iPod Controller, a Proprietary Chip: Apple
Apple recently admitted that the chip found in the controller/heaadphone are proprietary control chips.
Both Macworld and Boing Boing Gadgets have confirmed with Apple and various third-party vendors that the new shuffle headphones do in fact contain a proprietary control chip, and that would-be headphone makers have to pay to license it from Apple as part of the Made for iPod program. Yeah, that’s bad news, confirmed — but all hope for inexpensive accessories isn’t lost, as we’re told that the chip isn’t encrypted or otherwise locked down in any way, so it’s easily cloned by companies who’d rather not pay.We’ll just have to wait. Still, eschewing Made for iPod certification pretty much dooms a product to niche status in the Apple universe, so it’s a pretty weak consolation — when this all shakes out, we’re guessing only Apple-taxed headphones will be widely available for the shuffle, and that makes the value proposition somewhat hard to see. [via Digg]
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