Steve Jobs Makes My Ears Hurt

Filed under good times at everyone else's expense, music is my boyfriend, stuff i like

The only sad part about Steve Jobs being dead is that now I’ll never get to tell him personally how awful the iPod earbuds are.

Seriously, is there anyone out there who regularly uses his or her iPod or iPhone and hasn’t bought separate in-ear earbuds for it? And if you haven’t, is it only because you’re cheap and don’t believe that you should have to purchase new ones when you already paid for the sucky ones that come with every Apple purchase?

Kamran bought me some of the in-ear ones a couple of years ago, and the moment I put them in, I was like, “HOW HAVE I SPENT THE LAST THREE YEARS IN MISERY WHEN THESE EXIST?” Because the Apple earbuds are miserable. When my earbuds from Kamran started only half-functioning last week, I pulled the crappy Apple ones out of my old Nano box–I had clearly hung onto them because I anticipated wanting to punish myself for something later in life (maybe this post?)–and was immediately reminded that they almost seem engineered to suck.

Not only are they way too huge for my delicate, feminine ears, but because they don’t actually fill my ear canal, I now have to actually, like, hear children talking about the nonsense they always do to their parents on the bus. I had to listen to a kid complaining about wanting her hair brushed for TEN ENTIRE MINUTES the other day. Why are you not brushing your kid’s hair, mothers? And why are you letting them audibly complain about it during my morning rush hour commute? AND WHY DID YOU THINK THE WORLD NEEDED YOUR SPAWN IN IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Anyway.

Apple earbuds are the very worst, and here are ten much better alternatives I found in five minutes of Googling:


bullets


Jelly Bellys


rubber ducks, which Tracey bought for me, because rubber ducks are of course my favourite animal


Care Bears


Mickey Mouse


Mario


Domo


Superman


M&Ms


cupcakes

I win this one, Jobs.

19 Comments

  1. Mere says:

    My sound engineer brother gave me a set of Phillips noise-canceling earbuds for Christmas several years ago. I LOVE THEM. I use them at work. I use them on planes, in cars, at home. You can use the noise canceling thing alone, which has come in handy in hotels or if you’re in a room where someone is snoring. And they have a soft rubbery cover for the part that goes in your ear. The iPod earbuds are a torture device, and I’m always shocked at people I see walking around using them. I thought my ears were just deformed, but apparently it’s not just me!

    • katie ett says:

      I would looooooove those. I rarely notice outside noise with just my regular, non-fancy earbuds when I’m out in public, but I definitely notice it on planes.

      I really thought that maybe my earholes were just unusually small, but then Kamran told me that he likes the in-ear ones better, too. And no one’s accusing my boyfriend of having small earholes, ifyouknowwhatImean. No, you don’t know what I mean? Sorry.

  2. Serial says:

    You cold-hearted bastard! He said inspirational things! And was adopted! And Arab!

    (really, I don’t care.)

    • katie ett says:

      And also a charity-hating non-charitable charityless moneyhogger. Maybe.

      Anyway, yeah, the adoption thing is kind of neat.

      • Serial says:

        Also, I like using a mouse. Oh, and my macbook and my iPhone.

        But otherwise: Waste of SPACE.

        Who happens to be the same age as my parents.

        I think I need to call my mommy. Sniffle.

        • katie ett says:

          Steve Jobs didn’t invent the mouse! (I learned that this morning from Kamran. I had no idea that this idea even existed until then.)

          I owned a Mac in college and now own a PC again. I use a Blackberry, though I appreciate that Apple probably made it so that my Blackberry has a touchscreen. I love my iPod, and I love Kamran’s iPad. I respect the guy. I just don’t care to see Ashton Kutcher’s tweets about him all over my news programs.

          Say hi to your mom.

          • Serial says:

            Well, I wasn’t thinking he single-handedly invented the mouse. I thought it was an Apple Innovation or something though. You’d think those details would’ve stuck in my head after spending half of the day reading about him.

            Also, Kam REALLY hates Steve, eh?

  3. Cassie says:

    Dude, a 56 year old guy DIED. That’s so horribly sad.

    Admit it, you’re just jealous that he’s still richer than you’ll ever be and he’s dead.

    • katie ett says:

      I mean, sure, he was born the same year as my dad, so the idea of my dad being old enough to reasonably die is a little scary. And sure, it’s sad. But not every-moment-of-my-CNN-morning-broadcast sad. And certainly not every-site-on-the-Internet-honoring-him sad.

      I do think his company changed the world in a way, though. So there’s that.

  4. caropal says:

    Well, he’s dead, so I don’t know if it was much of a competition…

    • katie ett says:

      He knew this day was coming, and rather than have to lose to me, he chose to forfeit.

  5. Julie says:

    Those M&M ear buds are perfect!

    Do you think that I’ll get a phone call soon from a lawyer informing me that I was actually Steve Jobs sole heir? Cause then I could use the money to buy an IPOD and some M&M ear buds.

    Really, though, am I the only one who doesn’t own ear buds? Or anything that I would ever plug them into?

  6. Jessica R. says:

    I also hate those ear buds. They’ll work in a pinch, but I bought some noise canceling ones on the cheap when Circuit City was going out of business that are so much better. Though I do sort of wish I had those M&M ones now…

  7. Sandy says:

    Huh. I thought I just had bizarrely small earholes (I have freakishly tiny hands; feet, too, though my big toe is enormous). I’ve been wearing some big SONY studio headphones forever, which are fine, except when you’re trying to catch your plane to China and the extra-long cord is whipping around everywhere.

  8. Dishy says:

    I hope you know you’ve made the angels cry. THE ANGELS CRY!!!!

    I can’t listen to an iPod anymore. So I can’t use any of those adorably cute ear phones above. But when I did actually enjoy them I like them old school, baby. Think 70s headset w/ lots of foam.

  9. Tracey says:

    Amen, sister. Those ear buds SUCK. Even the ones that came with the 1st edition Gameboy were better.

    Dan thinks you’re especially cool for not writing a sappy tribute post to the guy like everyone else. He’s always been a skeptic toward religious-acting Mac lovers, even though he just bought a new I-pod, so the Internet has been a very annoying place for him this week. He’s mostly just super-annoyed that so many people have been crediting him and thanking him for Pixar when he had zero creative input and was just one of their big shareholders.

  10. I kind of wanted to cry when I found out Steve Jobs was dead, but that’s probably just because I’m 98 months pregnant and emotionally unstable due to The Hormones.

    (I actually screamed in the car last night – while on our way to pick up a pizza with extra anchovies, mind you – “DON’T FUCK WITH PREGNANT WIFE, PERKINS!”)

    Didn’t you find some pig butt earbuds one time? Because I want THOSE.