There might be a DRM chip inside the iPod Shuffle earbuds

Die Meme Die!

Count the buttons. Count the contacts on the jack. You HAVE to encode three buttons onto one wire. Unless you enslave a tiny magical fairy and chain her inside to do that operation you are going to need a chip.

Look at an Apple A1018, EMC number 1941 for the original iPod from the days of yore. It was the inline control, it had five buttons to control volume, forward, backward, and play/pause. It encodes the buttons onto a single wire of the headphone jack.

The headphone remotes have been reverse engineered at every turn, for example http://www.maushammer.com/systems/ipod-remote/ipod-remote.ht... . To date they are nothing more than simple "get the job done" protocols.

Has anyone detected encryption in this iPod's remote protocol, or are the people writing these articles just angered that squeezing on the wires of their buttonless headphones doesn't make magic happen?

Edit: Aw, I took too long to document my rant, now there are four of us sharing the rantlight. I wonder how many more just haven't hit the reply button yet?

This title is complete linkbait. According to the article, they found an unidentified chip in the new iPod shuffle earbud control, and have no clue what it does.

This is abysmal tech reporting.

To paraphrase, "There is a chip and we don't know what it does but things have changed and it'd be way better traffic if we called it DRM."

To directly quote the update, "... Be it an encrypted scheme - unlikely - or a buffered digital stream - more likely - this is a lock-in what no one really expected." (could be encryption, DUN DUN DUNNNN!)

Apple has so consistently caused major turnover in their accessories market with destructive changes that the only news would be if the previous generation of accessories did work. The accessory makers will do what they always do, adapt and continue to sell at the tender mercies of Apple's product calendar.

There's no standard for in-line remotes, so there's no guarantee that any two will be compatible. Duh.

I blame the EFF for giving this meme legitimacy. They do some good work, but they really jumped the gun. Why not wait until you see IF there's actually a "DRM chip" in the thing and IF Apple actually uses the DMCA to stop 3rd parties from reverse engineering it before you start yelling about unfair competition.

This isn't DRM; I mean, yes they used something which rendered all earphones useless on their own, but I don't think Apple did it with evil intentions. I for one like the new design, I'd rather they stretched out and gave the shuffle market (which I'd imagine is mainly people on the go) an innovative design to enhance the experience than worry about rubbish like this.

It's probably a controller for the new press-control surfaces on the cord.

Third parties are already working on iPod shuffle compatible earbuds: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10194769-1.html

PS: Flagged.