Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2023 June 6

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June 6

iPod earbuds question

Dear Wikipedians:

See below photos of my iPod earbuds plug and earpieces. I notice the plug has three bands, which indicates that the earbuds are suppose to come with microphone capability (i.e. earbud supposed to be a headset). However, the earpieces don't look anything like microphone enabled, there is no extra "cylinder" on the wire itself somewhere downstream from one of the earpieces, as is typically the case with earbud-form-factor headsets. More importantly, when I plug in the iPod earbuds into my smartphone, when calls come in, I'm able to hear the other party, but the other party cannot hear me, further attesting to the fact that iPod does NOT have a microphone, yet my smartphone perceives it to be a headset (I've also plugged in "two-banded" earbuds into my smartphone, and able to receive calls normally, the other party can hear me perfectly, in this case the phone knows the earbuds doesn't have microphone and so is still using the phone's own built-in microphone).

Any insights from you regarding this seeming mismatch is much appreciated.

iPod earbuds plug.

iPod earbuds earpieces.

L33th4x0r (talk) 23:16, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

It's a stereo plug. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:19, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

It is a TRRS plug, which (according to our article) for Apple should have left,right,ground,microphone, but apparently the microphone band isn't used in your plug. Possibly a manufacturing decision, where all buds have the same plug, both with microphone and without. Is it an Apple brand earbud or a third-party one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmvandijk (talk • contribs) 13:46, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

It is an Apple brand earbud. It came with my iPod. L33th4x0r (talk) 14:58, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

These are not the Apple earbuds, they are the EarPods. Apple indeed shipped these with iPods in a variant without the mic and remote, even though you could use iPods WITH mic and remote at that time if you bought the mainline EarPods. I've never really understood why Apple didn't use TRS connectors on these things as this does indeed cause the problem you describe. My suspicion is that because the iPods did accept TRRS, the connector just fits better/more secure and it was cheaper to source. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:13, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much @TheDJ for all your help! This is incredibly useful! You've found the fandom page for EarPods which is incredible! I have bookmarked it.

So in other words, the EarPods are only meant to be used with iPod and not with any other devices. L33th4x0r (talk) 14:59, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

More exactly, Apple had a variant of EarPods which were only ever shipped with iPods, and don't work on other devices that expect a microphone. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:09, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@TheDJ Oh and by the way, I checked out the fandom page, I'm 100% positive there is NO control box/segment on my EarPods. It's just wires all the way down from the end of the EarPods themselves to the plug. L33th4x0r (talk) 15:01, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I'll be honest... I had these and at some point had to just throw them away. I kept accidentally bringing these with me when I got an iPhone and every time my calls wouldn't work :) —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:11, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Yep. I get your point loud and clear. I will be putting these EarPods back into the original iPod packaging clear plastic box where they came out of. (I've long lost my iPod unfortunately). L33th4x0r (talk) 14:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)