Michal Marek Although it would probably be hard for us to say goodbye to the 3,5mm audio jack, the fact is that it is a relatively outdated port. Already before rumors surfaced, that the iPhone 7 will come without it. Besides, he won't be the first. Lenovo's Moto Z phone is already on sale, and it also lacks the classic jack. More than one company is now thinking about replacing the long-standing standard audio transmission solution, and it seems that, in addition to wireless solutions, manufacturers see a future in the increasingly discussed USB-C port. In addition, processor giant Intel also expressed support for this idea at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, according to which USB-C would be an ideal solution.
According to Intel engineers, USB-C will see numerous improvements this year and will become the perfect port for a modern smartphone. In the area of sound transmission, it will also be a solution that will bring great advantages compared to today's standard jack. For one thing, phones will be able to be thinner without a relatively large connector. But USB-C will also bring a purely audio advantage. This port will make it possible to equip even much cheaper headphones with technology for noise suppression or bass enhancement. The disadvantage, on the other hand, can be the higher energy consumption that USB-C carries with it compared to the 3,5 mm jack. But Intel engineers claim that the difference in power consumption is minimal.
Another advantage of USB-C is its ability to transfer large volumes of data, which will allow you to connect your phone to an external monitor, for example, and play movies or music clips. In addition, USB-C can handle multiple operations at the same time, so it is enough to connect a USB hub and it is not a problem to transfer image and sound to the monitor and charge the phone at the same time. According to Intel, USB-C is simply a sufficiently universal port that fully utilizes the potential of mobile devices and fulfills the needs of their users.
But it wasn't just the USB-C port whose future was revealed at the conference. Intel also announced a collaboration with its competitor ARM, as part of which chips based on ARM technology will be produced in Intel's factories. With this move, Intel essentially admitted that it had fallen asleep in the manufacturing of chips for mobile devices, and launched an effort to take a bite out of the lucrative business, even at the cost of only making something that it originally wanted to design itself. However, cooperation with ARM makes sense and can bring a lot of fruit to Intel. What is interesting is that the iPhone can also bring that fruit to the company.
Apple outsources its ARM-based Ax chips to Samsung and TSMC. However, high dependence on Samsung is certainly not something Cupertino would be happy about. The possibility of having its next chips manufactured by Intel could therefore be tempting for Apple, and it is possible that it was with this vision that Intel made its agreement with ARM. Of course, this does not necessarily mean that Intel will actually produce chips for the iPhone. After all, the next iPhone is due out in a month, and Apple has already reportedly agreed with TMSC to manufacture the A11 chip, which should appear in the iPhone in 2017.
