Why Do My iPhone Earbuds Suck? 1 October 2007
So it is now an inescapable fact that the earbuds that come with the iPhone suck. The ones that I got with the iPhone when I originally bought it on Magical Jesus Phone Day sucked. And then they got killed in a bike accident and so I got new ones that suck just the same.
They are tinny-sounding. They don’t fit well, to the point of sometimes actually just falling out of my ears. And the volume is just awful. I don’t want to be deafened by my headphones, but often — especially when listening to podcasts which consist mostly of talking — I can barely hear over the sound of the L train or the traffic on Irving Park Drive. And it’s just maddening, as walking on city streets or riding public transportation is when headphones are most needed.
I was willing to accept that possibly it was just me. I truly don’t have the greatest hearing around. Maybe it’s getting worse and the headphones are the same as all the iPod headphones before. Or maybe iPhones intentionally are volume-restricted more than iPods because… I dunno, just because.
So, in the name of Science, I queued up a song on the iPhone, turned the volume to maximum and listened on the stock iPhone earbuds (making certain that Sound Check and Volume Limit were turned off in settings, thanks for asking). Audible enough, but not exactly deafening. Like, the low end of comfortable listening, really. Then I switched the earbuds for those I got with my iPod Shuffle, and listened, again at maximum volume. Way, too loud. A volume level that I would never employ in actual use. As you would expect from maximum volume.
Now, those of you without iPhones are about to write a comment to the effect of “if you have earbuds that work better, why are you using the crappy ones and wasting my time with this overlong rant?” What you are failing to take into account is that the iPhone earbud wire has the “clicker” that allows you to pause/skip songs or answer/decline phone calls with a click/double click. This is a killer feature and I don’t want to be digging my iPhone out every time I need to do one of those things. If a touchscreen interface has a major drawback, it’s the fact that it’s pretty well nigh-impossible to use it while it’s still in your pocket.
So, what the hell, Apple? Why are you selling volume-retarded earbuds with the iPhone? It’s difficult to believe I just got two bad pair in a row. And, hello, third-party headphone-making companies. When will you make headphones for iPhone complete with a clicker? Because I will likely be first in line.
That is all.
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