{"id":533,"date":"2008-09-13T13:16:46","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T17:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/wordpress\/?p=533"},"modified":"2011-12-17T12:27:21","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T16:27:21","slug":"fixing-the-mac-air-audio-plug-design-flaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/2008\/09\/fixing-the-mac-air-audio-plug-design-flaw\/","title":{"rendered":"Fixing the Mac Air Audio Plug Design Flaw"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yes – I know – if it was “Designed in Cupertino” – that means that it is perfect and that I should change. Unfortunately Cupertino went through a phase where they decided that the typical headphone\/speaker plug was too big – and so they were going to force a new size down folks throats. Given that Apple wants things thinner, lighter and smaller – it made sense.
\nBut the world simply did not change fast enough. The original iPhone and the Mac Air assumed a very small headphone – jack (the diameter of the plastic) around the jack. For a while – I just used my iPhone headset with my Mac Air and conformed to the new Cupertino way.
\nBut as classes started, I was stuck trying to plug my air into the large audio plugs in the lecture rooms and was doomed – I want to make a simple extender cable that has the small diameter male plug and then it is a 3-inch wire ending in a female plug – then I could plug into anything – kind of like those short USB extenders.
\nBut I decided to just fix the design flaw. First I grabbed some wire cutters and cut off most of the aluminum that was in the way just below the audio plug. I cut and bent and got most of the aluminum removed.
\nThis took out most of the aluminum out but left it a little ragged. So the next step was to use masking tape and cover every single opening of the Air (including where the little flip out audio plug was). The *last* thing I needed was little aluminum particles floating around my Air’s innards.
\n

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\nThe next step was to grid off the rough edges with a Dremel tool and then use a bit of emery-paper to get them smooth again. Then I blew all the aluminum dust off before removing the tape.
\n
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\nThe I removed the tape and viola – I can plug in any audio plug into my mac Air!
\n
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\nDon’t blame me if you zorch you Mac Air with aluminum dust. I was really nervous and careful about the aluminum dust. Your mileage might vary. I do wish Apple would fix this in some upcoming Air – just like they fixed it for the iPhone 3G. Or at least sell the audio extender.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes – I know – if it was “Designed in Cupertino” – that means that it is perfect and that I should change. Unfortunately Cupertino went through a phase where they decided that the typical headphone\/speaker plug was too big – and so they were going to force a new size down folks throats. Given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2630,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions\/2630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dr-chuck.com\/csev-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}