Back in September, Apple filed a patent that would make the audio jacks in their iOS devices even smaller, using deflectable pogo pins instead of cantilever beams to extend into the jack’s cavity and conduct audio and electricity to your headphones.
It was an interesting patent, but Apple’s patents have a tendency to never materialize. This one did, though: according to Kevin Fox of Mozilla Labs, the iPad 2 is the first Apple device to use the new pogo pin audio jack.
What does this mean for users? Well, most of it is aesthetic: a plug inserted into the iPad 2’s audio jack will have “a surprisingly large portion of its ground ring (the outermost metal band) exposed to the elements.” This shouldn’t be a problem, since the ring is grounded as its name implied, but it does look a bit odd… a side-effect Fox notes probably explains Apple’s reticence to actually show the audio jack in any of the official iPad 2 product shots.
While the new pogo plug jacks may be odder looking than the old ones, they do have one huge benefit: it appears they are water proof, since the pogo plugs enable the jack to be “completely sealed against the elements, limiting any fluid damage to the function of the pogo plugs themselves.”
What this means is that you’re a lot less likely to have a non-functional iPad 2’s replacement denied by Apple for incidental water damage you couldn’t possibly have been aware of. If water leaks into the jack, it might stop it from working… but it won’t kill your iPad.
