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Shufflephones 2.0

Posted by timothy on Mon Mar 21, 2005 07:31 AM
from the status-symbology dept.
Hardware Hacking Businesses Media Media (Apple) Apple
Photo_Designer writes "After hacking my first pair of headphones to accept an iPod Shuffle, I just couldn't keep my hands off my other set of headphones and hacked an iPod shuffle adapter inside them, too. This version also includes an all-new expansion jack which allows sharing your music on the go, plugging your Shuffle into a stereo with a patch cable (without removing it from the phones), and also allows the headphones to be used as regular phones with the shuffle removed or turned off."
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  • How come no-one (Score:3, Insightful)

    by odaen (766778) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:35AM (#11997677)
    Has got round to putting the buttons on the outside. Surely you don't want to remove your headphones whenever a song you don't feel like comes on. Now do this mod with a Zen Micro and I'm interested.

  • I... (Score:5, Funny)

    by matticus (93537) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:35AM (#11997682) Homepage
    I can't help but laugh at how funny people would look wearing headphones tethered to each other's ears. Is this a new trend? Love will bind us together, and also our headphones?
    • Hardly - when the original walkmans hit it big in the early 80s, this was quite a popular thing to do for awhile.
      • Agreed. If he made a sleek, sexy headpiece where the iPod shuffle was mounted to a small headset, I'd be in love. (I mean, if I liked it, and owned an iPod shuffle, I guess I'd be in love, to the extent that a man can love a machine that does not know the difference between Circle Jerks and Backstreet Boys.)

        ---

        I'm curious about this question [mac.com]:
        Am I the only person who always strips wires with my teeth?

        No, Mr. Younkin, I can assure you that you are not.

        On a side note, your answering machine was full, s

  • iPod in the headphones? (Score:5, Funny)

    by EvilCabbage (589836) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:36AM (#11997687) Homepage
    Apart from bashing me in the side of the head, and making it essentially impossible to interact with the volume or track selection without taking them off, are there other bad points I'm missing in this?

  • It might sell... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by two-tail (803696) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:37AM (#11997690)
    A worthwhile retail product. Although I'd prefer one that has the shuffle buttons on the outer case of the headphones. Of course, that means that someone next to you could sneak up behind you and change tracks! (would be nice if the new jack was line-level; better for stereo connections)

    • Re:It might sell... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ciroknight (601098) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:59AM (#11997800)
      I agree wholeheartedly. One of the most annoying parts about having an iPod is the headphone cable. Where I'm usually towing around my iBook, it gets entangled almost every time I take it off/put it on. I'd love to have a pair of headphones with a set of iPod buttons on the side of them, and with a built-in iPod Shuffle dock in the bottom (sorta so it would just slide up and plug into a female USB port inside). Sell 'em for $40-$50 bucks a pop and they'll sell like wildfire. Of course, all you'd have to do to steal one then would be nab someone's headphones.. and an option for a fullsized iPod would be rediculous..

      • Re:It might sell... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ciroknight (601098) on Monday March 21 2005, @08:22AM (#11997925)
        Grr, I effing hate that /. doesn't have an edit post button, but...

        What if they built Bluetooth 2 into the iPod? I know it wouldn't be effective for transfering songs because it's so damned slow, but what it would be effective for is WIRELESS BLUETOOTH HEADPHONES. That way there's no need to over-engineer a pair of headphones and you can keep the iPod in your pocket. They could even build a little module that plugs into the "iTrip" port on the current iPods to give them bluetooth. Beats the hell out of carrying around a pair of AM/FM headphones, an iTrip and an iPod.

    • Re:It might sell... (Score:2, Informative)

      by springbox (853816)
      TDK already made hardware [cnet.com] that is more compact than this. It's an audio player (have to convert MP3s or WMAs to a special format) that has 128MB of flash memory.. Anyway, it might not be the ideal solution, but you still can get the same effect of "singing along with headphones that don't appear to be plugged into anything."
    • Ya, this would be perfect if you could somehow hold the controls in your hand, like a remote control for the headphones. That might be hard to do wirelessly, but with a wire it might just work. Then you could switch tracks easily AND adjust the volume without having to take off your headphones!
        • Supposedly one could determine which three lines from a dock connection provide the line out signal & run them into a headphone jack.
          If you hold the iPod in your hand, screen towards you, pin 1 is the leftmost pin. Pins 2,3 and 4 are ground, right and left respectively.
  • I saw "Apple" and "..phone.." and thought the iPhone had been announced at last, with a silly name...

  • Next Up (Score:5, Funny)

    by LittleGuernica (736577) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:41AM (#11997707) Homepage
    Thats looks pretty useless...no easy access to controls and the comfort of a plastic stick to your ear blocking the headphones.. Looks like a great time waster though.. Next up, he will mod a Mac mini into his beard, which will then monitor the bacteria accumulation in it and send an email when it's time to take a shower..

  • "Groudn down screwdriver" (Score:5, Funny)

    by lisaparratt (752068) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:41AM (#11997708)
    I know I'm only a girl, and therefore stereotypically bad with tools, but isn't a ground down screwdriver called an awl?

  • That's nothing (Score:5, Funny)

    by zecg (521666) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:43AM (#11997722)
    I have hacked my girlfriend to accept me hacking all her stuff to accept iPod Shuffle.

  • Factory production? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TERdON (862570) on Monday March 21 2005, @07:48AM (#11997754) Homepage
    Interesting solution, but not very neat. Not having the cable for the player seems great. It would be more interesting to see factory-made headphones with included flash mp3 player. That would make a more fancy solution. However, I'm not sure that would really happen - most people who use headphones are rather nittpicky about the quality of them...
  • In the pictures I see these headphones use the type of cheap speakers as found in small transistor radios, instead of proper headphone drivers.

    It's a funny idea, but don't expect anywhere near decent audio quality.

  • ouch (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Keruo (771880) on Monday March 21 2005, @08:00AM (#11997809)
    I bet his ears hurt after few hours of listening, that ipod stuck between the cushion must feel awful.

    He should use something like this [atruereview.com] instead

  • Street cred? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BrK (39585) on Monday March 21 2005, @08:07AM (#11997850) Homepage
    How exactly do old-ass headphones give you "street cred".

    Not to mention this whole "hack" is so non-Apple. There is no "style" to it, and it's cumbersome. Not to mention that the Shuffle in one of the ear cups probably affects the sound quality a bit.

    I'm also a little tired of the "hack" moniker being thrown around so readily. Soldering a couple of wires together is not a "hack" in most cases, it's just... well... soldering.

    Take the shuffle apart, integrate its electronics into the headphones, and port the controls and I/O to the outside, keeping the same layout so that the headphones have a "hint of shuffle" to them (maybe even paint the headphones a nice eggshell white). THAT would be closer to a hack, IMO.

    • Re:Street cred? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by reaper (10065) on Monday March 21 2005, @08:58AM (#11998161) Homepage Journal
      I'm also a little tired of the "hack" moniker being thrown around so readily. Soldering a couple of wires together is not a "hack" in most cases, it's just... well... soldering.

      Dude, this is a hack in the purest sense of the word. Dirty, cheap, and barely viable for the desired outcome, and done with stuff lying around. Back in the long-long ago times, on alt.hack, every post had to have a hack listed, so even though some people listed these elaborate hacks, a lot of them were of the "duct taped this contraption to that one, and you could use it to hold a cup of coffee!" variety.

      No one ever questioned the validity of those hacks.

    • Re:Street cred? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Didion Sprague (615213) *
      Saying that this is no "hack" is like going into a muesem, pointing at the all-black canvas, and saying, "Hey, that's not art. I could do that."

      Point is, you *didn't* do it and someone else did.

      What, you paint a bunch of haystacks at sunset and that's art? But some guy's splotch painting *isn't* art?

      Says you.

      *shrug*

      The guy that did this, did it. Whether or not it's a "hack" (according to your definition) is beside the point.

      • Re:Street cred? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Shotgun (30919) on Monday March 21 2005, @11:16AM (#11999746)
        OK. This isn't a hack worthy of a /. article, and the all black canvas isn't 'art' worthy of being hung in a museum either. Both are aptly described as 'lame'.

        The former soldered a few wires into a set of headphones that most people would be embarassed to wear in public unless they were using a chainsaw to cut down trees. He didn't even have to design an impedance matching circuit.

        The latter is just boring. Something to be expeceted from the lazy kid in a high school class as he tries to throw together a 4-week assignment on the final night.

        I agree. This is a hack. Just a very un-notable one.

  • Weak... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RaZ0r (145723) on Monday March 21 2005, @09:14AM (#11998308) Homepage
    This mod is WEAK!

    I expected to see some complicated mod that provided controls for the iPod in the headphones.

    This guy simply soldered a headphone jack into his expensive headphones and stuffed his iPod shuffle inside the headphones, which restricts access to the controls.

    WEAK.
  • Or did anyone else get that familiar "goatse shudder" when you reached the frame that said "preparing to insert the Shuffle"? Just wondering. ;P

  • One thing that I am surprised about, is that not one manufacturer of these devices have come up with the obvious, and made MP3 headphones.

    Insanely stupid of them not to.
    • Why does this piss you off?

    • Re:Goddammit! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because ...

      1) It works well with iTunes and the MuVo doesn't work so well. Last time I tried I rendered a MuVo unusable and had to reformat it with a Windows only program. There wasn't a Mac or Linux program to reformat it.

      2) it's cheaper than the competition

      3) It's got style

      4) It's got marketing

      5) It works with the best online store

      6) It's got a really simple no fuss interface

      7) It's got better software - iTunes

      I've not tried it yet, but iTunes can downshift the bitrate to 128 AAC when it copies MP
    • If your player works for you, what's to be angry about? Has anyone denied you admittance to a restaurant because your player wasn't an iPod? Been turned down for a job because your earphone wires weren't white?

      From your reference to "zealous fanboys", I might guess that Apple's success is sticking in your craw. I hope I'm wrong about that, because if that's the case, it would indicate that you've got unresolved personal issues.
    • iPod shuffle is a piece of crap, and the people who have it are all idiots. I mean, the darn thing doesn't even let you choose the album to play. One must be a real bumbling bee to buy sumthing like that:-)

    • Re:Goddammit! (Score:5, Informative)

      by 2nd Post! (213333) <`gundbear' `at' `pacbell.net'> on Monday March 21 2005, @10:09AM (#11998882) Homepage
      Several points:
      When has cheaper ever meant better? Cheaper, by definition, means cheaper. Do you like looking cheap? Being called cheap? Would you date someone cheap?

      The iPod, as a non flash based player, has one advantages:
      Storage capacity
      Price

      The iPod, as a non Creative part, has two advantages:
      UI
      Software

      And then you ask, "What did Apple do to have such control...?" Some would answer 'marketing', and that's correct. Apple has adverts on TV and in print. The Practice had an episode two years ago where one lawyer said in court, "I would hate to live in a world where we are all plugged into iPods and ignoring each other. A little bit of noise is good sometimes."

      Then you ask what the Shuffle does better: It's cheaper. $89 for 256mb from Creative or $99 for 512mb from Apple. It uses iTunes, which is free if you want to see why it's better than Creative Nomad Exlorer (or whatever they call it now).

      Finally you ask, "Why do people act like Apple was the first people to make mp3 players?"

      The answer is, Apple was the first to make a portable high capacity high usability mp3 player.

      The Apple iPod did four great things when it was released that no one else had ever done:
      Make something the size of a pack of cigarettes that could store more than 256mb; it could store 5gb. The local competitor was the Creative Nomad, which was the size of a 4 CD box and weighed over a pound, and was far from portable.
      It used Firewire. Synching an iPod took less than 10 minutes to upload 5gb of music. The Creative Nomad, using USB, could upload 500mb in 10 minutes.
      It had a phenomenal UI, which could be used one handed. The Nomad, on the other hand, could not. It had a folder based UI display, and even today the Nomad 3 has 11 buttons on it's face to control it's UI. The iPod, still, only has five.
      It had phenomenal software, in iTunes. Not only could you upload 5gb of music, the software allowed you to manage many multiple gbs easily because it handled all the cataloging, database management, playlist generation, ripping, and encoding.

      Imagine how powerful this is, and this is something Creative only gained this year but Apple has had for two or three: A playlist generator.

      I want:
      Not country
      Songs played less than 4 times
      Songs not played in the last week

      That's what Apple offered, in iTunes, that no one else had. iTunes ALSO offered (new at the time, I'm sure everyone has most of these now):
      Streaming shared online libraries. iTunes users can see and play each other's libraries
      Automatic tagging
      Streaming to wireless speakers (Airport Express)
      Automatic ripping
      Automatic synching
      Music search via ID3 tags
      Album art
      CD burning (remember 'Rip, Mix, Burn'?)

      I think the MuVo works with iTunes; give it a shot!

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