How Apple Can Take Its Headphones To the Next Level 196
redletterdave (2493036) writes "Apple is one of the biggest headphone makers in the world thanks to those signature white earbuds that have shipped with every iPod, iPhone, and iPad since 2001. But even two years after earbuds became 'EarPods,' the design could still be improved — and competitors are taking notice. Amazon recently unveiled a new pair of in-ear headphones that are magnetic, tangle-free and $5 cheaper than Apple's $30 EarPods, while smaller startups are promoting their own wireless and customizable 3D-printed earbuds. But Apple has an ace up its sleeve, in the form of patents for a set of headphones with 'one or more integrated physiological sensors' designed to help users keep track of their body stats."
Step 1 (Score:1, Informative)
buy Beats
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
buy Beats
Read the reviews... Beats might be the Hipster headphone du jour, but on the quality vs price curve, it doesn't work out. Sure, if you want to look "hip" and "happin'n" and "young, dumb, and full of cum", buy Beats. Or you could buy a decent pair of headphones.
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I agree with you - I was just being snarky.
I bought a pair of Beats last year at the urging of a friend. I used them mayybe 30 times. Now I have an issue where I have to bend the cable a certain way or there's no sound in the left ear. They are total shit in my opinion.
I read somewhere recently that the average cost to manufacture a pair of Beats headphones was like $12/pair.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
/ducks
Re: Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
They can improve the quality but the real deal is that Apple is ditching the 3.5mm jack for a digital, DRM, patent-encumbered connector. Beats will have it - if you want the cool headphones you gotta give up your Android. The royalties will enforce exclusively.
Apple has to do *something* to stop its marketshare slide - that they didn't put the $3B into R&D tells you how desperate the internal numbers look.
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if you want the cool headphones you gotta give up your Android.
Yes well, of course the Hipsters wouldn't be caught dead paying tunes through anything but Apple...
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Walmart sells iPhone 5c for $29 and 5s for $99. The last time I checked, Walmart was NOT the supplier of choice for hipsters.
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Walmart sells iPhone 5c for $29 and 5s for $99. The last time I checked, Walmart was NOT the supplier of choice for hipsters.
Clearly, Wal-mart is not where Hipsters buy their Apple lifestyle accessories. For example, where did you buy yours?
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And if you don't want DRM patent-encumbered connectors on your ear phones / ear buds then just don't buy an Apple device. It really really REALLY is that simple.
Personally I'm looking forward to new ear buds with Lightning. Most likely they will have a smaller connector, have better strain relief and last longer.
I suspect that currently Apple swaps about 1 set of ear buds for every Apple Care they sell for iPhones. IFF going to Lightning reduces that by any significant amount it will pay for any increased m
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I read an article about Dr. Dre and how he used to record his music. At the time radio was the dominant way people were exposed to new music, he realized that his audience would not experience pristine reception nor studio quality "reference" speakers with extremely low distortion. There would also be plenty of background noise and an engine sounds to compete with.
To ensure his music sounded to his listeners the way he wanted it to, he would broadcast over a private short-range radio station and drive aroun
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Obviously Nike profits, and some shoe margins are stupid-high, but in general I'd say the quality of Nike shoes is far higher than what you'd find for $15. Payless shoes hurt to wear and fall apart quickly.
Beats headphones generally get positive reviews, even if they're not considered top in their field. I've listened to them at electronic stores and was impressed. Maybe you can get somewhat cheaper headphones that are better, but certainly cheap headphones aren't as good. Consumer Reports magazine said
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Headphones are not simple, buy-some-raw-parts-and-wire-them-together objects. It takes a lot of engineering to get good results. Beats is a marketing company, not an engineering company. Companies like Beats put the emphasis on making the brand logo the focus of the design, not the performance or durability of the product.
I think that the Beats marketing people realized that their brand name, specifically, Dr Dre, is widely known to the crowd that shops at Walmart. That crowd doesn't know of quality bra
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Sennheiser headphones aren't cheap (certainly not 1/5th the cost, 75% is more like it) and have their own built-in marketing cost. Sennheiser advertises heavily as well. Sure they are good headphones, but they play the exact same game Beats does.
Don't over-value the Dre name. Sure I like NWA as much as the next guy, but if MC Ren released a headphone that was total shit, people would call him on it. Consumer Reports wouldn't give the headphones sounds good/too expensive type reviews.
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Now, there are great budget earphones. If you like in-ear monitors you might want to try some from Visang/Brainwavz or VSonic. Both companies tend to punch above their weight in terms of sound quality while having reasonable pr
Re:Step 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Step 1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Skull Candy is crap. Beats is crap. Skull Candy at least doesn't charge an arm and a leg for it.
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I've never used used Beats headphones so I can't personally attest to their being crap. My daughter has picked up more Skull Candy earbuds than she should have had to so I can attest to their being fairly crappy based on the short lifetime they seem to have under regular use. The cables break down internally so that they become useless. My personal choice are Sony's earbuds. I bought a pair years ago to replace the stock iPod earbuds that hurt my ears or fell out all the time. (I don't even notice that I'm
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I'd like to know where you're finding them for $15, because I can't find any for less than $30 or so in stores around here. They'd be perfectly fine earbuds for $15. The problem is that stores are selling those $15 for at least twice that.
I use cheap $15 earbuds myself - after spending $80 on a headset that broke repeatedly and didn't even sound that good, I swore off expensive headphones in favor of something I could regularly throw into a river and still spend less.
Re: Step 1 (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nothing that compares with Sony Professional headphones, and they're less expensive than you'd expect. Normally I hate Sony but the pro headphones are one heck of a product line.
Of course, they're ... heh heh heh .... "somewhat" larger and heavier than earbuds, and as for looking hip ... not. Unless the audio engineer look is somehow "in." Be sure to wear thick glasses with black frames.
Re:Step 1 (Score:5, Informative)
In my spare time, I've been an audio technician for the past 5 years. Before that, I was a DJ as a hobby, and I've been on stage crew occasionally for the last decade. My current professional job involves system engineering on a multi-million-dollar sound system.
At home, my headphones are a $30 Sennheiser over-ear pair, and I carry $15 earbuds that I can only describe offhand as "black".
It is my professional opinion that all of the audiophile bullshit is bullshit. On a low-end sound system using the cheapest components you can buy, the worst component is your ears. That's where all of your problems start, and you're trying to pay lots of money to compensate throughout the rest of the system.
If you want a pair of headphones that sound great to you, forget about brand names and fancy features. Sit down with a pair of cheap headphones, and listen to the tones in music/tv/whatever that you find most pleasing. Some folks like to hear the deep rumble of heavy bass, while others (like myself) prefer the crisp clarity of vocals that the high end provides. Still others like the nostalgia of 60's disco and AM radio, so they'll have both high- and low-end, but cut out midtones entirely. Know your ears and your tastes, and that will tell you what frequency response you'll be happiest with.
Next, think about features. This should not be a difficult decision, as it mostly just relates to lifestyle. If you ride a bus or train to work and listen to audiobooks, noise canceling is probably a decent choice. Otherwise, it's probably not worth the price. A good fit is more important for keeping unwanted noise out, so if you're in the market for earbuds, look for ones with adjustable rubber. On my traveling pair, I actually have different rubber cones for my ears, because my ears are different sizes. My wife doesn't like in-ear styles, so she carries a pair of folding on-ear headphones in her purse. That was a criterion when we bought them.
Finally, go to Google, and research candidates. Brand doesn't matter nearly as much as having the right headphones for your ears. Buy a cheap pair with the right criteria and try it out. As a general rule, all headphones are made with thin wire and fragile construction that falls apart at the slightest trauma. That's the nature of the beast. Expensive brands just tack on bigger profit margins.
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All that advertising, name dropping, media product placements ain't free you know, someone has to pay for it and some customers are willing to pay a whole lot not for the product but for the product branding that goes with it. Just like jewellery, what are you really paying for, nothing except poseur value and ego fulfilment. Tech device's though, tricky, you really don't want to market yourself as sucker as a victim of marketing and Apple is making the slow but inexorable slide down that market and the sl
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It is my professional opinion that all of the audiophile bullshit is bullshit. On a low-end sound system using the cheapest components you can buy, the worst component is your ears. That's where all of your problems start, and you're trying to pay lots of money to compensate throughout the rest of the system.
If you want a pair of headphones that sound great to you, forget about brand names and fancy features. Sit down with a pair of cheap headphones, and listen to the tones in music/tv/whatever that you find most pleasing..... Next, think about features.....
I agree with that for the most part except there is a degree of difference between crapware phones and brands like Sennheiser, even in the $30 range. I know that because I went to a store and tried everything they had and stuff from Sennheiser, Bose etc. sounded noticeably better than the utter crapware. That being said the difference is not massive but there is still some difference in sound quality. I ended up sacrificing sound quality for features and got Bluetooth headphones with a built in remote. I al
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Can you explain to me why you claim that the worst components are my ears?
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Sure. He's blown his eardrums with 10 years of over-amplified stage work. He probably can't hear worth shit anymore and is constantly going "Hunh?" to his wife.
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Cute, but no. One of my first stage jobs was with a great stage manager, who did several decades of concerts dating back to the Big Band era. He was nearly deaf from it, so before the first show of the season he called all of the techs together, handed out pairs of high-quality earplugs, and warned us that if he ever found us not wearing them without a good reason, we'd be fired.
At every show since then, I've either worn earplugs or an in-ear monitor whenever the main amps were on. It's also worth noting th
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Ears are the worst in terms of durability, complexity, and as is the focus of my post, manufacturing consistency. Those criteria are all interconnected, also indicating that there is no good way to solve their problems well.
There is no other component for which so many things can go wrong. The ears serve as the intermediary between the analog vibrations and the sensation of hearing, comprised of millions of self-assembling cells whose function depends on trillions of chemical interactions executing perfectl
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But then, with a technically perfect system, isn't it better to simply change the input(equalize as needed) to suit your tastes instead the equipment for something that produces a sound you enjoy more yet isn't perfect?
I do agree with you: at the end of the day, what matters is whether we enjoy the sound of it or not. Regardless of price.
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In my spare time, I've been an audio technician for the past 5 years. Before that, I was a DJ as a hobby, and I've been on stage crew occasionally for the last decade...
In other words, you really have fucked up your ears.
No wonder $15 earbuds sound good to you.
No, he's right. In 90% of the situations that you'd use headphones you wouldn't get much mileage out of anything above decent $15-$30 earbuds. Don't get me wrong, I've got my expensive monitoring headphones for tracking, and I have a set of studio monitor speakers for my home recording setup, but I equally enjoy m $30 Pioneer phone buds and Creative desktop audio set for the kitchen. To a point the grandparent and I have it slightly easier than the people who absolutely want to have earthquake bass. You
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Accurate reproduction (typically meaning "none") at frequencies one or more octaves above the primary frequency, usually phase-shifted slightly.
I'd rather not get into the audiophile's favorite game of "my metric is better than yours", but AC is technically correct - there are qualities beside frequency response. Frequency distortion is one of those. The idea is that you play a particular frequency through the driver, and record the resulting vibration. Ideally, they match. Put in a perfect sinusoid, and yo
Re:Step 2 (Score:3)
Take all the Beats intellectual property, drawings, and inventory, throw it in a wood chipper, and then set fire to the resulting chips.
they're earphones (Score:3)
They make me sick, literally. Give me on ear headphones any day
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Over the ear headphones are really uncomfortable as they press down on the ears
Not so much. I had a set of them from the sixties that didn't have this problem, but they were stupid-big. Now at home I use Sennheiser HD420s that I got for $5, refoamed for $10, and re-connectorized (with Kirlin) for $7ish. They sound epic.
and are difficult to use while doing anything other than sitting down or standing in place.
Ah yes, that IS the problem. That's where earbuds win, while you're being active. Any other time, though, a nice set of over-ears is by far the best. My headphones are open-plan so I can still hear things in the background, and they're very lightweight. And they really
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I guess you need to find the right over the ear headphones.
I have some that are just perfect for mowing the lawn, or riding the bike.
sensors (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sensors (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:sensors (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't usually use earbuds except to work out, but I have a $20 pair of Sony earbuds that sound better than Apple's. It's absurd that the article doesn't mention a single thing about sound quality, and goes into how easily the cords tangle and body sensors like those are the things people care about. You need to get sound quality right before you can even think about all the other ancillary shit to try and sell more of them.
You are hard to please :-) I'd settle for getting a pair of earbuds with my iDevice that don't fall out of my ears whenever I move my head although, to be fair to Apple, this is not a problem limited to their products. The first thing I do when I get a new phone or music player is replace the included earbuds with the in-ear type from a third party manufacturer (usually Sennheiser). I have a small box full of Apple earbuds that I have never used.
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They bought Beats, a brand built on a a shitty, bass heavy flatulent sound. The only thing they ever had going for them was the unique 'b' shaped plastic. They are like a Louis Vuitton bag - not particularly functional or even attractive, but they cost a lot of money and celebutards like them so owning them buys you a tiny slice of that lifestyle.
At this point if they made them sound better their sales would probably decrease. That shit sound is their signature.
Re:sponsers (Score:2)
The only thing they ever had going for them was the unique 'b' shaped plastic. They are like a Louis Vuitton bag - not particularly functional or even attractive, but they cost a lot of money and celebutards like them so owning them buys you a tiny slice of that lifestyle.
While I don't own or like their headphones, the one other thing they have going for them is their success at ambush marketing. You see, as much as I hate their headphones, I hate the draconian advertising regulations that surround events like the Olympics and World Cup even more:
http://www.thenational.ae/busi... [thenational.ae]
http://www.theguardian.com/med... [theguardian.com]
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I have a $10 pair of Sony earbuds I bought in a mall in Panama when my earbuds took a dive, not literally just one side stopped working and new earbuds were cheaper than a soldering iron I'd have to lug around anyway. Still better than Apple headphones. They tangle like a bitch, though.
Few Radio Shacks there though, and guess what? They fucking rule. They're everything our stores used to be and more, they have all kinds of random crap never seen in a rat shack catalog in addition to all the usual stuff.
It's also a public health issue (Score:2)
No, really. So a big problem these days is people damaging their hearing from listening at excessive volumes on their portable devices. This is a real issue and is going to have some nasty effects as people age.
Part of the problem is just people wanting to listen too loud, but part of the problem is shitty earbuds. If you have shitty earbuds, that don't seal off outside noise well, don't sound good, and have poor power handling, it is more likely you drive them too loud to compensate. Also, the poor power h
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Not to mention Apple earphones are also the most fragile. That narrow-gauge white wire may look thin and stylish, but the tiniest of crimps can degrade the sound, and they break very easily. The $10 earphones I use have better sound (not great, but I'm usually listening on the go, and ambient sounds drown out a lot of the harmonics anyway) and don't break after a week's use. It is Apple once again putting form over function.
Panasonic HJE120 (Score:2)
The best earbuds I've ever owned. They stay in the ear, sound quality is excellent and the tangle/twist factor isn't bad considering the skinny round cable.
They were like $8 when I bought them from Amazon. I ended up buying six more pair of them they were so good. I have a set in the car, my laptop case, a pair by the door for walking the dog and a couple still in the sealed package.
I just looked them up, still $8.99 with Prime delivery. Maybe I should pick up a couple more just in case.
Body sensors are THE FUTURE. (Score:1)
Where the fuck have you been? Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Nike and other big companies have decided for us that body sensors are THE FUTURE .
It doesn't matter that they're mostly just gimmicks. It doesn't matter that they have severe and negative privacy implications. It doesn't matter that they're a fad that'll die out in a couple of years. The are THE FUTURE .
You need to prepare yourself to hear about them for the next 2 or 3 years. It'll be just like 3D TV, tablets, Ruby on Rails, and all of the
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Luckily I have the impression that 3D TV is on the way out already...
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Well - they bought the wrong company, i.e. Beats. If they wanted better sound they should have bought Dolby Laboratories, Audio Technica, or Grado.
It's sad really, even though Steve Jobs seemed to be a first class picky asshole about how thinks looked, he also wouldn't settle for an imbalance of form and function. Probably learned that from when the Apple 3 went south and he got the boot.
The current wave of products seem to coast on function and go downhill on looks. An example would be the look and feel of
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Beats would be the wrong company, if all Apple wanted was a headphone maker. But they also intend to build a music streaming service, which Beats had, with all the licensing deals already in place.
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sensors (Score:2)
Music (Score:2)
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The writer doesn't understand the strategy. The Beats name is the lure and the added sensors that justify the proprietary connector is the hook that will lock people into buying overpriced Apple/iBeats phones as long as they have an iPhone/iPad, even if they don't sound any better than the current Apple or Beats products.
how about we stick to making the basics better (Score:2)
instead of adding a bunch of features I don't need, didn't ask for, and make the product more complex, expensive, and likely to fail? Everything is headed this way, cars and home appliances being the most obvious offenders, and it's not making lives better.
A pair of phones that sound good, made to last, and are not overpriced, should turn a profit without marketing them as high status items. If not, then marketing has seriously contaminated the mindset of the consumer.
Re:how about we stick to making the basics better (Score:5, Funny)
instead of adding a bunch of features I don't need, didn't ask for, and make the product more complex, expensive, and likely to fail?
My good sir, how dare you besmirch the efforts of those who are trying to make our economy grow ever larger and ever faster? Don't you WANT a booming business environment? Is buying overpriced junk that fails early and often, and leaves our planet an empty husk, REALLY too high a price to pay for petty amusements and diversions that further line the pockets of the already-wealthy? How selfish of you!
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It's hard for the customer to make a good choice when the good choices are removed from the market and replaced with disposable junk.
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It's as if most customers choose cheap, disposable junk.
Maybe somebody could start a store like that.
Call it Junkmart, or something like that.
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That exists already in the Netherlands. It's called the Action [action.nl] and it's mighty popular.
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That's not only in America. Here in the Netherlands there was a program on TV not long ago about how manufacturers design their products to break down after a few years. There are several ways to do this; the chips in printer cartridges being the most well-known one. But they also told us that Samsung designed the plastics in their washing machines so that they degrade when in contact with the detergent you use to clean your laundry. And many manufacturers build in 'time bombs' in the software of their prod
Re:how about we stick to making the basics better (Score:4, Insightful)
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The washing machine failed due to intermittent contact between the spinning drum and the plastic casing that enclosed it (only a perfectly balanced load would avoid this contact, a rarity in
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It really annoys me that these things are made this way. It's not even cost-cutting, because the faults were not due to reducing costs of materials or construction, it was designed that way. In other words designed to fail. And the problem is people are now brainwashed into believing that five years lifespan for goods like this is OK, even 'doing well'. It's NOT! These things should last 20 years or more.
It's worse than annoying. I'm not exaggerating when I say this kind of thing should be treated as a crime against humanity. The cost of the resulting resource depletion and environmental damage that we're passing on to future generations may well mean the difference between our survival as a species and our extinction, or at least our decimation. And it's not as though the things we're producing as throwaway items are even essential; in many cases they actually reduce our quality of life, (although they rai
Not such a new idea. (Score:2)
You mean like these [lg.com]. Somehow, I have a feeling those patents might not be as useful as someone might think...
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This is true. I'm questioning that said patents are really such an "ace up the sleeve" if someone else is beating you to market with devices that already do what your patents purportedly cover. There's only a limited set of physiological sensors that are going to be useful in headphones and that aren't already in their phones, and LG just nailed the main one. Body temperature would be the next obvious.
IMHO, Apple's ace up its sleeve is the same thing it's always been... to ability to pump out a product that
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I'm missing something (Score:1)
questionable (Score:1)
EarSensors, yay! (Score:4, Funny)
Oh no, we've got excessive vibrations on little Johnny (User 2317687491XXL), I think he might be pounding his meat again, better shut down his web access.
Studio-style headphones (Score:2)
Whatever it takes to get kids to stop wearing those god damn bulbous studio style headphones while out and about (beats typically.).
They are this generations version of the jnco jeans.
Seriously, does an ipod/iphone/whatever portable device even have the output for speakers that size?
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Seriously, does an ipod/iphone/whatever portable device even have the output for speakers that size?
You can drive relatively big speakers directly from any of that stuff, but you're going to get shitty response out of it. And Lo, Beats suck balls. Meanwhile, the best response (in headphones) is had from headphones with fairly large speakers, but which also can't be driven by some shitty little player, for example some of the more pro-level Sennheisers. You need an actual amplifier for that, not just some dinky on-codec amp or companion crap that they will use in a typical consumer device. I use an old Ken
Yeay More Personal Information to Hoover (Score:3)
Just what I want -- for my NSA-backdoored, malware-infested, free-apps-spying-on-me smart device to ALSO be able to exfiltrate my vital signs. You think GPS location and when you use your device tells alot about your life habits, wait until heartrate and blood pressure are available. Advertisers would LOVE this data: "look, our ad is exciting to this person". Worse, they could also detect heart conditions and uniquely identify the person wearing the earbuds. Think about that for a second. Instead of just assuming that this iPhone was registered by person X so it's probably being used by that person, it'd be able to know if someone's borrowing it (and using a cloud data lookup, by whom.) Wait until the NSA ("we kill people based on metadata") starts using vital sign 'fingerprints' and bombing them with no verification.
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Just what I want -- for my NSA-backdoored, malware-infested, free-apps-spying-on-me smart device to ALSO be able to exfiltrate my vital signs.
Exactly my response to Apple's response. What I've got now is the last generation of product where I don't give a shit if it's closed-source, because what's coming now is the first generation of product truly designed to get all up in your business and know everything about you. At least Google Now is opt-out, I can just not use it. If your headphones come with biometric sensors, you'll have to swap them out. That's not a big deal, but the same trend is being followed on the phones themselves, and they won'
Whatever. (Score:1)
They'll still fall out of my ear and sound like shit when they don't.
or.... (Score:1)
They use science and engineering to make better headphones.
I mean, sure maybe they can put is a sensors to detect how rad I thing music is based on how I rock my head.
I would love some quality earbuds (Score:2)
But unfortunately, I have a mild case of cauliflower ear on both sides of my head. So color me as not giving the slightest of fucks.
no wristband (Score:2)
it's a way of monitoring your heartbeat and steps without selling you a wristband. nothing to do with sound quality.
Stop wasting money on shit (Score:3)
Get a set of Sennheiser PX-100 II [sennheiser.com], or Sennheiser PX-100 IIi [sennheiser.com] if you want a microphone and controls.
Much better sound quality than any earpuds, more comfortable, plus no microphoning noise from the cable like you get with earpuds and in-ear units. Seriously, the PX-100 series is an absolute bargain for how good of a sound quality you get, they're right up there with fullsize cans and lightyears ahead of shit like Beats or Skullcandy.
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Ooh, I hadn't thought of that. My old PX-100s have foam pads that are disintegrating, but now they're getting a nice set of pleather earpads instead. They'll probably last me another 10 years or so, now.
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Only if you play your "music" obnoxiously loud. But fair is fair, a closed-back headphone is probably a good idea. HD280s are a nice choice, as are Beyerdynamic DT-231s. I have a set of AIAIAI TMA-1 Studio or X, which are extremely nice, but kinda huge. The base TMA-1 or the TMA-1 X are smaller, but still sound amazing. I haven't heard their Capital 'phones, but they're supposedly very good, too.
Ditch the earbuds, they leak a ton of sound as well, and ditch the in-ears, lest you get ear irritation and infec
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How very very odd that they actually sound better when you listen to them yourself. Is that the marketing team whispering sweet nothings into my ears to convince me to buy them? If you can't hear the difference between a pair of Beats or a similarly-priced pair of Sennheisers, then I am very sorry indeed for your massive hearing loss. How many decades have you been working with industrial machinery, with no ear protection?
Instead of spewing baseless nonsense, try actually listening for yourself. The PX-100
I don't get it (Score:2)
Biometric sensors? wth? (Score:3)
They are *earphones* for pete's sake. How about you make the sound better? You know, the reason people buy them, to listen to stuff...
This is what is wrong with our patent system (Score:2)
But Apple has an ace up its sleeve, in the form of patents for a set of headphones with 'one or more integrated physiological sensors' designed to help users keep track of their body stats.
In essence, nobody can develop earphones with sensors without Apple crying patent infringement.
It's not a particular method of getting sensor data or a particular design of getting sensor data, it is the whole concept of putting sensors in earphones that is patented.
Right now, patents are a way of marking territory rather than a clever invention.
How about safety sensors? (Score:3)
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Sound directly from bone conduction: Head Bones : https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]
Another 'No Speakers' approach: Sound Band: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]
Player inside the in-ear phones: Dash: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]
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Sound directly from bone conduction: Head Bones [kickstarter.com]
Another 'No Speakers' approach: Sound Band [kickstarter.com]
Player inside the in-ear phones: Dash [kickstarter.com]
Re:EarPods were shit (Score:4, Insightful)
And people make fun of others spending too much money on Apple?
Exactly how big do you think the market is for $500-$1000 headphones?
Do you buy Monster cables too?
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"I doubt Apple will be the innovator here because they take cheap shit and put their name on it, never actually developing anything new."
That's pretty backwards. Usually they take something else and make it better and charge a lot.
Headphones is science and engineering.
Re:Here's The Real Question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any actual evidence that Apple or somebody affiliated with Apple has paid or otherwise compensated Timothy for placing this submission on the front page?
If you're going to make such allegations, please provide at least some evidence or proof that astroturfing is indeed taking place.
Astroturfing is a real phenomenon, but it's also important not to "cry wolf" about it. False alarms, like I suspect yours is in this case, make it harder to expose actual astroturfing when it does happen and can be proven.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Regardless this shouldn't make it to Slashdot.
This is news for nerds - Not news for hipsters!
Re:Here's The Real Question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot's moderation system sucks. It's the worst system there is, except for everything else that's been tried.
Re: (Score:1)
Would you like some "Hot Grits" scraped off of Natalie Portman's ass
Yes!
Re: (Score:2)
Re:i'd be happy if... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about: use headphones, not earbuds.
Re: (Score:3)
How about: use headphones, not earbuds.
sign me up. No earbuds will stay in my ears. If i remain perfectly still, they will simply fall out in a matter of minutes. My ears even seem to have some mechanism to actively eject the plug style buds that get shoved in the ear canal.
Re: (Score:2)
similar situation here. earbuds fall out AND i've yet to find headphones big enough for my ears. (to go around them and not press tops of my ears against my head. and no, i'm not from Vulcan)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My Bose noise canceling headphones have worked just fine for several years.
Re: (Score:3)
I used to travel a lot and that's when I got the headphones. But now I'm desk bound, the Bose work great. Diminishing the noise from the environment is a much lower hanging fruit than perfecting the reproduced audio signal.
Re: (Score:2)