Apple patents audio tech that could prevent you from wearing your headphones the wrong way
Never put your headphones on wrong again
By Cohen Coberly,
Tech companies are always coming up with strange, intriguing, and
ridiculous ideas for future products but most of them never see the
light of day. However, from time to time we get a glimpse at some of
those projects via the US' patent office.
For example, Apple recently received approval for a patent that
describes a "reversible" pair of headphones. If you're not sure what
that means, Apple's idea aims to solve a small problem most of us have
run into at least once - putting your headphones' left earcup over your
right ear, and vice versa.
Apple's proposed headphones would be able to detect which ear each
speaker is beaming audio to. The headphones would accomplish this
through an array of microphones - when the left earcup is worn over the
right ear, the first microphone will be located far away from your
mouth. When it's worn correctly, though, a second microphone will be
located closer to your mouth.
It's fairly complicated technology for such a simple issue, and one
might even say it's overkill. After all, solving this annoyance is
usually as easy as taking the headphones off and rotating them 180
degrees.
However, those with symmetrical headphones may not notice the problem
right away so Apple's automated solution could be handy from time to
time.
As long as this tech is cheap to implement, though, there's little
reason Apple couldn't just throw it in a future pair of headphones
anyway. However, it's worth noting that this patent's existence is not
necessarily proof that it will ever turn into something real - all we
can do is speculate.
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