Apple Reportedly Acquires Bluetooth Headphone Company Wi-Gear

[Pink∆Floyd]

Hope they change name because round here Muff doesn't mean headphones!

you from new jersey?

muff cabbage!

 

[fxtech]

I keep hoping Apple will get into the car navigation/entertainment business, I'd love to have an iOS device as my car computer/navigation system built right into the car.

Great - instead of texting while driving there will be Angry Birds while driving. The roads will never be safe again.

 

[fxtech]

You realize where this is all going. They don't care about headphones. They care about the bluetooth audio pairing. This is all in efforts to create the ultimate Apple iCar

Yeah, it'll cost $150K, be made entirely of a single block if aluminum, and have some of the highest smug emissions in the industry.

 

[rmwebs]

As long as Apple don't make their existing (included) headphones as a bluetooth option I dont mind. The headphones Apple ship are nasty, painful, cheap, poor sounding, etc. Hence the optional in-ear ones they now provide.

I would really love to see a decent quality "big" set of bluetooth headphones being made though!

 

[s1m]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

For the love of god apple will u actually support changing tracks (fwd/bwd) On iPhones like my SE and Nokia phones did 5+years ago?

I just don't get why the delay to basic functionality - anyone?!

Let me guess here... Apple will come up with their own proprietary method to change tracks via blutooth headphones thus once again cornering the market for other more expensive bt stereo headsets!!!

Umm - they do support changing tracks and have done for months now.

I really hope this goes somewhere. I have tried three different BT headsets and haven't found a workable set yet.

Backbeat 906 - died after a month (bought in US but live in Oz sonot worth trying to replace)
Sennhessier MM100 - great BT but not noise isolating so no good when commuting
Jaybird JB200 - terrible fit (needed to buy the Acoustibuds to even get them to fit) and the BT is woefull - constant drop outs around town and battery life has been dismal...

All I want is a set of BT heaphones with mic that are noise isolating... I would pay over $300 for those.

 

[allfunkedup]

Well this is good news, in my opinion Apple's bluetooth support on the iPhone has been woeful. For some time I've been using a set of Plantronics P590s, I've been really happy with the sound quality and having no cable has been great, however I've had to stop using them for a few really annoying reasons.

1. While skipping forward, back, stop, volume up and down work, I can't play from the headphones, so if I stop them for some reason I have to restart from the phone. I would also really like to launch the audio player by clicking play like I can with wired headphones.
2. I wanted to use the headphones with my Mac at work as well but the iPhone will always pair first (I've tried un-pairing and re-pairing in the order of priority), this means if I want to use them with my computer I have to go 3 menus deep to switch bluetooth off on the iphone, this has become tiresome. Why we can't have the option of a bluetooth/wifi app in the left swipe multitasking menu instead of the media player I don't know, we have enough ways to open the media player without forcing it on us again, its not like I can actually remove the app. They can at least bring the bluetooth on/off up to the top level settings menu.
3. I have had an issue since iOS 4 where if I receive a call while playing a game listening to the bluetooth headphones and answer by clicking the headphones the call is routed to the phone rather than through the headphones and I have to quickly either click the headset option on the phone screen or take the headphones off and use the phone. This didn't seem to happen on iPhone OS 3.
4. If I am playing a game and have to pause by clicking the wake/sleep button (As I often do in my commute so I can put the phone in my pocket) when I rewake the device the sound is rerouted to the iPhone speaker, I have to shut down and restart the game to get the sound coming out of the headphones. (If its multitasking aware that means close the app, double tap home, hold and close the app, tap home, reopen the app)

The last two have been deal breakers for me and I've stopped using the headphones (other than for running) and currently I'm having to use a crappy set of Blackberry headphones as I gave my iPhone ones to a friend who lost hers, but at least they work properly. While I acknowledge some of these issues may be particular to my headphones my brother who has the same set with a Nokia has no issues at all.

Hopefully Apple will start to take Bluetooth audio a little more seriously if they are going to make their own.

 

[StudioGuy]

Makes sense

I started thinking a month or two ago that Apple would release a BT headset. Makes sense to acquire a company and tool it for their use.

I haven't like a BT set yet, so I have modest high hopes.

 

[pmz]

Well this is good news, in my opinion Apple's bluetooth support on the iPhone has been woeful. For some time I've been using a set of Plantronics P590s, I've been really happy with the sound quality and having no cable has been great, however I've had to stop using them for a few really annoying reasons.

1. While skipping forward, back, stop, volume up and down work, I can't play from the headphones, so if I stop them for some reason I have to restart from the phone. I would also really like to launch the audio player by clicking play like I can with wired headphones.
2. I wanted to use the headphones with my Mac at work as well but the iPhone will always pair first (I've tried un-pairing and re-pairing in the order of priority), this means if I want to use them with my computer I have to go 3 menus deep to switch bluetooth off on the iphone, this has become tiresome. Why we can't have the option of a bluetooth/wifi app in the left swipe multitasking menu instead of the media player I don't know, we have enough ways to open the media player without forcing it on us again, its not like I can actually remove the app. They can at least bring the bluetooth on/off up to the top level settings menu.
3. I have had an issue since iOS 4 where if I receive a call while playing a game listening to the bluetooth headphones and answer by clicking the headphones the call is routed to the phone rather than through the headphones and I have to quickly either click the headset option on the phone screen or take the headphones off and use the phone. This didn't seem to happen on iPhone OS 3.
4. If I am playing a game and have to pause by clicking the wake/sleep button (As I often do in my commute so I can put the phone in my pocket) when I rewake the device the sound is rerouted to the iPhone speaker, I have to shut down and restart the game to get the sound coming out of the headphones. (If its multitasking aware that means close the app, double tap home, hold and close the app, tap home, reopen the app)

The last two have been deal breakers for me and I've stopped using the headphones (other than for running) and currently I'm having to use a crappy set of Blackberry headphones as I gave my iPhone ones to a friend who lost hers, but at least they work properly. While I acknowledge some of these issues may be particular to my headphones my brother who has the same set with a Nokia has no issues at all.

Hopefully Apple will start to take Bluetooth audio a little more seriously if they are going to make their own.

Hopefully manufacturers of Bluetooth products will pay more attention to Apple software.

 

[apple1990]

To correct the Article. Apple has already started developing prototypes for this and the "iMuffs" should be ready Summer 2011 or Fall 2011.

The company was acquired 3 to 4 months ago.

Bruce

Haha

You've shown yourself up here, stop pretending you have or have ever had anything to do with Apple!