Apple plans iPods with automatic volume control
Future versions of Apple’s MP3 player are to be adapted to prevent users from playing tracks at full blast through their earphones for too long. Amid growing fears that listeners could cause irreversible damage to their hearing – the highest setting is as loud as a chainsaw – Apple is developing an automatic volume control. A new patent reveals that the next iPods and iPhones could automatically calculate how long a person has been listening and at what volume, before gradually reducing the sound level. The device will also calculate the amount of “quiet time” between when the iPod is turned off and when it is restarted, allowing the volume to be increased again to a safe level.
Listening to volumes below 70 decibels is considered safe. But iPods can currently reach volumes of over 100 decibels – the equivalent to standing 10ft from a pneumatic drill – and enough to cause permanent damage after just 15 minutes. Some MP3 players can even exceed 120 decibels. In April, Apple revealed it had sold more than 100million iPods worldwide and was expecting, by the end of this year, to have sold more than 4.5million iPhones. Of those 200,000 will have been bought in Britain. Its patent application, however, is the first time Apple has acknowledged concerns over the risk the iPod poses to hearing and comes after a series of damning studies highlighted the potentially damaging effects. I appreciate the effort, but isn’t it little weird? I want to be master of my mp3 player and not to be annoyed by automatically decreased volume…
Source: Daily Mail
Comments(63)
Its all about liability. Apple does not want to be held liable for class action therefor covers their ass in defense.
Well, like so many other things these days. Corporations are maing descisions for their customers because they´re affraid of getting sued over ridiculous issues. Sad, but true.
sounds very interesting i wonder what technology they will use to determine if the volume should be higher or lower.
“I appreciate the effort, but isn’t it little weird? I want to be master of my mp3 player and not to be annoyed by automatically decreased volume…”
If you’ve ever used an iPod you would know that the already built in sound reducer in the iPod family is manual on-off, so you can use the iPod without it as well.
I’d be surprised if this wasn’t an option to turn off as well, otherwise there’ll be a hack for it just like for everything else so no big issue anyway.
Honestly I feel the issue is with the popular “earbud” type audio headphone.
The Ear Buds send near all of the sound into the ear, greatly affecting the damage, while a pair of normal headphones have a decent amount of sound escape the head phones.
An easy way to test this: Play a song loud with an earbud and put it in your ear. Others will barely be able to notice the loud volume levels. If you put on a traditional pair of headphones, others will hear the sound not going directly into your eardrum and will usually comment on the volume.
yes its hardly the fault of corporates to think like this,
blame the court system that allows stupid cases like,
i think it was Mcdonalds being sued because their coffe was hot!!
This is an old news. It is known feature since 6 months.
Offtopic but who cares
Merry Christmas everyone and happy new year!!
seriously no company want legal battle aginst deaft customers
i’ve seen some document film about the hearing lost and in there was a guy who hear some constant high frequency note all the time and in the end he decided to cut out the hearing nerve by operation i mean, so this thing is not a joke…
Merry Christmas! :]
i bought my ipod so i could listen as loud as i want and as long as i want
typical apple crap, just like their macs. the consumer isnt smart enough to adjust their own volume so we’ll do it for you.
What next “”" This ipod has been sat next to your Ball sack for more than 20 Mins” e.g. It might make u Infertile.. Please be aware that we cannot accept any responsibility for wearing it next to you GONADS… oMG WHAT NEXT!! “”sORRY YOU HAVE HEARD THIS SONG TOO MANY TIMES TODAY SIR, I MAY INFLUENCE YOUR MOOD!!”"
Your having a laff right??
In the EU, iPods have a volume restriction to avoid this, yet some moan they’re too quiet. To be honest, I prefer regulation to lawsuits.
True… I had an iPod on my ball sack for 35 minutes in which time it over heated and burnt my pubes, I am now in a legal battle over this as in cold weather it means my ball sack goes in futher than normal to keep body temperature which also means I dont have much fun jacking off to the p0rn i watch on it.
oh and Merry Christmas!
i’m sure there’ll be a fix for it eventually… one thing i wish they would fix though is that sometimes my ipod’s by my phone or by my pc and there’s wifi being broadcast… and the volume goes up all the way or down all the way or goes up and down and spazzes and stuff…. but yea the reason for this is legal issues. some guy sued apple because his eardrums got messed up cus he blared his ipod at max vol for extended periods of time…
That is totally stupid. Some headphones need more power to create the same amount of sound than another pair. If people want to destroy their hearing then let them.
Merry Christmas people!
Alex Cull has it down pat.
Most people have absolutely no idea how easy it is to cause permanent hearing damage. What’s even worse is that the damage is cumulative over time and largely unnoticeable, until it’s already too late to do anything about it.
Until I woke up one morning with a high-pitched whine in my ears (tinnitus) that’s never going to go away (i’ve lived with it for a year now), I had absolutely no clue that I might be damaging my ears with my listening habits.
Hearing problems and tinnitus are going to become an epidemic, unless something is done to make people more aware of the risks.
That said, I don’t think automatic volume control is the right approach. I think it would be better to add a decibel gauge to mp3 players, so that people would not have to rely on purely subjective evaluation of the loudness of the sound.
donno if anyone mentioned this,.,,…but what if i want to use it at a party, and plug it into a speaker system….now that could get annoying
Whilst scrolling through my ipod menu on the way to work i tripped and fell, landing on my nose which inturn caused a nose bleed which ran into the electronics of my ipod causing a catasrophic failure of its components, Therefore rendering it usless which inturn caused me to laps into depression due to having no music….I am hereby suing ipod for not having an awareness whilst scrolling through the menu button !! mmm
Erm remind me when i burnt my lips on a Mc donalds coffee and sued for $$1000000000000…. SIMPLE SOLUTON — Agree to all terms and conditions every time u turn it on.. Ball sack radiation, deafness, tripping hazards and above all getting Ripped off…
Wow, this is pretty stupid. If a person wants to go deaf, very well then! I do understand the problem with liability, but a simple caution message would do…
have never owned or used an ipod but don’t they need or have a volume control? so whats the big deal?
why can’t the public take responsibility for their actions and not always seek someone to blame? this stuff really annoys me…
It doesn’t say that the ability to manually control the volume will be revoked. You added that in yourself, and then voiced it as a complaint at the end of the article.
Way to go.
OMG its christmas, i just got so excited opening my ipod, i got a freaking heart attack and fell on the dog killing it, my next door neighbour came around to see what was goin on and fell and broke his leg on the way ..NOW im gonna sue them for getting me too excited NOT happy xmas all!!
So what if I’m partially deaf already? They limit me from listening to volumes I need loud in order to hear?! What I do with my ears is none of their business!!
>> why can’t the public take responsibility for their actions and not always seek someone to blame? this stuff really annoys me…
+1 , I second that!
Listen to me! Listen to me! I have the solution! All they need to do is intall a small line or a tick mark on the volume bar which will represent safe listening volumes. That way if someone doesn’t care, they are more then welcome to turn the volume up higher. Ya!
Why the hell can’t these companies higher people like me?
why should apple have to do this if people are stupid enough to listen to their ipod at full volume its their own fault if it causes damage
Sony had something that wouldn’t let you turn the volume up too loud unless you turned the feature off.
Interesting, well I hope that this option can be chosen, so I can turn on or turn off if I want, because the idea is not bad, so maybe I’d use it. I hope that they won’t build this into the next updates of the already released iPods though…
@31:
Because it’s “hire”…
@ 35
that’s what i meant…i was just testing u
This is all due to stupid people who won’t accept the mistakes they made. In this case it ate the people that turn their iPod at max for long periods of time, and later complain about hearing trouble. Then there is of course the half-azzed justice system that enables these people to get insane amounts of cash for THEIR OWN FREAKIN’ MISTAKE!!!
I hate dumb people…
@29
“So what if I’m partially deaf already? They limit me from listening to volumes I need loud in order to hear?! What I do with my ears is none of their business!!”
It’s also my business if I’m sitting next to you in the bus or shopping at the same time you are.
I don’t care for your music, keep it to yourself.
It’s your business when you keep it yourself.
It’s the ignorance seen in most comments here, that proves Apple has a point. Hacking your way around a restriction that is for your own benefit is just plain stupid. If anything, your medical insurrance should sue you for being a morron.
I have a really good comment…. nevermind. It would be wasted and not even worth the keystrokes.
but i will sum it all up into… thank God I will not have to listen to yet another person’s crappy ipod music from half-way across a room. kudos to you Apple.
common sense people, don’t listen to loud music for a long period of time – just as you dont usually listen to the loud sound of chainsaws.
interesting to see how they make it work though…
merry xmas and all that mumbo
#39 HAS to be Belgian with that comment
Next my Apple Mac will be telling me iv looked at too many porn pictures off the internet and its turning off so I dont turn into a drooling ravenous pervert!
What next!!!
Phil.
next step… Computers that auto-regulate the amount of hours you are allowed to play games… pfff. If a moron wants to whack his ears let him. Everyone know it is harmful.
Wow….People complain about Microsoft but Apple is the same way. Hey if i buy it and wanna blow my ears away thats my business.
Another reason I dont care for Apple. Apple fanboys will of course call this a great thing.
I agree with you @ 43
merry x-mas u filthy animals, and a happy new year. Poop hum, butt. It’s me, mr. Poopge and have a merry mudd butts!. Gotta go, or i will get a mudd butt!
Eeeeeeeeeeeehhhh…Don’t all Mp3-players, including Ipod, already have Volume restrictions?
I believe it is called a volume Up/Down button.
And another phrase that comes up from the dark corners of my mind. Only in America. If you tried to sue Apple here for damages you’ll end up paying. Any judge will tell you’ve got your own responsibilities. And I think this is the case in most countries on this planet.
@6 Mr.æ and for the rest who wants to know
Here that casus about Mcdonalds and their hot coffee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald’s_coffee_case
In the Netherlands a judge would have said that she shouldn’t have placed a cup of hot coffee on her lap and open the lid.
Thus rendering the case as her own fault.
Same story applies to this article.
*Sigh* I hate it when links go wrong when you paste them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants
does apple plan ipod than dosnt crash if you format it with Vista NTFS??
“The idiots are winning!!” – Dan Ashcroft
If I want to blast my music at full volume, I should have the damn right to (if i’m not disturbing anyone else).
Only in America… *sigh*…
it’s probably gonna be optional so i have no concern
the newest ipod firmware for my ipod video 5g already has manual top volume restriction… mine is set to max out at a volume i think is the loudest i will ever need(which is like a third of what my earbuds can output105db->35db), and that way i’ll never go high enough to be damaging my ears.
i think they did enough by offering that feature. and then its up to the user to care enough for their ears to use that feature. if you’re too stupid to know that listening to extremely loud music for too long will hurt your ears then you really DO deserve to lose your hearing, i mean come on.. its common sense isn’t it?
that said i guess its a good thing that they’re putting the auto sound dimmer thing in, as long as it can be turned off!
in a country were an 8 year old can be sued for a ski accident, I can understand a company want to cover their ass…….
they should put an auto-off in all Apple products, so that their crappy products just shut off after a few hours with a message “warning, further listening will turn you into a pathetic apple fanboy”
in europe all sold players are already capped (eu law) at at certain point, you can check by looking at the iriver firmware, which states the db number…
can you read anything about an ipod or apple in general without mentioning how many units have been sold?? I use to work at a warehouse and our customer was a large department store, we took in all returns from all the store across the US, scan and sort items to vendors, the ipod pallets were basically large boxes 4′x3.5′ and 4′ tall, and we would FILL these daily with returns, do those get subtracted from the “sales”?? nope. so now for every one of those units returned they are potentially counted as 2 “Sales” if they were exchanged… and that’s just one chain or stores… bloated numbers.
reall FX? And what warehouse would that be? I worked for Aplle for a while so what is say is full of crap
To everyone saying “if people want to listen loud and stuff their hearing, they’re just stupid”…
Well, if you’ve ever been in a nightclub or at a concert, you’ve done it too. Does that make you stupid?
No, it’s about educating. Most people DON’T KNOW what a safe hearing level is. afaik real-life issues like safe ipod listening and not to w4nk with soap are not taught in school.
I’m all for the “red line on the volume meter” approach. It’s clear, says what’s safe and then people will know and get to choose.
Doing it like this just invites hacking, which is then seen to be “cool” (what, u playin unhacked, foo?) and there goes the good intention.
Intrusive methods just make people resentful and unwilling to listen (to the message not the music).
Be interesting to see sales of ipods drop if they do this (assuming u can’t turn it off).
Microshiite, uhh, what do I gain from lying? you working at Aplle? has nothing to do with where I worked, maybe if I was still there I would take some photos for you, or maybe you can ask around and find someone else you trust that deals with reverse logistics, no need to lie.
Might be a good thing. More than once, when I was trying to press the “next” button on my iPod, the pressure on the wheel caused the volume to jump all the way up to the max, blaring at full volume in my ears.