most widely seen form of connection is a 3.5mm (1/8 inch for those keeping track ) jack , with a TRRS (Tip,Ring, Ring, Sleeve) connector

According to wikipedia , The term TRRS originates in reference to the telephone plugs used for connecting telephone calls in manual switchboards. One side of the line is connected to the metal tip of the plug, and the second is connected to a metal ring behind the tip, separated and insulated from the tip by a non-conducting material. When inserted into a jack, the plug’s tip conductor connects first, followed by the ring conductor.

Which in plain english means that , the rings in the jack separate the metal surface so that they conduct separately and not as a single surface.

First let us learn a few things :

Our phones use often use a 3.5mm jack Phone connectors are used for mono audio out and an unbalanced microphone (with a shared ground) . Four-conductor TRRS phone connectors are used to add an additional audio channel such as microphone input added to stereo output .

A DAC (Digital to Analog-Converter) is a function that converts digital data (the data stored in a phone , for example ) into an analog signal , the kind of signal which drives an earphone or loudspeaker amplifier in order to produce sound . How this works is :

The digital sound data is extracted from the packets(which are requested in a computer, in this case a phone) and assembled into a digital data stream. A DAC converts this into an analog electrical signal, which drives an audio amplifier, which in turn drives a loudspeaker, which finally produces sound.

Okay, so what Apple intends to do is, Remove this head phone jack and move the connecting port to lightning port (an all digital port) so that there is an very big jump in sound quality from our phones . Now many people think this is to reduce the thickness (!) of the already thin iPhone 6 (6.9mm), but to them i’d point towards the iPod touch 5G (6.1mm) . But I beg to differ , what I think Apple intends to do is, push us towards a wireless future in the form of wireless headphones and wireless charging relieving us from the dreaded wire, essentially never having to connect to a wire again. I’m excited for this future without wires , are you ?