The evolution of technology is unstoppable and it seems that the traditional 3.5 mm jack headphone jack has its days numbered or so it seems, since Intel, the chip giant joins other companies in proposing the replacement of this analog audio input with a digital alternative.
Intel has confirmed this because future devices that include its technology, both smartphones, tablets and some computer equipment discard the headphone jack usual to switch to USB-C. The company made this statement at a recent development conference where they introduced USB-C digital audio.
In the short term, Intel will try to simply replace the classic jack with the USB-C analog audio specification. Intel said this move it would be "basically a connector replacement."
However looking to the future, they hope that the adoption of USB-C also helps in taking the step to end the analog age and move to digital audio.
From the user's perspective, the move to a possible digital audio output might be a good idea, i.e. the best in audio quality would be obvious plus Intel, the maker of world's largest semiconductor by far as it could manufacture the analog to digital audio conversion chips.
On the other hand, there is growing evidence that Apple is contemplating a similar move, although most people believe that the iPhone maker would choose your own lightning connector instead of using the industry standard, USB-C, at least on your iOS devices (iPhone and iPad). This raises an interesting scenario with a little battle between Intel with USB-C and Apple's proprietary connector, ligthning, as the possibility of Intel starting to make communication chips for Apple was recently discussed.