Apple In-ear Headphones with Remote & Mic

Product Overview

The Apple In-ear Headphones with Remote and Mic look a lot like Apples last headphones, only this time they have a remote and mic.

Speakers

This time around, the ear buds have a more standard design to them compared to the beveled design from the previous model, the sleeves of which had a clear up and down. The tips of the nozzles have some horizontal striations, which should help them grip the sleeves and prevent the ear buds from rotating.

Cable

The remote and mic that the headphones’ name alludes to is found a bit high up on the right ear bud’s cable. It has a button and volume controls. You can single click to play/pause, double click to fast-forward, or triple-click to rewind.

The cord continues down to the 1/8-inch plug, which has the same design as its predecessor.

In the Box

In the box you’ll find exactly what’s pictured below: the headphones, a carrying case, and a pill-shaped case that can hold two different sizes of sleeves (in total there are 3 sizes of sleeves).

Durability (3.09)

As we mentioned in our last review of an Apple product, the main durability issue you’ll encounter here is with the plug, specifically with its design and lack of a cord guard. Take a look at the plugs pictured below. On the left are the Apple headphones, whose cord guard looks like a long-sleeve T-shirt and provides about as much protection. The purpose of a cord guard is to stop the cord from bending too sharply. The headphones in the picture on the right are the Sony MDR-EX51s, which cost under $20.

The two headphones are being pulled an equal distance. Look at the sharp bend exhibited along the inside curve on the Apple headphones, which occurs right in the middle of the cord guard. Now, the straight plug design itself is bad, because it necessitates the headphones have a robust cord guard. The Apple headphones do not have this robust cord guard, hence the acute angle in the bend. Now, the Sony headphones have an average cord guard and a bent plug. This plug is nothing special, yet see how gradual the bend is?

We stress this issue so much because, in our experience, the plug is the first part to break. Think of all the times your headphones have started to cut out as you walked around. How many of those times did you have to jiggle the cord at the plug?

Other than the significant issues with the plug, the headphones have average durability. There’s nothing especially durable about the headphones’ construction or materials and there’s no glaring oversights. The main reason they got the poor score they did is because of the plug issue and, to a lesser, but not minor extent, the lack of any cord guards around the control pendant.

Aesthetics (5.00)

It’s hard to be particularly fashionable when your aesthetic is the over-done norm. No one notices in-ear headphones by brand. If they’re white, people will assume they’re iPod headphones. Even if you have the control pendant swaying around in the open, chances are everyone’s curiosity will have been sated by the ‘white = iPod’ assumption. Therefore, while these aren’t ugly by any stretch, they exist solely in the baseline of in-ear aesthetics. These are the headphones we judge other headphones by, for better or worse. Perhaps some company will make a hideous set that becomes more ubiquitous than the Apple headphones. If you are reading this in the future (which you obviously are since this isn’t a live stream), and such headphones exist, feel free to bump the aesthetic score by a few points. Chances are, however, the opposite will happen, ala the Motorola Razr: sure, they were trendy for a while, but once they became the norm their unique form factor lost all of its appeal.