An Apple patent application has surfaced showing Apple’s interest in using new pogo pins in place of the standard cantilevered metal strips used to conducting electrical signals with headphone plugs. Using these new pogo pins could significantly reduce the size of internal components.
In fact, Apple states that the current “cantilever beam” used in the headphone jack design requires space in two different directions to make room for the contacts, while also requiring enough length to maintain leverage needed to keep the headphone in contact.
The new spring-loaded pins would only require space in one direction, which could lead to thinner devices when implemented in the design.
The pogo pins can be positioned in the audio jack using any suitable orientation. In some embodiments, the pogo pins can be positioned in substantially a single plane such that the pogo pins require space in a single dimension of the audio jack assembly. The pogo pins can be oriented substantially orthogonal to the audio jack cavity (e.g., such that the deflectable tips extend orthogonally into the cavity), or at an angle relative to the cavity walls.
The application was filed in June of 2009, and is credited to Sean Murphy and John DiFonzo, both of which are Apple engineers.
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