Apple criticized for iPod shuffle's new 'authentication chip' - Page 6

Originally Posted by guinness

While I know some company will create a headphone/volume control passthrough, Apple should've done that to begin with, but there is still some nickel and dimeing left to do.

New slogan:
Apple Inc. - There's still more profit to be had.

I can see Apple doing this sort of thing on the next iPods/iPhones too, if the Shuffle somehow sells, that Apple will use that as some sort of precedent, and do the same thing on those.

They are becoming as bad as Sony.

Originally Posted by rain

We are talking about this Hana right?
...
My comment was just an observation of Apple throwing some sex into their product demo's. Wonder if she really works at an Apple store?

Originally Posted by cmf2

The passthrough you are think of has already been announced, saw it on engadget the same day the shuffle came out.

Apple will not remove media control on their other ipods or on the iphone, that doesn't even make any sense. What this will do though is get the headphone industry moving forward, there will be lots of headphones with remotes on them, and guess what? They will be usable on all ipods. So in the end if you are not getting a shuffle, you can have an ipod (with media controls on it) plus headphones of your choice with a built in remote. That sounds like a good thing to me (remote > no remote).

PS - The update states that Apple has said that there is no DRM on the headphones, I love how this is 5 pages of flames because of someone's speculation of what a chip they found in the remote was for, maybe it was for translating all the complicated key presses?

Originally Posted by quinney



Thanks for posting that. I was going to guess the over-under for such a device being on the
market at 2 weeks. I am guessing the over-under for how much Apple charges to license
the technology at $1 per unit. I hope these pass through devices are cheap, so that the
hysteria can be relieved.

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh

While overly minimalistic, I look forward to posting on my next iPhone using mores code and having drivel read to me...

Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh

Gave up on reading comments; be thankful Apple went this route rather than having an extra connector or a bulky dongle remote. With the multiplexer chip, you can choose to have bulkier remotes with dedicated buttons for every function if you want, or add functions later with the benefit of backward compatibility.

While overly minimalistic, I look forward to posting on my next iPhone using mores code and having drivel read to me...

Originally Posted by ttupper

Honestly I can't even understand myself why I am bothering to debate this with you. It is an utter and complete waste of my time.

Once again, I do not fault Microsoft for charging for developer tools and knowledge. Do you get that? Unwind your shorts.

That said, I just don't get your logic when you say things like "except that neither Apple nor MS does for stategic reasons" when speaking about whether or not they charge for developer tools, etc. Are you nuts? Are you smoking something? Do you honestly think that the fact that they offer ONE free tool means they don't charge for developer tools? Hey, Microsoft gave me a copy of Blend Designer for free too - maybe I should conclude that the entire suite is also free.

Panties.unwind

Originally Posted by teckstud

Only a Koolaid guzzlin Fanboy would buy this piece of garage anyway so the point is moot. They would buy a new pair of headphones every other week if told to do so.

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/rev...rd-generation/

Originally Posted by iReality85

I think most of the uproad is coming from the fact that yet again, Apple has gone out of its way to make things overly difficult for the consumer. This situation is very much akin to the new unibody macbooks sporting mini-DVI ports.

Originally Posted by Slurpy

This is fucking ridiculous. Fuck you, Apple. I've given this company tens of thousands of my dollars over the years, and this shit is what makes me regret it. I seriously can't believe there's people defending this. Get your heads out of your asses. There's NOTHING good about this, its simply a cynical money grab by Apple.

Its also pathetic and humorous how some here are trying to put a positive spin on this by suggesting that controls on headphones is somehow a new thing, and that Apple is being a technological trailblazer with this.

At first I realized it may have been sarcasm/satire, then I realized it wasnt. You people arent doing Apple any favors by consistently defending and apologizing for their every move.

This is a bad, bad thing for consumers, and you should all hold Apple's feet to the fire, if you have the objectivity to do so.

Originally Posted by Carniphage

If companies don't bother with "Made for iPod" certification, then they will undoubtedly make their own chips that do EXACTLY the same thing... without the logo.
C.

Originally Posted by Bill_F

Amazing the amount of misinformation here. I am not impressed with with ilounge's tone but, in my experience, if they are proved wrong they will not correct or update their review. They also react badly to criticism of themselves.

Mini-review:
Good sound from supplied headphones (I am not an audiophile but it does sound better than with standard headphones on 2G shuffle).
Voice over works suprisingly well although a few words are a bit strange!
Playlists work well and make a large amount of music, podcasts, audiobooks a feasible proposition on shuffle for first time.
Works the same way as old shuffles for battery indication etc both when plugged into computer and when switch on & off.
Its very small so a pity they couldn't just put a usb plug on end making that end slightly wider and fatter.

The "chip" nonsense: My apple in-ear buds that I bought for use with my iPhone several months ago, when they were first available, work in EXACTLY the same way with the shuffle as the shuffle-supplied earphones. For instance double-click and hold gives you fast-forward, click and hold tells you the track name and artist. Did no-one looked inside the apple ear-bud controller and new earphones with other ipods? Have manufacturers not taken them apart so that they can emulate them?

Originally Posted by Máedóc

As Terrance McKenna said, the universe and everything in it are in a dynamic struggle between novelty and habit; this includes humans and corporations. Apple Inc. has chosen to side with novelty and chance-taking whereas other software and hardware manufacturers may tend towards conservation and repetition of established patterns.

Those who are instinctively resistant to innovation will always cry foul and project evil intent on an originator. If some people honestly think that Apple was motivated to remove on-board controls of an ipod (while enhancing remote functionality) because it wanted to make some extra cash from licensing & smothering 3rd parties then I can now partly understand why it's so hard for change to happen in this world. It also tells me some have little understanding of the preeminent place that Industrial Design has within Apple's corporate philosophy.

Originally Posted by copeland

If they want to do this they have to reverse engineer the chip.
Doing so, this could bring them into DMCA hot water.

Originally Posted by Máedóc

As Terrance McKenna said, the universe and everything in it are in a dynamic struggle between novelty and habit; this includes humans and corporations. Apple Inc. has chosen to side with novelty and chance-taking whereas other software and hardware manufacturers may tend towards conservation and repetition of established patterns.

Those who are instinctively resistant to innovation will always cry foul and project evil intent on an originator. If some people honestly think that Apple was motivated to remove on-board controls of an ipod (while enhancing remote functionality) because it wanted to make some extra cash from licensing & smothering 3rd parties then I can now partly understand why it's so hard for change to happen in this world. It also tells me some have little understanding of the preeminent place that Industrial Design has within Apple's corporate philosophy.

A year from now there will be tens, if not hundreds, of inexpensive 4 conductor / triple button remote dongles and headphones of all shapes and sizes from many different makers.

Originally Posted by teckstud



Misinformation???? Did you read all 9 pages:
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/rev...rd-generation/

It was an UNNECESSARY update. The sound was the only thing lacking in the 2G- ONLY THING.

No controls on the device.
Sound- compare to the 1G- you don't.
HEADPHONES-COMPLETE & UTTER FAILURE.

BTW- welcome to AI.

Originally Posted by Máedóc

As Terrance McKenna said, the universe and everything in it are in a dynamic struggle between novelty and habit; this includes humans and corporations. Apple Inc. has chosen to side with novelty and chance-taking whereas other software and hardware manufacturers may tend towards conservation and repetition of established patterns.

Those who are instinctively resistant to innovation will always cry foul and project evil intent on an originator. If some people honestly think that Apple was motivated to remove on-board controls of an ipod (while enhancing remote functionality) because it wanted to make some extra cash from licensing & smothering 3rd parties then I can now partly understand why it's so hard for change to happen in this world. It also tells me some have little understanding of the preeminent place that Industrial Design has within Apple's corporate philosophy.

A year from now there will be tens, if not hundreds, of inexpensive 4 conductor / triple button remote dongles and headphones of all shapes and sizes from many different makers.

Originally Posted by Virgil-TB2

For the record (since it's your second post), this forum is not always as ripe or as rabid as this particular thread. Usually the trolls are kept in abatement by the actual facts of the matter, but with this item, we have iLounge, Engadget, and CNET all publishing wildly inaccurate stories to begin with.

For whatever reason the "Apple is conspiring against us" meme is unexpectedly in full swing on the headphone issue today. The resident troll and automatic nay-sayer, bringer of doom and gloom etc. ("teckstud" and his several alt accounts), are dominating the discussion and the whole story seems based on some rather purposeful misinformation being passed around by several leading Apple sites. A disastrous combination at best.

Originally Posted by ArcoshKobosh

I became a new member today just so I can reply to this article.

Originally Posted by GMHut

Sigh, here come the drones. As a long, long, long time Apple customer, people who eat up Apple's new MicroSoft approach to sticking us every chance they can and calling it a feature are starting to make me want to pull my hair out. Open your eyes and think a little. This is EXACTLY what MicroSoft does. Microsoft forces it's will upon it's customers via software (that's all they make). Apple is now doing the same more and more with hardware.

Your argument is valid when applied towards buying an Apple computer vs. a "built" PC. You can't trot that argument out for every product under the sun.

We're talking earphones here. Completely different than say, a printer with it's own set of complex PPDs that has to communicate through various hardware components within an architecture (all with their own firmware) to work with all the different software that prints to it.

Earphones, stick jack in portyour done.

What exactly is the free-for-all, and reduced reliability involved with plugging a little stick of metal into a hole. How many moving parts in a Jack? How much software is involved in controlling one? There is no "system" here that has anything to do with managing an environment or trying to get complex interfaces between components to function optimally.

One more time, here's how the components work incase your missed it:

Stick jack in port. There is no software involved. Just a metal prong attached to wires, probably made by a few manufactures who sell the same little jack to all the earphone manufactures, including whatever company is making Apple's for them.

Until now, whatever happened on the other side of the plug had nothing to do with how well the earphones functioned, their quality, their form factor.

I guarantee you, if you are looking for reliability within a wide range of comfort, sound quality, and price compared to Apple's crappy earphones, there is a whole world of 3rd party companies that blow Apple a way. There are companies that do nothing but specializing in earphones and they do it way better than Apple does. The same goes for displays for that matter.

This will sound insulting, I wish it weren't, I just think it's true. Your complacency represents everything that is going wrong with Apple. They count more and more on consumers who don't know any better than to swallow the line of crap in which they tell you:

In order to use one Apple product, you must have their piece of fruit on every other electronic device you might want to connect to it, unless they don't make one. Even if the only reason is an authentication chip that serves no other purpose than to render other products useless, and they are doing you a favor by taking away your choices.

For some reason, as they are dolling that crap out, too many customers bend over and say thank you. Nothing makes me more sad than to see the company I've supported for so long BECAUSE they represented a different way of doing things, start to become more and more like MicroSoft.

Originally Posted by 4metta

THANK YOU!!! I am sitting here wondering what pill everyone on this website took that I missed out on because they are defending this pr article. It is happening more frequently and it is scary because the apologists sound just as nuts as the windoze fanboys. Why not call Apple out when they deserve it to keep their products and ideas from going downhill? If you truly are an Apple fan, why would you want them to release dumb products that make the company look bad?

I am waiting to see how many third party vendors that paid Apple will be releasing newfangled earphones soon. iLounge got it right. It IS the worst iPod ever.

Originally Posted by tonton

Even if you do use it in the gym...

1) Canal buds block out the external noise and distractions like the loud gym music that you don't want to interfere with your workout choice. Apple's headphones do not.

2) Many, many, many people find that canal buds stay in their ears better. You don't want to be working out, and every five reps one of your headphones falls out.

3) Many people like me hate the long long long freaking cord on the Apple phones. Even if you bundle them up, you still have all that weight and an ugly ball of wire.