An interesting story with rather absurd moral conclusions drawn from it. I think this is a fantastic workaround against one of the world's largest corporations extracting revenue from everything, and there should be more of this energy in the world.
"Until finally back home, I do some research and figure out what's going on: A scourge of cheap "lightning" headphones and lightning accessories is flooding certain markets, unleashed by unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers who have discovered an unholy recipe: True Apple lightning devices are more expensive to make."
Why are they more expensive to make. Is it for the good of humanity?
Computers as "art", according to preferences of one person, versus computers as machines for the benefit of everyone.
Closed systems to extract maximum profits for Apple versus open systems that can be modified and expanded to benefit everyone.
"I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this."
How about lowering the cost of making "lightening" devices. How about offering the option to use a non-proprietary protocol?
"And I wish humanity would use its engineering prowess for good, and not opportunistic deception."
No doubt that's what people is rural Chile want, too. They do not mind paying higher prices. As long as the products are "Apple-certified". /s
This person tweeting seems to be having a hallucination where Apple is neither opportunistic nor deceptive. Nevermind its deliberate attempts to make its computers incompatible (preventing interoperability) and needlessly expensive.
This could need a better title: Losing earbuds has nothing to do with the actual (interesting!) discovery.
> I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this.
Why blame these manufacturers for finding a clever workaround and not Apple for requiring hardware DRM and extracting royalties out of accessory manufacturers in the first place?
hmm, maybe if there was some kind of way to just directly connect earphones with some kind of new fangled direct analogue technology, then "wired bluetooth" wouldn't be the most economical way to get wired earphones.
It would only require a port supporting 3 wires and a miniscule onboard amplifier. I'm sure Apple have the courage to invent a new port for the good of humanity, maybe they can even pave the way for a new standard.
I know this is a popular opinion and I might or might not be in the minority here, but I don't miss the headphone jack on my phone at all, and every gram of battery or other functionality that has taken its place is worth it for me. Water proofing one connector (USB-C) is probably also easier than two.
For the increasingly unlikely case in which I really do need wired headphones, I just carry them with an adapter permanently plugged into them.
> a miniscule onboard amplifier
That amplifier would be dead weight for me! (To be fair, it would be in good company with all the power amplifiers for 5G bands not available in my country, but I get the point of unifying SKUs globally and I can hardly plug one of these in with an adapter when traveling.)
> I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this.
What can Apple do though? Any change that cracks down on this will render these devices unusable for thousands of people, generate tons of e-waste, and create a huge backlash towards Apple.
It reminds me of when FTDI permanently bricked FTDI clones [0].
Further, I'm not sure I agree with the OP's vitriol against these manufacturers. They're using an open standard to bypass Apple's MFi tax. It's a hack for sure, but if it leads to cheaper devices -- which is the ultimate goal for this segment of product -- I don't see the problem. I could see the problem if they're advertised as wired headphones without mentioning Bluetooth though.
What can Apple do? They could make standards-compliant USB-C audio adapters work on the iPhone 15 and up, with no NDAs, magic chips, or Apple-specific standards. (Maybe the already do?)
> I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this.
OP wants want Apple to crack down on open standards?
What tyrant king declared that Bluetooth devices need to be powered by separate batteries? I think this is an ingenious solution, to a problem Apple created in a way that should be illegal, no less. And one less battery in the landfill on top of it!
Interestingly, Apple’s own keyboards and mice pair to Bluetooth automatically using lighting cables.
I think this is a case where the first world perspective is blind to the burdens that big multinational corporations put on poorer countries. A $4 Apple lightning license may seem like no big deal to a high income country’s citizen but the rest of the world is used to electronics like this costing less ~$5 or less.
Wow, this is such a better experience with longer form content on twitter than I've seen before. I don't know if this is multiple tweets crammed together somehow, or just tweets can be long now? And also have italics?
Anyway, I'm accustomed to twitter links being an incomprehensible mess of UI showing people responding to stuff without showing what it is or how to get to it. This is remarkably sane and coherent. Do I... like twitter now?
Wireless earbuds being that cheap isn't bad. What's bad is that the price of real wired headphones is artifically inflated by the licensing terms, to the extent they can't compete.
I inadvertently bought a pair just like this from Amazon - I knew they were knockoffs, but I didn’t think they would be Bluetooth. Hilariously they also identify as “Baets“ (not “Beats”) when connecting.
Confusion can be avoided by correctly labelling the headphones. If these devices are sold in France, one could ask the French language police for guidance on accurate names.
For hacker points, there could be an open-source logo for the bizmodel workaround, borrowing from the mythologies of Halt and Catch Fire, HBO Silicon Valley, Wild West, Sherwood Forest, or the Silk Road of Marco Polo's travels.
I accidentally bought one of these pieces of garbage from Amazon a few years ago. I had no idea why my wired headphones needed Bluetooth. They broke after a few months and Amazon gave me a refund.
In some parts of the world, wired lightning headphones are actually cheap bluetooth headphones that only use the lightning port for power (to avoid Apple licensing fees). For the author this was baffling, as everyone else took it as normal that bluetooth needed to be enabled to use wired headphones.
> A scourge of cheap "lightning" headphones and lightning accessories is flooding certain markets, unleashed by unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers who have discovered an unholy recipe:
> True Apple lightning devices are more expensive to make. So instead of conforming to the Apple standard, these companies have made headphones that receive audio via bluetooth — avoiding the Apple specification — while powering the bluetooth chip via a wired cable, thereby avoiding any need for a battery.
Ditto for minijack to lightning adapters.
Wonder if this will be fixed now that Apple uses usb-c like they should have been doing all along.
A crazy experience — I lost my earbuds in a remote town in Chile, so tried buying a new pair at the airport before flying out. But the new wired, iPhone, lightning-cable headphones didn't work. Strange.
So I went back and swapped them for another pair, from a different brand. But those headphones didn't work either. We tried a third brand, which also didn't work.
By now the gift shop people and their manager and all the people in line behind me are super annoyed, until one of the girls says in Spanish, "You need to have bluetooth on." Oh yes, everyone else nods in agreement. Wired headphones for iPhones definitely need bluetooth.
What? That makes no sense. The entire point of wired headphones is to not need bluetooth.
So I turn Bluetooth on with the headphones plugged into the lightning port and sure enough my phone offers to "pair" my wired headphones. "See," they all say in Spanish, like I must be the dumbest person in the world.
With a little back and forth I realize that they don't even conceptually know what bluetooth is, while I have actually programmed for the bluetooth stack before. I was submitting low-level bugs to Ericsson back in the early 2000's! Yet somehow, I with my computer science degree, am wrong, and they, having no idea what bluetooth even is, are right.
My mind is boggled, I'm outnumbered, and my plane is boarding. I don't want wireless headphones. And especially not wired/wireless headphones or whatever the hell these things are. So I convince them, with my last ounce of sanity, to let me try one last thing, a full-proof solution:
I buy a normal wired, old-school pair of mini-stereo headphones and a lightning adapter. We plug it all in. It doesn't work.
"Bluetooth on", they tell me.
NO! By all that is sacred my wired lightning adapter cannot require Bluetooth. "It does," they assure me.
So I turn my Bluetooth on and sure enough my phone offers to pair my new wired, lightning adapter with my phone.
Unbelievable.
I return it all, run to catch my plane, and spend half the flight wondering what planet I'm on. Until finally back home, I do some research and figure out what's going on:
A scourge of cheap "lightning" headphones and lightning accessories is flooding certain markets, unleashed by unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers who have discovered an unholy recipe:
True Apple lightning devices are more expensive to make. So instead of conforming to the Apple standard, these companies have made headphones that receive audio via bluetooth — avoiding the Apple specification — while powering the bluetooth chip via a wired cable, thereby avoiding any need for a battery.
They have even made lightning adapters using the same recipe: plug-in power a fake lightning dongle that uses bluetooth to transmit the audio signal literally 1.5 inches from the phone to the other end of the adapter.
In these remote markets, these manufacturers have no qualms with slapping a Lightning / iPhone logo on the box while never mentioning bluetooth, knowing that Apple will never do anything.
From a moral or even engineering perspective, this strikes me as a kind of evil. These companies have made the cheapest iPhone earbuds known to humankind, while still charging $12 or $15 per set, pocketing the profits, while preying on the technical ignorance of people in remote towns.
Perhaps worst of all, there are now thousands or even millions of people in the world who simply believe that wired iPhone headphones use bluetooth (whatever that is), leaving them with an utterly incoherent understanding of the technologies involved.
I wish @Apple
would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this. And I wish humanity would use its engineering prowess for good, and not opportunistic deception.
this makes you wonder if apple specs where designed to enhance the user experience or just to gate-keep the access to thier lucrative market. If the later, and I highly believe so, then can we blame others to come up with workarounds?
No matter what we think of Apple, we can absolutely blame others for being deceitful and claiming they are selling one thing while actually providing something inferior.
[+] [-] sunshowers|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] krisoft|1 year ago|reply
Exactly. The idea that one looks at this situation and somehow concludes that Apple is good and the manufacturers are bad is absurd.
[+] [-] schmookeeg|1 year ago|reply
I'd be super annoyed just as the author, for the same reasons.
[+] [-] 1vuio0pswjnm7|1 year ago|reply
Why are they more expensive to make. Is it for the good of humanity?
Recommended viewing:
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/steve-jobs/
Computers as "art", according to preferences of one person, versus computers as machines for the benefit of everyone.
Closed systems to extract maximum profits for Apple versus open systems that can be modified and expanded to benefit everyone.
"I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this."
How about lowering the cost of making "lightening" devices. How about offering the option to use a non-proprietary protocol?
"And I wish humanity would use its engineering prowess for good, and not opportunistic deception."
No doubt that's what people is rural Chile want, too. They do not mind paying higher prices. As long as the products are "Apple-certified". /s
This person tweeting seems to be having a hallucination where Apple is neither opportunistic nor deceptive. Nevermind its deliberate attempts to make its computers incompatible (preventing interoperability) and needlessly expensive.
[+] [-] lxgr|1 year ago|reply
> I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this.
Why blame these manufacturers for finding a clever workaround and not Apple for requiring hardware DRM and extracting royalties out of accessory manufacturers in the first place?
[+] [-] jazzyjackson|1 year ago|reply
selling bluetooth headphones without disclosing they're bluetooth is however anti-consumer, buyer should know what they're buying
[+] [-] elbasti|1 year ago|reply
Since tweets have no title, I followed the convention used in poetry where a poem with no name is referred to by its first line.
I guess technically then I should have titled the post [A crazy experience — I lost my earbuds in a remote town in Chile].
[+] [-] tomxor|1 year ago|reply
It would only require a port supporting 3 wires and a miniscule onboard amplifier. I'm sure Apple have the courage to invent a new port for the good of humanity, maybe they can even pave the way for a new standard.
hides
[+] [-] lxgr|1 year ago|reply
For the increasingly unlikely case in which I really do need wired headphones, I just carry them with an adapter permanently plugged into them.
> a miniscule onboard amplifier
That amplifier would be dead weight for me! (To be fair, it would be in good company with all the power amplifiers for 5G bands not available in my country, but I get the point of unifying SKUs globally and I can hardly plug one of these in with an adapter when traveling.)
[+] [-] davekeck|1 year ago|reply
What can Apple do though? Any change that cracks down on this will render these devices unusable for thousands of people, generate tons of e-waste, and create a huge backlash towards Apple.
It reminds me of when FTDI permanently bricked FTDI clones [0].
Further, I'm not sure I agree with the OP's vitriol against these manufacturers. They're using an open standard to bypass Apple's MFi tax. It's a hack for sure, but if it leads to cheaper devices -- which is the ultimate goal for this segment of product -- I don't see the problem. I could see the problem if they're advertised as wired headphones without mentioning Bluetooth though.
[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/ftdi-admits-to-bricking-innoce...
[+] [-] amluto|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] dangus|1 year ago|reply
OP wants want Apple to crack down on open standards?
What tyrant king declared that Bluetooth devices need to be powered by separate batteries? I think this is an ingenious solution, to a problem Apple created in a way that should be illegal, no less. And one less battery in the landfill on top of it!
Interestingly, Apple’s own keyboards and mice pair to Bluetooth automatically using lighting cables.
I think this is a case where the first world perspective is blind to the burdens that big multinational corporations put on poorer countries. A $4 Apple lightning license may seem like no big deal to a high income country’s citizen but the rest of the world is used to electronics like this costing less ~$5 or less.
[+] [-] recursive|1 year ago|reply
Anyway, I'm accustomed to twitter links being an incomprehensible mess of UI showing people responding to stuff without showing what it is or how to get to it. This is remarkably sane and coherent. Do I... like twitter now?
[+] [-] jazzyjackson|1 year ago|reply
https://help.twitter.com/en/using-x/x-premium
EDIT: $3 is a "basic" subscription, long posting is reserved for "premium" and "premium+" lol
[+] [-] ClassyJacket|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnMakin|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Control8894|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] robertlagrant|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] jsnell|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] xnzakg|1 year ago|reply
Spoiler: Apple EarPod clones cost about $1.59, with free shipping over $10. Crazy.
[+] [-] umanwizard|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] bradleybuda|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] walterbell|1 year ago|reply
For hacker points, there could be an open-source logo for the bizmodel workaround, borrowing from the mythologies of Halt and Catch Fire, HBO Silicon Valley, Wild West, Sherwood Forest, or the Silk Road of Marco Polo's travels.
[+] [-] glacials|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|1 year ago|reply
I can't help but wonder which "World Police" are supposed to take action here, and exactly how they're going to stop this.
The laws of one country should not be forced on others.
[+] [-] Control8894|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] cdelsolar|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Carrok|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] sandyarmstrong|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] e12e|1 year ago|reply
> True Apple lightning devices are more expensive to make. So instead of conforming to the Apple standard, these companies have made headphones that receive audio via bluetooth — avoiding the Apple specification — while powering the bluetooth chip via a wired cable, thereby avoiding any need for a battery.
Ditto for minijack to lightning adapters.
Wonder if this will be fixed now that Apple uses usb-c like they should have been doing all along.
[+] [-] umanwizard|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] abdullahkhalids|1 year ago|reply
So I went back and swapped them for another pair, from a different brand. But those headphones didn't work either. We tried a third brand, which also didn't work.
By now the gift shop people and their manager and all the people in line behind me are super annoyed, until one of the girls says in Spanish, "You need to have bluetooth on." Oh yes, everyone else nods in agreement. Wired headphones for iPhones definitely need bluetooth.
What? That makes no sense. The entire point of wired headphones is to not need bluetooth.
So I turn Bluetooth on with the headphones plugged into the lightning port and sure enough my phone offers to "pair" my wired headphones. "See," they all say in Spanish, like I must be the dumbest person in the world.
With a little back and forth I realize that they don't even conceptually know what bluetooth is, while I have actually programmed for the bluetooth stack before. I was submitting low-level bugs to Ericsson back in the early 2000's! Yet somehow, I with my computer science degree, am wrong, and they, having no idea what bluetooth even is, are right.
My mind is boggled, I'm outnumbered, and my plane is boarding. I don't want wireless headphones. And especially not wired/wireless headphones or whatever the hell these things are. So I convince them, with my last ounce of sanity, to let me try one last thing, a full-proof solution:
I buy a normal wired, old-school pair of mini-stereo headphones and a lightning adapter. We plug it all in. It doesn't work.
"Bluetooth on", they tell me.
NO! By all that is sacred my wired lightning adapter cannot require Bluetooth. "It does," they assure me.
So I turn my Bluetooth on and sure enough my phone offers to pair my new wired, lightning adapter with my phone.
Unbelievable.
I return it all, run to catch my plane, and spend half the flight wondering what planet I'm on. Until finally back home, I do some research and figure out what's going on:
A scourge of cheap "lightning" headphones and lightning accessories is flooding certain markets, unleashed by unscrupulous Chinese manufacturers who have discovered an unholy recipe:
True Apple lightning devices are more expensive to make. So instead of conforming to the Apple standard, these companies have made headphones that receive audio via bluetooth — avoiding the Apple specification — while powering the bluetooth chip via a wired cable, thereby avoiding any need for a battery.
They have even made lightning adapters using the same recipe: plug-in power a fake lightning dongle that uses bluetooth to transmit the audio signal literally 1.5 inches from the phone to the other end of the adapter.
In these remote markets, these manufacturers have no qualms with slapping a Lightning / iPhone logo on the box while never mentioning bluetooth, knowing that Apple will never do anything.
From a moral or even engineering perspective, this strikes me as a kind of evil. These companies have made the cheapest iPhone earbuds known to humankind, while still charging $12 or $15 per set, pocketing the profits, while preying on the technical ignorance of people in remote towns.
Perhaps worst of all, there are now thousands or even millions of people in the world who simply believe that wired iPhone headphones use bluetooth (whatever that is), leaving them with an utterly incoherent understanding of the technologies involved.
I wish @Apple would devote an employee or two to cracking down on such a technological, psychological abomination as this. And I wish humanity would use its engineering prowess for good, and not opportunistic deception.
[+] [-] jakupovic|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] klyrs|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] munzman|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] rootusrootus|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
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