Tuesday, November 10, 2009

iPod Headphones (And why they suck)

This is going to be a rant post, but you know what? Everybody deserves a rant post every once in a while right?

Let's get to it!

iPod Headphones SUCK!

How so? Well, where should I begin?

I just bought an iPod touch a week ago and needless to say, I am quite fond of it. Let me tell you-- I am almost glad I lost my 4 gigabyte iPod nano. On the other hand, I am not glad that I lost my Pod Nano's Sony headphones that I bought for it in the summer. They were comfortable, loud, crystal clear, in ear, black (nondescript), and fifty dollars-- which is a real pain to have to spend when your brand new iPod comes with brand new headphones-- which I happen to be wearing right now.

Firstly-- They are uncomfortable. Plain and simple, they are putting my ears through pain as I type.

Secondly-- They don't stay in my ears. I have decently large ears-- so this one really boggles my mind. It may be due to the fact that I am used to my in-ear headphones now, but I feel like they could stay in your ears with slightly less effort.

Thirdly-- They break easily! I have been using these headphones for three days and they are already broken. I would like to think that I treat my technology fairly well, and I can say with confidence that I haven't done anything to these headphones to give them a reason to be broken at this point. The way they are broken is one ear plate has detached itself and reveals its guts, often. This is not an uncommon problem either.

I have had a good four to five pairs of iPod headphones in my relationship with the iPod family and they have all broken within a couple months. Some have crumbled until there was nothing left, some have broken on the inside causing the audio to sound distorted, some have become twisted on the plug end, and all of let me down in one way or another.

Fourthly-- Everybody knows you have an iPod if you are wearing them. Obviously this was Apple's intention, otherwise the headphones wouldn't be so -- well -- white. But there is an immediate flaw to this. People like to mug people who have iPods. I won't get into a lot of detail, but I know people personally who have been attacked entirely due to the iPod's in their pockets. I know that I am not keen on advertising that I have a product in my pocket that people are willing to go to jail to have the opportunity to steal. This doesn't apply as much as it used to because iPod's have become much less expensive and much less of a class dividing device, but I am sure it still happens.

On the bright side-- Apple is pretty good at giving you a replacent when your product breaks, sadly, when I tell them that their headphones are innately flawed and broken, they will only give me more of the same headphones...  :-/

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