There has been a lot of talk about how dumb Apple was with this new headphone jack design, that is recessed and needs an adaptor to work with 99% of the headphones in the market.

Today, being one who could not listen to audio into his car due to said jack, took my dremel to my AUX extension cable and trimmed, oh 1/8″ of the plastic shealth off. The connector is still protected, no exposed wires and it fits snugly.

Observations:

• Apple may have done this on purpose, to strengthen the jack via the narrower, metal top. I can’t tell that there is any play, and that seems like it would be less likely to break the solder on the headphone jack and mean fewer repairs.

• The audio pops loud if I plug the cable in when the radio is on. I think my old ipod did this also, but I rarely used the headphone jack in the car due to my (now non-working) Monster charger/line out adaptor. Turn down the radio first!

• The iPhonePod keeps different volume settings for headphones compared to the built in speaker, just like the Mac does. Nice.

• The iPhonePod pauses the music when you disconnect the headphones, like iPods do.

I spent $15 at The Beaverton Mac Store on a Invisible Shield for my iPhone.

You essentially:

1. Clean your ipod with a lint free cloth
2. Wash your hands very well
3. Spray your fingers with their solution (essentially soap)
4. Peel the skin off and place in hand, smooth side down
5. Spray the skin, both sides.
6. Slide around on phone, until speaker hole and button hole align.
7. Use included squigee to get bubbles off.
8. Wipe off excess water
9. Let dry 24 hours (took only 6 in this warm weather)

I have two very small vertical anomalies, like little cuts, that I can see when the screen is white beneath them, other than that you can’t tell its there.

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I called jott.com and left myself a message while the music was playing at 90db using my jawbone and the iPhone. Its not as good of a test as I had hoped because if you pause at all Jott thinks you are done and stops recording. However, compared to the Mac Book Pro using bluetooth, its clear (pun intended) that the iPhone’s bluetooth is much, much better.

Here is the text of what Jott thought I said with 90 decibels of music playing at times:

Okay, so I am going to use Jott to record a second test this is a silent room just talking on the job on[1] I am going to get some audio going with iTunes at 19 decimal[2], okay the audio was[3] playing now and now I am going to go head[4] and turn off the no[5] active noise cancellation so now the actual noise cancellation is off, I am going to go ahead and send[6] it back and I will check on and we will see what it sounds like a[7] Jott.

You can listen to the original audio from jott (snagged via wiretap pro from jott’s website) here.

[1] Jawbone [2] 90 decibels [3] is [4] ahead [5] noise (hey I had no script) [6] set [7] through

Here is an audio example of the Jawbone bluetooth headset being used in conjunction with my Mac Book Pro while iTunes blasted 90db of music 6 feet away through my stereo.

Listen

It seems as though the noise cancellation needs a few seconds to settle, so its best to not start talking right away. Let the headset settle and then start talking.

Apparently my MacBook Pro sucks for bluetooth audio. Before you use this demonstration as an example of Jawbone’s audio quality for a phone, please see this post

On Sunday I bought a Jawbone bluetooth headset. The audio quality is fantastic. The construction, not so much.

The first one broke during the first day, or was broken when I got it, I was so busy all day hard to tell. The power connector snaps over the end of the Jawbone, which I love, but that end is also a button (for pairing and toggling noise cancellation). Apparently its very fragile and you need to remove the charging cap “like a piece of celery and snap it in two” according to Jawbone support. If you wiggle it side to side, it’ll pull on the tabs that hold the end button on and potentially break them.

Oh well, fine. Really the audio quality is fantastic.

So I drive back to Apple this am and exchange it. They are out of black units on the shelf, so the employee goes back and finds one for me. He processes the return and sends me on my way with my new unit.

I get home and open the box - Something didn’t seem right, but whatever, I have a conference call and gotta work. After a couple of hours the headset is charged (You have to charge it fully before using it, according to the manual) and I get a call. I press the talk button - Nothing. Sigh. I reset it. Nothing. Talk button is DOA.

I call Jawbone support and they of course say this is unheard of, but whatever, return it. Alright, fine. Really the noise cancellation is worth it[1]. I drive back to the Apple store after lunch and hand the guy the second dead unit and receipts. He says “Did you pay for this one?” “I think so? The other guy asked if I wanted to keep it on the same card, handed me two receipts and off I went.”

I guess I got the second unit for free! Bummer it was dead. Heh. Alright, I get a third unit from the shelf and he has me buy this one, then return it, then exchange it for itself, just to keep the books straight. Fine.

I get back to the car and decide to charge it using my Griffin car charger and it hits me. This thing, like the first one is covered in tape. On the sides, on the top. Hard to get off tape if you don’t have fingernails like me. But the second unit, the one the guy got from the back, was not sealed. So apparently I had been given a previously returned unit.

So Jawbone is not doing very well in the quality of hardware area. Hopefully this one works.

[1] I will do a recording via the Jawbone and Macintosh once its charged to demo the unit. If it works that is.