Apple being anti competitive?

[divine]

http://www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/news/2009/03/16/Apple-Builds-Authentication-Into-iPod-shuffle-Earphones-/p1

Seems the new shuffle will only work with specific 'authenticated' headphones.

Quality assurance? Or dodgy price fixing? Or what?

Could be interesting to see if anything more is made of this.

[Streeteh]

Well considering their supplied headphones on all other models of ipod are distinctly average i don't see how this could be 'quality assurance'. One of the first things i did when i bought a MP3 player was get some decent headphones to back it up, this has really put me off of getting an ipod when my 6+ year old iriver dies (assuming they force this on all models in the future).

It's just yet another scheme for them to rake in more money, yet like when they asked people for 20p per song to 'upgrade' their music collection from the itunes store, some people will still probably praise them for this decision.

[Feek]

Not true.

See here (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/16/no-drm-in-headphones-for-new-ipod-shuffle/). It's a bug for the 'designed for iPod' certification and it won't stop third party headphones being used.

[divine]

oh.

nevermind then :(

[Mark]

See here (http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/16/no-drm-in-headphones-for-new-ipod-shuffle/). It's a bug for the 'designed for iPod' certification and it won't stop third party headphones being used.
Will stop them being sold in Apple stores though if the last paragraph of that article turns into fact (not that most people - fanboys excepted - would buy such things from an Apple store without checking prices elsewhere anyway).