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."

Comments

Step 1

[Anonymous Coward]

buy Beats

Re:Step 1

[QuesarVII]

Or spend a lot less, and buy skull candy earbuds.

Re:Step 1

[TemperedAlchemist]

Skull Candy is crap. Beats is crap. Skull Candy at least doesn't charge an arm and a leg for it.

Re:Step 1

[gman003]

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

[chipschap]

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

[Sarten-X]

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.

Re:Step 1

[rnturn]

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 wearing the Sonys.) The next time my daughter needs an new pair, I'll pay the difference so she can have a decent pair of Sonys.

Of course, I'll never buy an Apple audio player (the iPod I have was a gift) so I really couldn't care less about what they do with their headphone or earbud jacks.

Re:Step 1

[rtb61]

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 slide finishes with an avalanche. Buying beats to try market their way out of the problems seems a really silly move, better off to have dumped it out in dividends but the executive team will be after milking Apple for all it is worth reminds me of another company Kodak.

Re:Step 1

[Savage-Rabbit]

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 also agree that audiophiles can be properly full of BS. A good way to get a laugh is to go to amazon.com, look up a popular set of cheap ass headphones and read some of the lengthy comments written by the audiophile crowd. You'll be tempted to think that they expected live concert quality sound from the thing.

Re:Step 1

[jones_supa]

That was exactly what he was talking about.

Re:Step 1

[MadKeithV]

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 don't get earthquake bass with any kind of fidelity out of small drivers. It's just not physically possible. All these "bass enhanced!" tiny headphones and in-ears just have a resonant spike somewhere in the lows. Better lows? Bigger drivers. That means over-ears. And then they are either open and comfortable for large periods of time, but leaky as all hell meaning you either suffer from sound degradation from sound leaking in from outside so forget "fidelity", or you're annoying the crap out of everyone around you by the loud noise leaking away from you. Or you get closed over-ears. And sweat your ears off after anything longer than 20-30 minutes. And then you realize that if you add it all up, you can get an awful lot of enjoyment out of a good cheap pair of phones, and save your money to get a good amp and speakers with good drivers and crossovers for the spaces where you can listen to music on your own terms, in actual high fidelity.

Re:Step 1

[MadKeithV]

I also agree that audiophiles can be properly full of BS. A good way to get a laugh is to go to amazon.com, look up a popular set of cheap ass headphones and read some of the lengthy comments written by the audiophile crowd. You'll be tempted to think that they expected live concert quality sound from the thing.

You want a proper laugh? Look at these power cables. There are no words.

Re:Step 1

[ardeez]

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.

So everybody criticising Beats for sound quality are probably wrong, so long as the sound is the type you like. Beats I think are quite bass heavy.

And everybody criticising Beats as a 'lifestyle' choice are probably right, although being a bit of an inverted snob in the process.

Sounds about right to me.

Re:Step 1

[Ardyvee]

Can you explain to me why you claim that the worst components are my ears?

Re:Step 1

[msobkow]

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.

Re: Step 1

[Sarten-X]

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 you get a perfect sinusoid back.

In the real world, no driver is perfect. The cone may wobble a bit because the paper fibers aren't perfectly symmetrical, or the coil wires may be wound unevenly, or myriad other causes such that perfect waves going in become jagged before coming out. The result is effectively overlaying harmonic or phase-shifted noise on top of any given component frequency.

High-end audiophile manufacturers like to boast about their reproduction, but it really doesn't matter much. For most such distortion, your ears can't tell the difference, because your eardrum is less sensitive than the driver. Outside of the lab, you're also not going to have the perfect waveform going in, so the harmonic components will be physically interrupted by other frequencies. Supposedly, soldiers are ordered to break step when crossing certain bridges so as to avoid resonance damaging the structure. The idea is the same: When listening to a typical audio source, there won't be enough of a clear single frequency to create noticeable distortion, except in rare extremely-bad cases.

Re:Step 1

[Sarten-X]

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 perfectly. In reality, such perfection is rare. Most defects don't matter, but the sheer number of imperfections means that everyone's sense of hearing is different in some way.

Stretching the boundaries of definition a bit, even if the ears themselves are good enough, their connection to the consciousness may by different from one person to another. I, for instance, don't find the throb of bass to be pleasant, so my personal sound systems are tuned to my tastes, tapering off the low end. Others prefer that heavy bass, so their preferences for the rest of their sound system will be different from my own.

With such wide variation, attempting to declare that certain brands of equipment sound "good" or "bad" is a very subjective declaration, practically useless for anyone else. No matter how technically perfect the rest of your system is, you'll perceive a "bad" sound if it doesn't suit your ears' and brain's construction.

Re:Step 1

[Sarten-X]

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 that the stage crew isn't usually in front of the speakers, so all together I'm usually listening to less than 70 decibels, even at the loudest gigs.

Protective equipment is not just there to make the lawyers happy. It's there so that a decade later I don't have to hire someone else to tune a system.

He probably ... is constantly going "Hunh?" to his wife.

Well, yes, but that's just because I'm inattentive, not deaf.

Re:Step 1

[Ardyvee]

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.

they're earphones

[jaymz666]

They make me sick, literally. Give me on ear headphones any day

Re:they're earphones

[drinkypoo]

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 have that "holy shit, I've never heard that before" quality that you really look for in a good pair of headphones.

Re: they're earphones

[Anonymous Coward]

What something costs to produce and what it's worth are entirely different things. Is it even necessary to explain this?

Re:they're earphones

[jaymz666]

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.

Seriously?

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Re:Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

[bill_mcgonigle]

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.

Re: Seriously?

[Frosty Piss]

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...

Re: Seriously?

[sl149q]

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 manufacturing cost and increase customer satisfaction.

Re:Seriously?

[kamapuaa]

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 as much.

Re:Seriously?

[QRDeNameland]

You were wearing them wrong.

/ducks

Re: Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sennheiser headphones at 1/5 the price of beats are better.

Beats are the monster cables of headphones; total shit that hides behind a high price so dipshits like you say "they must be good coz there (sic) expensive".

Re: Seriously?

[ganjadude]

I actually saw a cross branded beats and monster set of headphones. I thought how cute, its a match made in heaven. Then when apple bought them I thought this is some kind of joke right? another match made in heaven!

Re:Seriously?

[CODiNE]

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 around listening to his latest work at the end of each day.

Now to me, this shows from an early date that Dr. Dre had a pragmatic and insightful understanding of the end-user experience of listening to music. How did that mold his philosophy on sound equipment and Beats headphones? And they "crafted" to intentionally distort certain kinds of music for a more enjoyable experience? Are they the physical equivalent to a "Pop Music" preset on the iTunes EQ? Or is it simply creative marketing and the cheapest speaker components he could get his hands on? No idea, I'm deaf. :-) But I do think the story is interesting and there just might be something to the sound of those headphones.

I know that I'm probably sounding like some sort of Dr. Dre fanboi, but I assure you that there is no rap music nor hip hop in my music collection. I'm pretty much permanently stuck in the 80's and early 90's since that's when I could hear more. My listening is mostly attempting to follow along while filling in the missing sounds by memory.

 

Re: Seriously?

[mark_reh]

Walmart sells iPhone 5c for $29 and 5s for $99. The last time I checked, Walmart was NOT the supplier of choice for hipsters.

Re:Seriously?

[mark_reh]

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 brands like Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, etc., because those brands aren't sold at Walmart. They've never heard quality headphones so they won't know they're not getting quality if they buy Beats. Therefore, the marketing people figured that Dr Dre could put out a headphone (a very low cost product to produce when you simply buy some off the shelf drivers and slap them into ear cups). Prominently display the logo on the phones in bright colors and you have instant marketing success and profits.

For the last 6 months all the daily deal sites on the web have had Beats phones on sale at steep discounts. They can do that because the things are such low cost to make products they still make a good profit even when they cut the price by 70-80%. Now that Apple has bought Beats, they're officially just another piece of iCrap. I wonder if Apple is going to prepend the phones with that stupid "i"... "iBeats" yeah, sounds about right!

Before you buy another pair of Beats (or iBeats), check out this site for better quality alternatives at the same or lower cost: http://thewirecutter.com/revie...

Re: Seriously?

[kamapuaa]

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.

Re: Seriously?

[Frosty Piss]

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?

Re: Seriously?

[Jesus_666]

Sennheiser has a lot of stuff on the market. You can get a pair of Sennheisers for twenty bucks. They won't be terribly good but they're actually a decent stepping stone if you want to get people off five $CURRENCY supermarket specials without scaring them off with a huge price tag.

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 prices.

Re: Seriously?

[Zxern]

More likely is that the lightning connector on the phone is going to crap out that much faster.

All they really need to do is spend a little more money on the 3.5mm connector and there wouldn't be an issue.

Re: Seriously?

[mick129]

Citation needed. (Unless this was meant to be funny.)

sensors

[blackraven14250]

Why would the writer think that adding body sensors are an answer, instead of improving the fucking sound?

Re:sensors

[haggus71]

So true. They are the crappiest headphones out there. I can get a pair of Panasonic ear buds for under ten bucks that sound worlds better.

Re:sensors

[blackraven14250]

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.

Re:sensors

[Anonymous Coward]

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 iOS 7 and the upcoming OS X Yosemite. By removing features and oversimplifying the look and feel (like making buttons look like text), they've made it much harder to get real work done. You would think Microsoft would benefit by Apple getting harder to use, but they have been going the same direction for a long while.

Re:sensors

[Somebody Is Using My]

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.

Re:sensors

[Stormwatch]

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.

Re:sensors

[Savage-Rabbit]

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.

Re:sensors

[ruir]

For that kind of money, they would be far better of with Spotify. And Beats are bozos that just shop around.

Re:sensors

[AmiMoJo]

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:sensors

[aliquis]

For the short time I was a regular at Head-Fi the Koss KSC-75 was popular among the cheapest headphones. It's not in-ear though but not actual cans either, whatever they sit around well enough for your activities I don't know but they may be worth taking a look at.

Re:sensors

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:sensors

[mark_reh]

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

[epyT-R]

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

[jenningsthecat]

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!

Re:how about we stick to making the basics better

[epyT-R]

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.

Re:how about we stick to making the basics better

[NatasRevol]

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.

Re:how about we stick to making the basics better

[tsa]

That exists already in the Netherlands. It's called the Action and it's mighty popular.

Re:how about we stick to making the basics better

[tsa]

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 products, so that they stop working after a certain period.

Re:how about we stick to making the basics better

[jones_supa]

While it might be happening, that kind of intentional weakening is actually very rare. I also suspect that that Samsung incident wasn't intentionally planned. We simply have better capability to engineer things accurately to a lower price point, which also leads to more flimsy materials.

Re:how about we stick to making the basics better

[GrahamCox]

It's definitely true. I've had to replace a number of household white-goods items recently - dishwasher, oven and washing machine - which all failed due to bad design. As someone who once did design consumer goods for a living, it was easy to see where the failures had been either engineered in, or negligently ignored.

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 practice). Eventually this wore through, allowing water to be ejected under pressure straight onto the back of the bare PCB that controlled the machine.

The dishwasher failed because the relay that controlled the main heater was underrated for the current draw of the element, leading to heavy contact wear and eventual failure. The PCB tracks connecting the same relay were also undersized and showed signs of delamination from the substrate due to heat. Which failed first was a matter of luck, but one of them definitely would, but after a period of working (3 years in my case).

The oven was the worst. The casing was so badly engineered that hot air from the back of the oven was fan-forced through a gap directly onto the back of the electronics controlling the timer functions, display, etc. This was gradually cooked to the point where the plastic surround that supported the PCB became depolymerised and so it just fell apart one day when the front panel buttons were pressed. The entire PCB was carbonised but somehow still did function, but as the mountings were now disintegrated (not even glueable), it was unrepairable.

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. I would definitely buy a brand that could be shown that it was engineered right, and that brand would surely clean up by having a much stronger reputation.

Re:how about we stick to making the basics better

[jenningsthecat]

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 raise our 'standard of living', which is a metric we ought to abolish).

Don't get me wrong - I love tech toys and modern conveniences, and the technology and manufacturing sectors have much to be proud of in the area of making human lives better and more fulfilling. But we really need to band together as a species, separate the good from the bad, and stop committing slow suicide.

Body sensors are THE FUTURE.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Body sensors are THE FUTURE.

[tsa]

Luckily I have the impression that 3D TV is on the way out already...

Not such a new idea.

[c]

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.

You mean like these. Somehow, I have a feeling those patents might not be as useful as someone might think...

Re:Not such a new idea.

[exomondo]

Well a set of headphones with 'one or more integrated physiological sensors' designed to help users keep track of their body stats isn't patentable, that's just an idea and you cannot patent an idea. It's a specific implementation of that idea that is patentable.

Re:Not such a new idea.

[c]

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's just plain nicer than anyone elses product. Patents just muddy the water.

Re:Not such a new idea.

[exomondo]

Ah right, yes of course. While their implementation may be different the idea itself is not innovative and has already been done.

I'm missing something

[smittyoneeach]

How are headphones on a different level than your ears any sort of benefit? (Asking for an overly literal person.)

questionable

[idanity]

more like a sensor that induces subliminal messages to buy more apple stuff.

Re:Step 2

[Brett Buck]

Take all the Beats intellectual property, drawings, and inventory, throw it in a wood chipper, and then set fire to the resulting chips.

Re:EarPods were shit

[ami.one]

Sound directly from bone conduction: Head Bones : https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Another 'No Speakers' approach: Sound Band: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Player inside the in-ear phones: Dash: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Re:Here's The Real Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

EarSensors, yay!

[MindPrison]

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.

sensors

[dexotaku]

This... a thousand times, this.. Make them not sound like crap, THEN start working on other things.

Music

[nehumanuscrede]

"Why would the writer think that adding body sensors are an answer, 'instead of improving the fucking sound?"

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 :D Listening to THAT on even a decent set of headphones won't help it any.

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. :|

Re:i'd be happy if...

[TechyImmigrant]

My Bose noise canceling headphones have worked just fine for several years.

Re:EarPods were shit

[NatasRevol]

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?

Studio-style headphones

[rogoshen1]

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?

Re:Studio-style headphones

[drinkypoo]

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 Kenwood with mine, which I picked up at a yard sale. Paid a good $30 for it, and it's only 40W, but that's overkill for the headphones and the room it's in is quite small so it's overkill for the speakers, too.

That, however, is not very portable... But I wouldn't be surprised to see a hipster with a car battery, inverter and amplifier on a hand truck so he can power his vintage headphones.

Yeay More Personal Information to Hoover

[mentil]

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.

Re:Yeay More Personal Information to Hoover

[drinkypoo]

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't even need external sensors to read your pulse and respiration through your pants. Or, for example, where gaming has gone — into a always-on spyfest, and with plenty of microphones and cameras sprinkled about.

Roll on the telescreens!

Re:Here's The Real Question...

[Sarten-X]

Slashdot's moderation system sucks. It's the worst system there is, except for everything else that's been tried.

Re:i'd be happy if...

[Stormwatch]

How about: use headphones, not earbuds.

Whatever.

[Noxal]

They'll still fall out of my ear and sound like shit when they don't.

or....

[geekoid]

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.

Re:EarPods were shit

[geekoid]

"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...

[aliquis]

Regardless this shouldn't make it to Slashdot.

This is news for nerds - Not news for hipsters!

Re:Here's The Real Question...

[aliquis]

Would you like some "Hot Grits" scraped off of Natalie Portman's ass

Yes!

Re:EarPods were shit

[jones_supa]

Sound directly from bone conduction: Head Bones

Another 'No Speakers' approach: Sound Band

Player inside the in-ear phones: Dash

Re:Want the Sound Quality To Improve?

[jones_supa]

Meeh. Why even bother with lossy codecs anymore when we have the HDD space. Give me just RIFF WAVE or FLAC and be done with it.

Re:Here's The Real Question...

[Barsteward]

when he's cheering "Apple has patents" then he's a twat.

I would love some quality earbuds

[AdamStarks]

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.

Re:Here's The Real Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

no wristband

[pbjones]

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

[KozmoStevnNaut]

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.

Re: Stop wasting money on shit

[Anonymous Coward]

With the PX100s you can also replace the rubbish foam earpieces with the vinyl/pleather ones from the px200

Re: Stop wasting money on shit

[KozmoStevnNaut]

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.

Re:Stop wasting money on shit

[KozmoStevnNaut]

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 infection. Trust me on this, I wear earplugs (for noise protection) almost every day. Your ears are extremely sensitive to pressure and trapped moisture.

Re:Stop wasting money on shit

[KozmoStevnNaut]

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 IIs are amazing, they play better than most 'phones costing many times their price. Sennheiser may be expensive (although the PX-100 IIs only cost $60, or $70 if you want iPhone controls and a mic), but they do know sound very well indeed.

I like it

[Thraxy]

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!

Re:i'd be happy if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends what you do for a living. If you spend a lot of time on air planes or you have a long commute on noisy public transport I can recommend high-priced noise cancelling headphones.

I don't get it

[rebelwarlock]

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.

Panasonic HJE120

[swb]

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.

Biometric sensors? wth?

[nurb432]

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...

It's also a public health issue

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:i'd be happy if...

[TechyImmigrant]

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.

This is what is wrong with our patent system

[m00sh]

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.

Re:i'd be happy if...

[shadowrat]

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.

How about safety sensors?

[damn_registrars]

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.

Re:i'd be happy if...

[greenfruitsalad]

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:i'd be happy if...

[cthulhu11]

You're not the only one. The new style won't stay in for either me or my wife. The old style was slightly better, but I stick with my Sennheiser headphones when I can.

Re:sponsers

[LinuxIsGarbage]

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...