One of the banes of headphones attached to your phone or media player is that when you put them in your pocket, the connectors tend to bend a little, and as careful as you try to be, over time the connectors will bend to the point where the wires inside either break or lose their connectivity, thus rendering your headphones useless until it is repaired. Apple’s own series of earphones that comes bundled with iPods and iPhones are certainly not immune to this wear and tear and we guess it’s a good thing to see that Apple has explored ideas to help prevent such things from happening in the future.
This is according to a recent patent discovered by the folks at AppleInsider in which it details several different designs that shows the headphone connector made from flexible or elastic material. By using such material, the plug, in theory, should be able to withstand bending that would have otherwise resulted in broken connectors. One of the proposals includes the incorporation of flexible elastomers or thermoplastic elastomers that when bent will go along with the direction without too much resistance, and return back to its normal state when the strain is removed.
This particular patent was filed for in 2013 and while there’s no telling if and when Apple will turn this patent into reality, it’s good to know that options are at least being explored.
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