The Circle of iLife

Apple patents all sorts of weird shit. 99% of it never gets made. They just want the money from patent litigation and licensing.
- The rendering is, but the patent isn’t.
- There's already an earphone with a display on the case like jbl, Tru wireless....Now if there was storage for music on them that would be nice.

I have earbuds that don’t need to be charged and use a cable for easy connectivity and sound quality.
- You know what's easier than a cable? No cable.
  I'll give you sound quality, but the whole reason that wireless earbuds took off is the hassle of wires.
  
  And also no latency. Even expensive Bluetooth headphones and earbuds have crap latency. The systems that don't are either proprietary and not widely supported (e.g. aptX) or expensive 'phones-and-dongle arrangements that must always travel in a pair and still don't compete on latency with a pair of dollar store earbuds.
  
  I feel like I’d forget to charge them. Or drop them in a public place and not want to put them in my ears because I’m a germaphobe. I know someone who dropped theirs in a toilet.
  
  I finally went wireless a week ago. I realized their advantage when the cable on my headphones broke for a millionth time.
  
  The reason wireless earbuds took off is that phones with headphone jacks stopped getting made.
  Consumers didn't prefer wireless earbuds. They preferred thinner and more water-resistant phones.
  
  Horrid quality and batteries are rarely replaceable. Pointless.
  
  You really think that's a dunk? "Wireless" just means you plug it in when not in use. There's nothing hard about plugging in a 3.5mm audio jack. I've never been sufficiently convinced to actually use wireless headphones. They seem like more of a hassle for a worse listing experience.
  
  No, what did it was removing headphone jacks and selling only crappy non-repairable headphones.
  
  You know what’s easier than no cable? Not losing your ear buds
  Haven’t been able to use ear buds outside of the house ever since they got rid of the jack
  
  Fight! Fight! Fight!
  
  For me personally, I got wireless earbuds because they removed all the damn phone jacks and I didn't have a choice.
  
  I guess if I listened to crappy music I wouldn't care about the sound quality.
- The lost technology of the ancients is most glorious.
- Both have their pros and cons. I miss my Westone 1 IEMs that I had back in college. My buddy's dog chewed them up. They were comfortable and super light, had great sound quality, a cord that wasn't obnoxious. Not having a cord is great though too especially when I'm working. Multipoint connection is great too. I can be listening to stuff on my phone with it in my pocket, no cable getting in the way, and when I get a call on Teams, my Pixel Buds just switch over to the computer.
- That’s neat
- My earbuds are connected to a bt receiver that functions as a (not great, but okay) dac via usb too. Pro is that I can use the receiver with all my headphones, con is that it looks like an iPod shuffle gen 3
- I really dont get cable simping here on Lemmy. It's awful UX and yall can't hear the sound difference anyway lmao
  
  Depends on the earphone. But majority wouldn't care.
  TWS is hands down more intuitive.
  
  TIL “cable simping”

can they even patent that? its already a thing that made it to production on at least one brand that sells in north america and another two or more in china
- I think JBL did it and they're a well established brand
- To an extent it is. Apple is or has started the patent for this. The image is just rendered for a visual representation of what they are doing, and for us to see they are reinventing old tech.
- I was gonna say, pretty sure I’ve seen something like this on Amazon already, except from some weird Chinese company.
- can they even patent that?
  What "that"? They can patent a specific technical solution that is unique to their product, not the idea per se.

I just see another device to run Doom
- But will it be better than pregnancy test doom or the doom-like game entirely embedded in a QR code ?
  
  I mean the latter is just minified JavaScript, compressed and base64 encoded. The hardware is the browser, which is cheating IMO
- You can on Apple’s lightning to HDMI adapter:
  https://hackaday.com/2025/02/06/running-doom-on-an-apple-lightning-to-hdmi-adapter/

Just an excuse to charge more for them. Cant think of any useful reason to have a screen on the case when you have your phone with you.
- It's an excuse to keep your product in the news/review cycle. You can't just create a useful product and leave it at that. You have to constantly change shit so people are constantly talking about it. Why do you think iPhone keep switching between rounded and square edges? It's not because one style is better then the other. It's so reviewers have something to talk about. It's why commercial OSes keep getting features no one asked for. It's why car and truck bodies keep changing even though body lines have no effect on driveability.
  
  Highlighting the importance of individualism even in communitarian beliefs.
  You must have your taste so that you know what you need and want genuinely. Rather than new emotions being better. This is important to acknowledge as there will always be thoughts of neighbor has it better due to just differences.
- if apple managed to create a custom audio transfer standard that supports significantly longer buffering (minutes to hours perhaps) I could see this gimmick being useful, I doubt they would though

They can’t fix their music app on the iphone. With every version this crap runs worse.

There's not gonna be any storage on it, though at that point there could be.
- I think the purpose of it would be to control the device the headphones are connected to, rather than be the source of the media
  
  so its basically an over-engineered version of this thing
  
  But... My earpieces already have 2 touch zones and multiple press combinations.
  
  Right, so it's not really an iPod Nano.
  
  Don't the headphones already do that?
  
  I tried a pair of earbuds with the same idea from AliExpress. They had the regular controls, but also worked as e.g. a camera remote. Very cool if it had done anything it was supposed to do consistently, but unfortunately it was not well-implemented. If the AirPods Pro 3 (which I was already strongly considering) have a case with a screen that isn't much larger than the Pro 2 case, I'll probably buy that model.

Great, now people will buy a case to protect their case.
Oh wait, they already do
- Thanks. I hate it.
- I did not know there were that many options. I knew they have cases because I've seen Erik try to sell some raycon travel case using code BIGMONEYSALVIA.
- Waiting for the airpod triple case to show up.
  
  For the fancier aftermarket case cases, it really is prudent.

Absolutely revolutionary creams in pants I have never before witnessed this level of utter genius before in my entire 30 some odd years of existence. I was right in front of us checks notes this entire time and we were blinded by our own hubris.
TLDR; Nature finds a way.

If this ever got released, it would probably require constant phoning home and cost $400. Separately.

Not counting it as an iPod Nano if that one tunnel Breakout like game isn’t on it.

<in heavy Australian dankpods accent>
nano

people are going to lose and break these and it will cost than so much
- That's why the next generation earphones will be wired.
- New air pods can't be paired to them.

Doesn't the Apple Watch already fulfill the function of an iPod Nano? It works with Bluetooth headphones and has 16 GB of storage you can use for music, which is a lot by iPod Nano standards.
- Pretty sure a Nano would last far more with a single charge though
- My series 9 has 64GB. I have multiple playlists downloaded to it which is great for the gym. You can also just stream music from it over wifi or cellular.

Tbf this might be the most original thing apple has done.
- There are tons of chinese brands that offer this type of headphones with display
  
  Yep. I have two pairs already.
- I would agree, but yet again, this is something I've seen 4 other versions of before apple gets to it.
  
  The items on display at the gas station counter don't count.
- Look at JBL, i have a pair.
  It's annoying af, as the screen also has controls and somehow they respond to my sweaty back (from cycling) while i locked it before i left.

I mean, this wouldn't be all that stupid imo. Add some Apple watch functionality like fitness detection and easy syncing between phone and iPod Nano Buds, this would be a solid addition to a runner's arsenal leaving no need to carry your $1000 phone on a run. Suppose you could use your watch for that and leave the case at home though. But more options aren't a bad thing, not everyone has or wants a watch.
- leaving no need to carry your $1000 phone on a run.
  my brother in christ it's called an MP3 player.
  
  Yeah, precisely. That's what this would be, built into your headphone case. You never have one without the other.
- You are right, but I also think you missed the point of the post. This is basically an iPod nano from 2005 with a few extra features.
  
  Also a few less features given I'm guessing it can't store its own music and needs to be paired with the phone.

Like these?
- No not like those, the difference is Apple did it first like every thing else they copied.

Um...just yesterday Ive seen JBL tour pro 3 (sth like that).

Everyone paying 299$ for inear buds with a display case

One way, pre-recorded beeper, more like it.
- "technology is cyclical."

I mean, IF they also add internal storage for mp3 files and it would act as an oldschool mp3-player/ipod, that would be actually cool … but I don’t need another display … you already have one on your phone and maybe also on your wrist

It's almost a shame that they decided to go with wide instead of tall.

Awesome, can't wait to hear my music softly from inside the box and be able to skip to the next song.

I'm surprised nobody has done yet as I've seen all sorts of features be added to earphone cases. Maybe a decent touchscreen is not yet cheap enough to throw at some case without the profit margin of the apple brand.
- They have done it. There's lots of Chinese earbuds with screens. Even JBL did it.
- My coworker bought an ear bud case that he can play flappy bird on.

This is the first apple device I would willingly buy.
- You could also just get a Tangara
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara
  
  I was mostly intrigued with the idea of having the wireless bud case be the music player, which would mean carrying the headphones in their case would be the only thing I need to carry if I want music.
  In retrospect, this is probably just a remote screen for the phone it's connected to.