My favorite post on Neowin was this one: Cyberdrone2000 said...
Why is everyone still making a big deal out of this?!
It's a freaking chip. It produces the control signals when the button is pressed. If 3rd party companies want the "Made for iPod" logo and promotion in Apple stores, they have to buy the chip (and pay licensing fees) from Apple. 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.
The result: expensive products get more exposure, less expensive products are ... less expensive. Nobody is losing!
Just go out and buy a pair of headphones with the specs you want that have the controller, or get yourself one of the little dongle-type adapters so you can use other speakers. And you know Chinese knock-off manufacturers will be all over the dongles and headphones in no time flat. High end manufacturers will still produce high-end stuff, but odds are, if you own this player, you don't care so much for high-quality output as you do getting the music to your ears.
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.
If they want to do this they have to reverse engineer the chip.
Doing so, this could bring them into DMCA hot water.
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?
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.
Yup.
Quote:
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.
Yup.
And welcome again to AI; looks like you'll be a beacon of sanity amidst the trolls.
What a BS article. The chip obviously is used to control playback and sound volume. If anything, Apple moved the chip (or a similar) one from inside the Shuffle to outside the Shuffle. This is obvious because the Shuffle works with other headphones, the other headphones just won't let you change songs and or volume. Is it a great design on Apple's part? I don't think so. I think the Shuffle was already the perfect size. It isn't a conspiracy though.
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.
Dream on.
Looks to me like you feel to understand that Apple Inc. is a business and which like any other business the intent is to make a profit.
If Apple were truly what you think it is, it would guarantee free replacement headphones for this new shuffle- indefinitely.
If what you think is true, that a "Shangri la" Apple doesn't want to make a ton of money on headphones, then replace them free; open-ended. Very simple.
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.
Cool. A rational creative mind for a change ....
I would argue that the universe only seems so divided because human psychology breaks the same way (into habit and novelty). This is the same split we see for example between people who are "conservative" vs. those that identify as "liberal."
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.
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.
Thanks for pointing to the new member that anyone who interferes with your Heroin Kool-aid drip is labeled a "troll". It is you in fact my friend who is the only troll.
Remember - if you spot, you got it.
And I love your asinine conspiracy that I have multiple accounts! Only you in your warped mind and logic could imagine such a scenario. As if no one else could not like or want this piece of unnesary garbage. All the energy for this piece of crap could have went into iMac changes, etc.
It's so pathetic that you can't face the fact that the majority hates this shuffle and you keep defending it with your insipid "troll" mantra.
I became a new member today just so I can reply to this article.
Hey, yo, new poster. This is a news and public forum site frequented by kids and families, not some hyperventilating chat room where four letter spew rules.
I could've made your points just as forcefully (if I agreed with 'em) without dragging the forum down to the street-talk dissing level.
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 port?your 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.
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.
You know what upsets me the most about this? The fact the my 2nd gen shuffle that I use with my Shure earphones can't play Apple lossless files but this new one that has the controls married to lesser quality earbuds can. What the hell is the point with those earbudss?! Without a design that blocks outside noise like an in ear canal phone can, how on earth can you appreciate the lossless difference unless you are sitting in a library?
This is why I still use my 2nd gen Nano more in the gym than my shuffle. Lanyard bashing it onto my face and all. Thank goodness I didn't pay for the shuffle because it was a gift.
isn't the shuffle the one that was designed to be discreet, easy to carry, for people who take it jogging, or to the gym, etc?? why do you need the sony studio monitor headphones to work with this anyway? just buy the little ipod and use the little headphones... apple has been making it difficult for its consumers to keep up for a long time and those that have held on for ten or twenty years are used to the constant modifications, the necessity, at times, for new adapters or docks or complete systems. nothing moves forward by staying the same and using old tech. how stoked are you pc lovers out there that your laptop finally looks like a mac?? and dont get me started on the "pc is personal again" crapola... but i digress. the companies that are on the cutting edge will gladly make dope new headphones to work with apple's gear because they know that's what keeps them on that edge. if you're so hard up to use your DJ head-muffins then dig out the walkman with BASS-BOOST, just don't give me the stink eye when i laugh my ass off at you on the treadmill... as for drm - i could care less right now. this evolution has all come to pass solely because of apple and it's inability to listen to it's critics - the critics who say design stuff cheap and make it widely accessible. go aaaaapppllllleeeee... and feel better steve - we gots ya back, yo!
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.
I could agree with this outrage if Apple only created iPods that can to only use proprietary headphones. This isn't quite the case. Apple uses headphones with a proprietary interface. It is your choice whether you want to use the iPod Shuffle with its proprietary interface.
If people like the remote headphones and buy lots of them, 3rd party vendors will make lots of them.
Quote:
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.
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.
Comments
Why is everyone still making a big deal out of this?!
It's a freaking chip. It produces the control signals when the button is pressed. If 3rd party companies want the "Made for iPod" logo and promotion in Apple stores, they have to buy the chip (and pay licensing fees) from Apple. 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.
The result: expensive products get more exposure, less expensive products are ... less expensive. Nobody is losing!
Just go out and buy a pair of headphones with the specs you want that have the controller, or get yourself one of the little dongle-type adapters so you can use other speakers. And you know Chinese knock-off manufacturers will be all over the dongles and headphones in no time flat. High end manufacturers will still produce high-end stuff, but odds are, if you own this player, you don't care so much for high-quality output as you do getting the music to your ears.
C.
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.
If they want to do this they have to reverse engineer the chip.
Doing so, this could bring them into DMCA hot water.
Not those- these:-$15.
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?
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.
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.
Yup.
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.
Yup.
And welcome again to AI; looks like you'll be a beacon of sanity amidst the trolls.
If they want to do this they have to reverse engineer the chip.
Doing so, this could bring them into DMCA hot water.
No. It's just a chip to map three different buttons into a series of pulses on the microphone line. There is no encryption.
And let's be completely honest. 99% of all Shuffle users will use the stock headphones.
This is a non-issue.
C.
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.
Dream on.
Looks to me like you feel to understand that Apple Inc. is a business and which like any other business the intent is to make a profit.
If Apple were truly what you think it is, it would guarantee free replacement headphones for this new shuffle- indefinitely.
If what you think is true, that a "Shangri la" Apple doesn't want to make a ton of money on headphones, then replace them free; open-ended. Very simple.
Welcome to AI.
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.
Thanks for welcome
Normally don't post to forums like this as I get fed up with arguments as opposed to information but do read them on occasion.
Misinformation was on this thread not ilounge (but the headline going round the internet of "nightmare scenario" is misleading)
I did have 1G shuffle some years ago but can't compare now as my ability to remember sound from several years ago is not up to it!
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.
Cool. A rational creative mind for a change ....
I would argue that the universe only seems so divided because human psychology breaks the same way (into habit and novelty). This is the same split we see for example between people who are "conservative" vs. those that identify as "liberal."
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.
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.
Thanks for pointing to the new member that anyone who interferes with your Heroin Kool-aid drip is labeled a "troll". It is you in fact my friend who is the only troll.
Remember - if you spot, you got it.
And I love your asinine conspiracy that I have multiple accounts! Only you in your warped mind and logic could imagine such a scenario. As if no one else could not like or want this piece of unnesary garbage. All the energy for this piece of crap could have went into iMac changes, etc.
It's so pathetic that you can't face the fact that the majority hates this shuffle and you keep defending it with your insipid "troll" mantra.
I became a new member today just so I can reply to this article.
Hey, yo, new poster. This is a news and public forum site frequented by kids and families, not some hyperventilating chat room where four letter spew rules.
I could've made your points just as forcefully (if I agreed with 'em) without dragging the forum down to the street-talk dissing level.
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 port?your 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.
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.
This is why I still use my 2nd gen Nano more in the gym than my shuffle. Lanyard bashing it onto my face and all. Thank goodness I didn't pay for the shuffle because it was a gift.
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.
If people like the remote headphones and buy lots of them, 3rd party vendors will make lots of them.
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.
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.
gotcha - i wont laugh at you then...
plus tontons are my favorite...