This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 9:25 pm and is filed under Gadget Blog . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Sigh, it looks like Apple’s habit of squeezing iPod accessory manufacturers for license fees has now extended to freaking headphones — iLounge is reporting that the new iPod shuffle can only be controlled by headphones with a special hardware authentication chip. That means that third parties will have to pay Apple for the privilege of making shuffle-compatible accessories, and you can bet they’ll just pass that cost right on to consumers — we wouldn’t expect any cheap headphone adapters or inexpensive replacement headphones for this thing. iLounge calls this a “nightmare scenario” for iPod fans, and we’re inclined to agree — it’s one thing for Apple to require the Made For iPod certification for accessories that interface with the dock connector, but trying to lock down headphones is a sad new low, and it makes the lack of physical controls on the shuffle seem even more ridiculous. Anyone still planning on buying this thing?
Filed under: Portable Audio
Third-party iPod shuffle headphones will require Apple-licensed authentication chip originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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