March 29th, 2006
Apple Offers iPod Volume Limits in New Software Update
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
There has been a lot of attention paid to hearing loss and MP3 players, especially ones that use earbud headsets, and particularly (of course), the iPod. In fact, if you recall from my earlier story, Apple had been sued over iPod-caused hearing loss.
The free update, available for video iPods and all iPod Nano models, also includes a parental lock option. After setting the volume limit, parents can lock the setting with a combination code to prevent children from raising the maximum volume without their knowledge.
The move follows a string of news articles and research reports, including a recent hearing in Washington, warning people not to listen to their MP3 players at excessive volume levels for prolonged periods.
The Mac maker also faces a class-action lawsuit that charges the company of not taking adequate steps to prevent hearing loss among American iPod consumers, despite limiting the output of the devices to 100 decibels in France. Source: News.com
We Say: As the article says, this sort of limit was in place in France (ironically, which Apple might pull out of, because of the new law regarding DRM that appears to be on its way to passing) , so why didn’t Apple just anticipate this and offer a fix globally, before?
Cheese Toast says:
God knows we Americans are way too stupid to just turn the volume down. We can not be held liable for our actions, that would be un-american!
March 29th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Apple Offers iPod Volume Limits In New Software Update
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes There has been a lot of attention paid to hearing loss and MP3 players, especially ones that use earbud headsets, and particularly (of course), the iPod. In fact, if you recall from my earlier story, Apple had been …
March 29th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Shirley says:
My kids will have that lockout figured out in short order, and so will all kids if they’re motivated.
March 29th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
ValuedCustomer says:
“God knows we Americans are way too stupid to just turn the volume down. We can not be held liable for our actions, that would be un-american!”
What are you trying to mean?
March 30th, 2006 at 10:18 am
Shadow says:
He means that most of us are idiots that think the solution to everything in this world is to sue everybody else for the stupid desicions that we make. Ex: Lower the fraking volume you retard, what did you think was going to happen!
March 30th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
ValuedCustomer says:
my question had more to do w/ the inference (Americans somehow have a corner on the stoopid-market) rather than the general gist. I agree, most folks don’t seem to be too clever, but after traveling to pretty much every corner of this earth I’ve realized that stupidity is certainly universal.
March 31st, 2006 at 7:28 am