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How Apple Can Take Its Headphones To the Next Level
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."
I'd be happy if they'd just sell ones that don't fall out of my friggin ears every time I move! Even the kind with the rubber/foam ends fall out...
I'd be entirely happy going back to the '80s style on the ear ones that actually would STAY IN PLACE...
buy Beats
They make me sick, literally. Give me on ear headphones any day
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.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Why would the writer think that adding body sensors are an answer, instead of improving the fucking sound?
You mean a holding company? Ain't no one in North America getting their soft hands dirty making anything.
More gimmicks that get in the way of putting a proper speaker in there.
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.
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 other overhyped junk of the recent past. They'll be hyped, hyped, hyped, hyped and hyped. Then they'll fail in the marketplace, because nobody actually wants them.
You mean like these. Somehow, I have a feeling those patents might not be as useful as someone might think...
Log in or piss off.
Let me tell you what everyone else thinks are real headphones.
Shure SE-846: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H8YOI04/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00H8YOI04&linkCode=as2&tag=obamaswecom-20&linkId=I73QKZFGWTCRE4T6
Quad-driver, built in sub woofer, nano-welding, cost: $999.99
Westone W50, 5 driver headphone, $750: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JRPVO90/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00JRPVO90&linkCode=as2&tag=obamaswecom-20&linkId=4YPWGVNX5U4D6NHO
Westone also makes a triple, quad, and six driver model. I personally have the $500 dollar Westone 4R which has been replaced by the W40 for $499: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GB2YASO/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00GB2YASO&linkCode=as2&tag=obamaswecom-20&linkId=EZFV75JAAFGFNRXU
Apple is trying to innovate something they haven't innovated on. They aren't designers or manufactures of real headphones. They make cheap shit.
How can headphones be truly innovated on though? By creating sound in 3D fashion, and perhaps by stimulating the nerves of the ear directly using microwaves rather than by using soundwaves to do it. There are actually numerous patents to use microwaves to stimulate the brain and nerves directly, bypassing the cochlea and ears, dating back decades but only the military took interest because of their desire to weaponize it. A few of those patents are here: http://www.oregonstatehospital.net/d/russelltice-nsarnmebl.html#patents
A goal for improving sound quality is to record soundwaves more accurately and then reproduce them more accurately without loss. Right now soundwaves are recorded and replicated from a single space in time, perhaps in a stereo fashion with two points, one for each ear. But sound waves are more dynamic and the trajectory and complexity is not currently recorded or replicated. Surround sound is done in a virtual way, instead of stimulating each nerve independently like in real life as the wave travels through, allowing you to hear multiple points of sound traveling from multiple areas at once. We want to record sound from thousands of points per ear and replicate the sound from thousands of points to truly playback sound as it was meant to be heard.
I doubt Apple will be the innovator here because they take cheap shit and put their name on it, never actually developing anything new.
Would be nice.
How are headphones on a different level than your ears any sort of benefit? (Asking for an overly literal person.)
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
more like a sensor that induces subliminal messages to buy more apple stuff.
happy trials
Take all the Beats intellectual property, drawings, and inventory, throw it in a wood chipper, and then set fire to the resulting chips.
Then maybe start releasing tracks in at least 320 kbps or ALAC.
How About Apple starts by making headphones with cables which don't easily fall apart first (like they should have 10 years ago)?
Apple innovations like their Magsafe chargers protect their laptops by falling apart when someone trips on the cable. They should focus on improving the joins in their headphone cables first, instead of aesthetics.
1) Sell Hi fidelity songs on iTunes and outfit iPods and such like Neil Young's Pono player
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/12/289299019/kickstarter-campaign-begins-for-neil-youngs-music-player
2) Just use soft rubber vacuum fit earbuds and forget the hard plastic junk, no matter how it's shaped.
3) maybe combine hifi recordings with a Dre Beats headset with 24 bit audio.
4) Utilize established engineering metrics such as effective bits to talk about end-to-end performance. No marketing interpretations (falsifications), please!
http://www.etymotic.com earbuds are the best sounding earbuds i've ever heared. the ones I have dont sound too basy and are not fatiguing at all.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ear+wax+removal
captcha: visible
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.
Heard at the Apple Headquarters monitoring their users:
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.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
This... a thousand times, this.. Make them not sound like crap, THEN start working on other things.
"Why would the writer think that adding body sensors are an answer, 'instead of improving the fucking sound?"
:D Listening to THAT on even a decent set of headphones won't help it any.
:|
They have to go a bit further back than the hardware I think. I've you've looked at a waveform for what passes as music these days, you would agree
The folks that put this stuff together need to understand that the entire waveform isn't supposed to look like a solid block just barely under the clipping threshold.
I'm somewhat surprised to see the parent comment modded down to -1. While I could see that sort of mismoderation happening at a shitfest like Reddit, where reasonable thought is surely not present, Slashdot usually managed to maintain a higher standard. The modding should be reversed in this case. The unsubstantiated claim made by Mr. Frosty Piss should be modded down, while the comment questioning his unsubstantiated claim should be modded up. Backing up one's claim with evidence is a basic tenet of both justice and science, as is holding people responsible when they fail to do so. The Slashdot community used to hold such values in high esteem. But then again, I'm also not totally surprised by the mismoderation. The quality of the people here has taken a pretty bad hit lately, especially after all of the beta nonsense drove away a lot of the long-time users.
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?
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.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Slashdot's moderation system sucks. It's the worst system there is, except for everything else that's been tried.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
The real question is how low will Timothy go to place Product Placement AstroTurf on the Slashdot front page... And how many of his Flying Chimps will he call in to mod me down?
At least at first blush it does not look like an astroturfing attempt to me.
The same people who think Apple earbuds sound good, or that any sound from anything since the original iPod is worth a pinch of coonpoop will buy apple crap for the same reason they buy other crappy sounding dreck: They do not know what good sound is; and they do not care. They just want to be cool.
They'll still fall out of my ear and sound like shit when they don't.
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Regardless this shouldn't make it to Slashdot.
This is news for nerds - Not news for hipsters!
Would you like some "Hot Grits" scraped off of Natalie Portman's ass
Yes!
when he's cheering "Apple has patents" then he's a twat.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
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.
The real question is how low will Timothy go to place Product Placement AstroTurf on the Slashdot front page... And how many of his Flying Chimps will he call in to mod me down?
This comment brought to you by Samsung. Samsung: Your life in sync!
it's a way of monitoring your heartbeat and steps without selling you a wristband. nothing to do with sound quality.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Get a set of Sennheiser PX-100 II, or Sennheiser PX-100 IIi 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.
Eat the rich.
I think it's a great idea for Apple to put vital stats monitors in their devices. I do however think they're missing a trick. Apple, if you're listening: Remote kill switch that actually kills the user of the device!
Vital stats sensors... for listening to music? How is that helpful to me? If I have a medical condition that requires constant monitoring of my vitals, I'm not going to use Apple bullshit for it - I'm going to use real medical hardware. If I don't have a medical condition that requires constant monitoring of my vitals, why the fuck would I want to constantly monitor my vitals? That shit isn't interesting. It doesn't help me enjoy music. I would rather throw my $30 directly into the trash can, because at least then Apple wouldn't be getting it.
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.
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...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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 handling means that when you do drive them, they start to clip and distort, which raises high frequency harmonics, which causes more damage.
Given what a big presence Apple has in the portable music market, their shitty earbuds are a real issue. It would go a ways to helping the situation if they'd include some earbuds that weren't worthless. They don't need to be great, just not worthless, properly designed.
Apple doesn't make anything they sell. Everything they sell is made by Chinese contract manufacturers in large, live-in factory complexes where workers as young as 8 years old toil for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Better to buy a phone made in the US (MotoX), South Korea (Samsung/LG), or Japan (Panasonic / Kyocera) where there are at least some labor laws to protect employees from such deplorable working conditions.
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.
Some sensors to warn the dumbass wearing the headphones (with volume at 11, naturally) that they are about to walk into something (say, a wall, a manhole cover, a train, a taxi, etc) might be a good idea.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I actually thought about posting AC since I knew that wouldn't fly all too well.
This is rather hillarious though:
Re:Here's The Real Question..., posted to How Apple Can Take Its Headphones To the Next Level, has been moderated Overrated (-1).
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Re:Here's The Real Question..., posted to How Apple Can Take Its Headphones To the Next Level, has been moderated Funny (+1).
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Re:Here's The Real Question..., posted to How Apple Can Take Its Headphones To the Next Level, has been moderated Overrated (-1).
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FIGHT!
So the one thing of real interest in this speculative posting -- the scope of Apple's patents on what is expected to be a popular feature in next-generation phones (see 2014 articles in audio mags like The Absolute Sound) -- is not linked. Can somebody add a URL that identifies what exactly the poster is talking about?
If you RTFA, you'll find that Apple's "ace in the sleeve" is a lotta baloney. Like all too many tech writers, the author incorrectly assumes that his knowledge of technical matters somehow qualifies him to make conclusory statements about patent law. This is particularly damaging, because such statements are often propagated endlessly by equally unqualified writers (and Slashdot posters). Here, the guy references two "patents", one broad, one narrow. The narrow one is pretty narrow -- it includes only head-motion sensors that implement a method that includes detecting "two" predefined types of head movements. It seems to me that it would be pretty easy to circumvent such a patent. The broad one was abandoned some years ago, and never issued -- something that any patent agent or patent attorney would know immediately is likely the case from the filing date and the publication number. The broad patent is mighty broad, but that's probably why it was abandoned -- turning that application into a patent would be a pretty tough sell to the PTO. And this abandoned patent is the one that the gleefully ignorant Slashdot poster cites, by the way.
So, I don't want to come out and say that this piece is a lot of BS -- but I think maybe I just did. The rest of the story is non-news that's been covered with more intelligence elsewhere.
Perhaps a nice graph outlining Timothy's (and all "editors") posting habits would be nice. Then we can see the % that is product oriented.
Note, I put editors in quotes because don't need a graph that they are not (e.g. pick a day, any day...). ;)
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...
http://www.theguardian.com/med...
You mean, it could tell me when I have to pee?!!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
I've always had bad ears. I will continue to have them until the day I die. In order to really hear what I'm listening to, I need volume and accuracy.
Now, with *that* said, let's talk about headphones. There are audiophiles and there are audiophiles. Some of them know about, like, and know how to enhance the sound that they get because sound is important to them. Many of them just muddy the waters with sound-lore, much of which is useless. You are right there.
I respectfully submit that you are wrong in other places for cultural and mechanical reasons. We live in a culture where sound quality is largely ignored because few of us listen to anything that requires accuracy in all three ranges. You recommend trying out headphones that fit what you want to listen to noting that some users will prefer headphones that present only the high- and low-ends, or that display some other range preference. That makes as much sense as recommending glasses that turn certain frequencies into big opaque spots on the lenses to partially blindfold you when those frequencies are present. That doesn't make sense when you talk about light, and it doesn't make sense when you talk about sound. If the sound is in the original performance and in the original recording, the headphones should make it available to you. Nothing else makes sense.
Fortunately for headphone manufacturers and makers of portable players, we've had a generation that has grown up listening exclusively to types of music where accuracy of reproduction is not a factor because a lot of the most popular music out there is a wall of noise without nuance so even when the nuances are there (Party-Rock Anthem has warm, attack and decay in its base notes) the combination of cheap, or poorly-executed headphones and players that don't have the oomph to drive base-notes accurately, don't tell you anything about them.
Let's put that another way: Techno? No problem. Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach Cello suites? Not so much.
With respect to quality, you get what you pay for and what most of us pay for is trash with names silk-screened onto it.
You mention Sennheiser and I have to say that I've never met a low-end pair of Sennheisers that weren't a total rip-offÃ"buds, cans, it doesn't matter. Give Sennheiser six-hundred dollars and they will sell you a life-changing listening experience (mine: "oh my god, someone just moved his chair!") pay them anything less than that and you should just save your money and keep shopping. Thirty-dollar headphones from really large manufacturers like Sony are good for audiobooks, musics where sound quality doesn't matter, and not much else.
Also, and finally, there are the makers and ideas that must people don't know about like the various makers of chu-moi headphone amplifiers which boost neglected ranges into audibility and headphone makers like Grado whose igi bud headphones are the equivalent of multi-driver units that cost hundreds of dollars.
You have to shop. That much is true, but you also have to be able to listen.