Apple Files 'Ear Presence' Sensor Patent

[Guest]

Fresh off of Apple's purchase of Beats, the tech giant has filed a patent for sensors that can detect whether the headphones are actually being worn and respond accordingly.

Apple Files 'Ear Presence' Sensor Patent : Read more

 

[soundping]

I imagine it's just a pressure switch.

 

[de5_Roy]

the header is kinda misleading. it hints that the sensor(s) will detect the presence of ear on people or things with ears and enable apple to troll any kind of facial or biometric recognition technology vendor.

 

[InvalidError]

If I took a few minutes to think about it, I could come up with at least a dozen ways to achieve this.

Personally, I do care about this "feature" since I do not turn my earphones' volume high enough to worry about others being able to hear what I am listening to when I remove them. When I do crank the volume higher than usual, it is usually because my surroundings are at least that much noisier so I still would not need to worry about being heard.

I suppose it is a perfect fit for those people who blast their ears so loud you can hear their music across the hall in the bus/train/subway/restaurant/etc. - spare them the trouble of pausing their music when people interrupt them to ask to turn it down because it is so freakin' loud.

 

[WhatMeWorry]

If I took a few minutes to think about it, I could come up with at least a dozen ways to achieve this.

Personally, I do care about this "feature" since I do not turn my earphones' volume high enough to worry about others being able to hear what I am listening to when I remove them. When I do crank the volume higher than usual, it is usually because my surroundings are at least that much noisier so I still would not need to worry about being heard.

I suppose it is a perfect fit for those people who blast their ears so loud you can hear their music across the hall in the bus/train/subway/restaurant/etc. - spare them the trouble of pausing their music when people interrupt them to ask to turn it down because it is so freakin' loud.

Should we really think the narcissistic buyer of overpriced "look at me" headphones will really give a rip if everyone around them had to endure their music when the phones are taken off their head? I only wish the reason would be for what you said but I don't see these beats marketed to those that have the decency to respect those around them. Wish more people thought like you. I'd just see this as a convenience of not having to pause.

 

[dthx]

I thought of this nice feature several times when, using an android device, I missed a few important calls because headphones were plugged into the device but I wasn't wearing them (the ringtone was then directed to the headphones, not to the speaker).

Can I sue Apple about patenting my idea? I mean, how can such a simple (and common sense based) concept ever be patented by someone ???

 

[Fred Cohen]

No thanks. Seems like a waste of human effort.