DAPs and headphones- Focus on cord management
By elcid73. Thursday, 17. November 2005, 15:24:04
There has been a lot of pioneering of products and technology in the interest of reducing the cord clutter between digital audio players and headphones. If ever there was a goal worthy of declaring a holy crusade where engineers all over the world sell everything they own and head to silicon valley to solve, this would be it.
Our first contenter is bluetooth. We've seen many attempts at BT headphones that, frankly, just look rediculous and bulky. No body wants to look like Lobot from Star Wars by slapping these monstrosities on their dome. Although, there is hope, as Gizmodo points out, there are some entrees into this arena that are starting to not look rediculous
The other end of the spectrum, there's this. Ok- so our players are getting smaller. I dont know if it's every going to be smart to put your player up by your head. You're going to want to control it aren't you? So for things other than pause, next/previous and volume, you are going to need to look at it. Which means, you'll have to take it off. Not viable in my book.
So- what is the answer? I saw a portable speaker that had a retractable line-in cord that would plug into the headphone jack of the player. This would be nice on an audio player. With the Nano and WalMart's moblue player I think we've already managed to get as small as we can. Let's stop the arms race to see who can get their DAp the size of a dime and start focusing on adding usefulness instead. Store a bit of cord on the audio player that retracts into itself. Then, the actual ear buds can have a small amount of wire; just enough to get around your fat head- then plug into the retractable cord. Of course, I'm no engineer- but if you were to take the Nano and put it into a case the size of the mini, I'm sure there would be enough room to accomodate a little cord and a "retract" mechanism.
So engineers, if you can minimize the time I spend untangling the mess of cords I have, I will in turn, absolve you of all of your sins.
Our first contenter is bluetooth. We've seen many attempts at BT headphones that, frankly, just look rediculous and bulky. No body wants to look like Lobot from Star Wars by slapping these monstrosities on their dome. Although, there is hope, as Gizmodo points out, there are some entrees into this arena that are starting to not look rediculous
The other end of the spectrum, there's this. Ok- so our players are getting smaller. I dont know if it's every going to be smart to put your player up by your head. You're going to want to control it aren't you? So for things other than pause, next/previous and volume, you are going to need to look at it. Which means, you'll have to take it off. Not viable in my book.
So- what is the answer? I saw a portable speaker that had a retractable line-in cord that would plug into the headphone jack of the player. This would be nice on an audio player. With the Nano and WalMart's moblue player I think we've already managed to get as small as we can. Let's stop the arms race to see who can get their DAp the size of a dime and start focusing on adding usefulness instead. Store a bit of cord on the audio player that retracts into itself. Then, the actual ear buds can have a small amount of wire; just enough to get around your fat head- then plug into the retractable cord. Of course, I'm no engineer- but if you were to take the Nano and put it into a case the size of the mini, I'm sure there would be enough room to accomodate a little cord and a "retract" mechanism.
So engineers, if you can minimize the time I spend untangling the mess of cords I have, I will in turn, absolve you of all of your sins.
