What's all this "we" stuff? You seem to be complaining solo, so stick to speaking for yourself.
That's strange. I see multiple people in this thread calling you on your absolute IGNORANCE of digital audio. I've got two degrees in Electronic Engineering and audio is a hobby of mine. When I say you literally know NOTHING about it, I mean it. You can have your opinion about that audio jack, but the moment you make an argument about it being outdated or irrelevant, you better be able to back it up. You ignored those posts and focus on "we" versus "I" instead. It's because you have no idea WTF you're talking about.
What do you think it was when an internet connection was going through a dial-up modem? It was using a digital technology, yes, via noises made over an analog phone line.
What does an analog phone line have to do with what you said? You said people were connecting to the Internet "with analog". That's pure BS. The carrier wave is irrelevant. The connection is digital (the rest is noise to the other modem). DSL uses the rest of the bandwidth on that copper cable that isn't in the audible frequency range, but it uses the same lines. Thus, if modems are outdated because they use copper phone lines that carrier analog signals for phone conversations then DSL is ancient and outdated as well as it is
also transmitted over the exact same phone lines, but not in the audible spectrum (not totally dissimilar to the inaudible digital FM radio signals that piggy-back the analog FM transmissions over the same frequency spectrum). No one would claim that a 56kbps modem is superior to a DSL modem, but the reason that DSL is speed limited and unavailable in some areas is precisely because the signal is degrading between the house and the nearest digital switch. Cable modems are subject to similar degradation between the copper cable in your house and the optical fiber they typically now run to the post outside your house, but this is a very small distance compared to most DSL switches and cable is capable of vastly more bandwidth in general (delivering hundreds of TV Stations along with Internet that is typically 15-150Mbps on most systems right now. Google fiber brings the optical fiber right into your house and is capable of a magnitude or more bandwidth).
And who is it that protested the arrival of broadband connections? What "resistance" was there to having the OPTION to have much higher data rates??? You can still use a dial-up modem today if you really really want to and I hear a few do in very rural areas, but I don't recall ANYONE protesting faster Internet speeds. Some may have lamented the loss of old-school BBS systems and for awhile, I saw many move those BBS systems to Telnet connections over the Internet, but the World Wide Web soon eclipsed such primitive mostly text-based sites.
So you're going to give a lecture on rocket science next? That should be amusing.
You do realize that in dial-up internet, the line between the individual house's phone line and the phone company's box is 100% analog, right? That's why when DSL came out (DIGITAL subscriber line) it was a digital connection to the CO\neighborhood switch, and only those close enough to maintain a digital connection could get it. The funny part is the concept you're basing your premise on that anything you stick in your ear is analog because of that last piece (the headphone cable\speaker earpiece) is the exact premise you're arguing for my point in regards to modems and internet and the fact that the copper line to the CO is analog. LOL Thanks!
You're playing with words, but you don't understand the technology or you wouldn't be arguing. That line between house and phone line is COPPER. It is USED as "analog" with traditional phone calls. No one says a copper cable must carry an analog transmission. The same cable you use for an RCA composite analog video transmission can readily be used as a "coaxial" digital audio connection (S/PDIF). In other words, the cable itself is irrelevant to whether what it's carrying is "digital" or "analog" in nature. It doesn't care. It's just an modulated electrical signal either way (whether sine wave based or square wave based, they're both electrical signals). DSL uses a digital signal,
but it's STILL transmitted over the consumer's copper phone lines to that switch. No one is running optical cable to someone's house with DSL. (see:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/dsl.htm). In other words, you're trying to somehow claim that a traditional modem is "analog" but DSL is "digital" when they're both digital signals over a copper telephone cable. The big problem with telephone cable is that's very small gage wire and thus signals degrade quickly over distance. A cable wire is much thicker and does much better. It does much better still when it's a short distance and hence why optical fiber is run to your local box outside. They could run that cable into your house and in some places they have (Google uses it for example), but most don't need that much bandwidth yet and the main lines are shared with the entire neighborhood.
You didn't hear any resistance to TVs going digital?!?!?! Were you living under a rock when consumers were complaining that a digital signal wouldn't travel nearly as far, and they lost their TV reception because they lived outside of the service area?
You seem to have language communication difficulties. You SAID "resistance to TVs going digital" NOT resistance to a given standard ATSC vs ISDB-T vs DVB-T for example. And I don't recall anyone really complaining about "reception" until around 2008 (
long after "digital TVs" came into being") when they shut off NTSC transmissions. Even then, how many use over-the-air connections in the US? It's a tiny fraction. How many have problems with reception? A fraction of that fraction, most of whom wouldn't have a problem if they got a proper aerial antenna instead of an indoor POS. What kind of analog video were they getting before? It was probably pretty darn degraded looking given a fairly objectionable NTSC picture typically still comes in HD perfectly clear. It would have to be very marginal before HD drops by comparison. Could these people get satellite? Yes, most could.
But what does RECEPTION have to do with the televisions themselves being "digital" ??? And WTF does that even mean? My mother has a Panasonic CRT-based 57" HDTV (probably better called a "monitor" since it has no ATSC tuner in it) from 1999 that still works fine. It lacks HDMI connections (so I got he a conversion box) and uses component video. It has an NTSC tuner (no HD tuner) and can do 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i. It couldn't care less if the 480 signal is analog or digital. So is it a "digital TV" or an "analog TV" ?
There is no real distinction since calling the television itself "digital" or "analog" is MEANINGLESS when stated as such.
Did you know that HDTV standards being played with during the late 1980s and early 1990s was analog in nature? HD-Mac was proposed in Europe in 1986 (1250 frames) and the system was tested during the 1992 Olympics, but it was rejected in 1993 in favor of DVB (digital video broadcasting).
Or consumers complaining that to get a picture they had to go out and buy (or get free from the government) a digital to analog box, which if nothing else required power and additional space\wires?
OMG! They PAID for those? Did they not know you could get them for free? Even my cable company gave me two free digital converter boxes when they ditched analog channels on cable in favor of more bandwidth for HDTV and Internet speeds.
Or broadcasters complaining about the cost to adapt to the new technology? Or the government complaining about spending BILLIONS on TV, Radio, Print, and every other media advertising and developing programs to assist the elderly\stupid with the transition? I can't imagine you were born yesterday or came to this country after the transition, because to not remember people whining about it is like not remembering Y2K whiners.
You must have spent a lot of time listening to people whine. Personally, I had an HDTV since 1999 and I was more upset by my cable company at the time not offering a single HD channel until some time around 2004. WTF is the point in having an HDTV if you can't watch HDTV channels? Oh, that's right. It still did a nice 480P widescreen off DVDs (vast improvement over 480i letterboxed laserdiscs).
Instead of using the word "we" please use the word I. You don't have to agree with me, but don't call me names or make comments about my logic being absurd. YOU're in the wrong.
I used the word "we" because there is more than one of us telling you that you are simply WRONG in you assumptions about the 3.5mm jack and only ONE of you. The fact you didn't even know it has carried digital signals since at least 2006 if not 2004 tells me your opinion is UNINFORMED. You're complaning about it carrying ancient analog signals (even though those are REQUIRED to drive actual headphones or loudspeakers) and clearly had NO IDEA that the same jack is also a mini-toslink port for digital signals.
You also don't care if people taking their Macbooks on airplanes can connect their headphones. You don't care if someone docking their computer has to buy some Lightning (even though no Macbook yet has a Lightning port) to line-out converter to connect a simple pair of computer speakers or to connect it to their stereo (almost NOTHING takes "lightning" connectors). And yet I'm "wrong" ??? How am I "wrong" ???
YOU may not like having to transition to digital and no 3.5 mm jack, but the vast majority of people have no issues with it. If it's such a big deal, there are solutions that YOU can go with that'll solve every possible objection you have to this transition.
Where do you get this "vast majority of people have no issue with it" NONSENSE? How the frack would you know what "most people" think about it? Your idea of a "solution" is go buy lots of expensive easy-to-lose dongles when they're not needed with this tiny port on a Macbook that has plenty of space for it (it's smaller than a lightning port and every headphone on earth uses it). Your arguments for wanting to get rid of it are NON-EXISTENT. Just calling it "old" is not an argument. Old doesn't mean outdated in this case. That signal has to be brought out somewhere in the chain regardless of whether there's a port or not. But you don't know that since you don't know anything about audio. You had no clue that the same port also does digital audio (your claim that it was outdated in the first place).
In other words, if you're going to give an uninformed opinion that makes arguments based purely on the age of the connector (will you argue that AC outlets are "outdated" and should be replaced by Lightning ports next???) while simultaneously having no idea what that connector does or what that signal is actually used for, then your opinion doesn't really mean a damn thing.
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