Slashdot Mirror
Shufflephones 2.0
Photo_Designer writes "After hacking my first pair of headphones to accept an iPod Shuffle, I just couldn't keep my hands off my other set of headphones and hacked an iPod shuffle adapter inside them, too. This version also includes an all-new expansion jack which allows sharing your music on the go, plugging your Shuffle into a stereo with a patch cable (without removing it from the phones), and also allows the headphones to be used as regular phones with the shuffle removed or turned off."
Has got round to putting the buttons on the outside. Surely you don't want to remove your headphones whenever a song you don't feel like comes on. Now do this mod with a Zen Micro and I'm interested.
I can't help but laugh at how funny people would look wearing headphones tethered to each other's ears. Is this a new trend? Love will bind us together, and also our headphones?
Apart from bashing me in the side of the head, and making it essentially impossible to interact with the volume or track selection without taking them off, are there other bad points I'm missing in this?
A worthwhile retail product. Although I'd prefer one that has the shuffle buttons on the outer case of the headphones. Of course, that means that someone next to you could sneak up behind you and change tracks! (would be nice if the new jack was line-level; better for stereo connections)
Thats looks pretty useless...no easy access to controls and the comfort of a plastic stick to your ear blocking the headphones.. Looks like a great time waster though.. Next up, he will mod a Mac mini into his beard, which will then monitor the bacteria accumulation in it and send an email when it's time to take a shower..
I know I'm only a girl, and therefore stereotypically bad with tools, but isn't a ground down screwdriver called an awl?
I have hacked my girlfriend to accept me hacking all her stuff to accept iPod Shuffle.
Interesting solution, but not very neat. Not having the cable for the player seems great. It would be more interesting to see factory-made headphones with included flash mp3 player. That would make a more fancy solution. However, I'm not sure that would really happen - most people who use headphones are rather nittpicky about the quality of them...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
I bet his ears hurt after few hours of listening, that ipod stuck between the cushion must feel awful.
He should use something like this instead
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
How exactly do old-ass headphones give you "street cred".
Not to mention this whole "hack" is so non-Apple. There is no "style" to it, and it's cumbersome. Not to mention that the Shuffle in one of the ear cups probably affects the sound quality a bit.
I'm also a little tired of the "hack" moniker being thrown around so readily. Soldering a couple of wires together is not a "hack" in most cases, it's just... well... soldering.
Take the shuffle apart, integrate its electronics into the headphones, and port the controls and I/O to the outside, keeping the same layout so that the headphones have a "hint of shuffle" to them (maybe even paint the headphones a nice eggshell white). THAT would be closer to a hack, IMO.
-This sig intentionally left blank
This mod is WEAK!
I expected to see some complicated mod that provided controls for the iPod in the headphones.
This guy simply soldered a headphone jack into his expensive headphones and stuffed his iPod shuffle inside the headphones, which restricts access to the controls.
WEAK.
- Think for yourself, question authority.-
Several points:
When has cheaper ever meant better? Cheaper, by definition, means cheaper. Do you like looking cheap? Being called cheap? Would you date someone cheap?
The iPod, as a non flash based player, has one advantages:
Storage capacity
Price
The iPod, as a non Creative part, has two advantages:
UI
Software
And then you ask, "What did Apple do to have such control...?" Some would answer 'marketing', and that's correct. Apple has adverts on TV and in print. The Practice had an episode two years ago where one lawyer said in court, "I would hate to live in a world where we are all plugged into iPods and ignoring each other. A little bit of noise is good sometimes."
Then you ask what the Shuffle does better: It's cheaper. $89 for 256mb from Creative or $99 for 512mb from Apple. It uses iTunes, which is free if you want to see why it's better than Creative Nomad Exlorer (or whatever they call it now).
Finally you ask, "Why do people act like Apple was the first people to make mp3 players?"
The answer is, Apple was the first to make a portable high capacity high usability mp3 player.
The Apple iPod did four great things when it was released that no one else had ever done:
Make something the size of a pack of cigarettes that could store more than 256mb; it could store 5gb. The local competitor was the Creative Nomad, which was the size of a 4 CD box and weighed over a pound, and was far from portable.
It used Firewire. Synching an iPod took less than 10 minutes to upload 5gb of music. The Creative Nomad, using USB, could upload 500mb in 10 minutes.
It had a phenomenal UI, which could be used one handed. The Nomad, on the other hand, could not. It had a folder based UI display, and even today the Nomad 3 has 11 buttons on it's face to control it's UI. The iPod, still, only has five.
It had phenomenal software, in iTunes. Not only could you upload 5gb of music, the software allowed you to manage many multiple gbs easily because it handled all the cataloging, database management, playlist generation, ripping, and encoding.
Imagine how powerful this is, and this is something Creative only gained this year but Apple has had for two or three: A playlist generator.
I want:
Not country
Songs played less than 4 times
Songs not played in the last week
That's what Apple offered, in iTunes, that no one else had. iTunes ALSO offered (new at the time, I'm sure everyone has most of these now):
Streaming shared online libraries. iTunes users can see and play each other's libraries
Automatic tagging
Streaming to wireless speakers (Airport Express)
Automatic ripping
Automatic synching
Music search via ID3 tags
Album art
CD burning (remember 'Rip, Mix, Burn'?)
I think the MuVo works with iTunes; give it a shot!
GPL Deconstructed