Adventures In Coupling
Posted on | March 13, 2008 at 8:12 pm | 10 Comments
Pet Peeve of the Day: When I bought the iPhone, one of the selling points was that it was supposedly iPod-like in that you could plug in any set of headphones to listen to music and other audio. But I guess I didn’t do the proper research. When I plugged my headphones at work into it and played a tune, the music still came out of the speaker instead of the headphones. I didn’t have the earbuds(/microphone) that came with the iPhone with me, because the earbuds don’t even begin to fit in my ears and they’re useless.
A quick websearch tracked down the problem. The headphone jack on the top of the iPhone is slightly recessed. So normal plugs on normal headphones don’t go all the way down into the hole (headphonus interruptus) and make proper contact. The cowling around the headphone plug is too big. The earbuds that come with the iPhone feature a “low profile” cowling that is small enough to allow the jack to go all the way down and not get stuck on the walls of the tunnel leading into the hole.
Here’s what the jack looks like (click any photo to enlarge):
Here’s what it looks like with the supplied earphones plugged in:
And here’s what it looks like with normal headphones plugged in:
As you can see, the cowling around the plug gets hung up on the outside of the jack. Part of the outside of the plug is visible and is not making contact.
I can’t understand why Apply did this. The iTouch, which I understand is pretty much the same form factor, doesn’t have this issue. What possible explanation is there? It doesn’t seem engineered to sell more Apple products, since most people probably end up buying a third party adapter like the ones on this page. The rest of the owners who need to use regular headphones trim down the rubber cowling on the plugs using an x-acto knife or something.
Apple is usually pretty good at engineering stuff, so I can’t understand this blunder. It probably has something to do with the fact that the supplied headphones also have a microphone and a button control, necessitating extra contacts on the plug to use that functionality. Maybe they’re afraid you’ll miss a call if you use regular headphones without the button/mic? I suppose I could find the answer by Googling, but I’m too tired. And annoyed.
Latre.
Comments
10 Responses to “Adventures In Coupling”
March 14th, 2008 @ 7:04 am
I still think it’s to make sure you buy their product when you need to replace them. When people go to buy new headphones and are told they also must purchase an adaptor in order to make them work, a whole lot of people are just going to buy apple.
March 14th, 2008 @ 10:22 am
Can’t you just get fitted ear inserts to adapt to normal earpieces? I mean, you can keep running into this issue, or you can fix the problem at its source…
March 14th, 2008 @ 11:08 am
Since my ears are too small for “normal” earbuds, I’m not sure inserts would help. I need some plastic surgery to enlarge my ear canals.
March 14th, 2008 @ 9:59 pm
What link do I click to register a prediction for the topic of tonight’s upcoming blog post?
March 14th, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
Coincidentally enough, the lead story in the “DIY Tech” column of the latest issue of Popular Mechanics (April) is on how to clean a malfunctioning iPhone headphone jack.
Personally, I’ve never found Apple to be “pretty good at engineering stuff”, so I’m not surprised they’d mess up something as simple as a headphone jack.
March 14th, 2008 @ 10:50 pm
What link do I click to register a prediction for the topic of tonight’s upcoming blog post?
I think you’d get it wrong… keep in mind I composed Friday’s entry earlier in the day even though I’m not posting it until now…
March 15th, 2008 @ 12:05 am
OK, you win THIS round…
And seriously, do you think they’d let people plug in any old manky half-working earpieces and risk not getting the full sound quality of the iExperience? A control freak like Steve Jobs would never permit that. I bet he demanded a proprietary, Q-shaped plug until someone on the engineering team talked him out of it…
March 15th, 2008 @ 11:54 am
Personally, I’ve never found Apple to be “pretty good at engineering stuff”, so I’m not surprised they’d mess up something as simple as a headphone jack.
I think you have to admit that must’ve done something right in regards to the iPod…
March 15th, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
I think you have to admit that [they?] must’ve done something right in regards to the iPod…
I said “…I’ve never found…”, and I have no personal experience with the iPod, other than avoiding buying one.
Incidentally, the Sansa is quite nice. About the only downside is it doesn’t quite hold all my CD’s. But it’ll hold most of them. Lately I’ve been listening by songs in alphabetical order (all songs, from all CD’s). It’s kinda interesting. Obviously sometimes it plays the same song two or more times in a row, in different versions, or by different artists. The bad part is when I’m listening to a song and thinking “oh, the next song [on the original album] is really cool!” but then of course that song isn’t next.
March 15th, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
There will b no more smack talk about my new baby the iPhone. Ah! I said no! Its perfect!
iFahey xxxx