I&#x27;m torn on this one. I know it&#x27;s a move to push DRM further out the stack, and that annoys. But, I also want higher quality recording and playback from my small devices. The audio circuitry of one of my tablets and my phone is abysmal; my Nexus 7 (second generation) is nice but I don&#x27;t have a good recording option. Presumably this audio will be two ways, so if I want to stick an ADC in that port I&#x27;ll be able to record at very high quality, and if I want to stick a DAC in that port, I&#x27;ll be able to play back at very high quality.<p>DRM is stupid, of course, and it&#x27;s just pushing the copying out one more step in the chain (they can&#x27;t stop you from converting it to analog at <i>some point</i>, because it&#x27;s gotta be analog to get into your ear holes). And, of course, DRM is made to be broken.<p>Anyway, the 3.5mm jacks on my devices are about 50&#x2F;50 unusably bad (either they aren&#x27;t grounded&#x2F;filtered properly and end up with a variety of noise, or they aren&#x27;t loud enough, or they distort at modest volume, etc.), so on the whole, I won&#x27;t mourn the passing of the 3.5mm jack.