For me that's the main problem of Apple headphones: they are utter crap in terms of sound quality.
Another problem I could see: you add weight to the chord which will make the headphones more likely to fall from the ear, that's a big deal if you do sports with it.
These headphones are the standard issue Apple headphones but we could release a higher quality headphone with the same magnetic cord. As for the weight, the magnets are so small they make it only slightly heavier, about the weight of a quarter. From our testing there is not much difference. The magnets secure the split cable under your chin so they stay in place while running.
How much does the just the headphone cord weigh (i.e. without the ear buds or the jack)? I would guess it's less than a quarter, so that you're more than doubling the cord weight, but I don't know. It's the proportional change in cord weight which is important.
I haven't had tangled headphones since I started using a cord-wrapping technique I found on LifeHacker years ago, as shown in this video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IImQNcIyf18>.
I'm not sure that I'd want to buy custom earbuds just for this particular feature. As jsherry suggested, this is something that (IMO) would be better licensed to name-brand headphone manufacturers.
If you can secure the patent, sounds like licensing might be the way to go here. Competing on the quality of the headphone is an entirely different (and expensive) problem, crowded with a ton of established companies. And if the headphones you produce aren't of decent quality, my hunch is that people won't buy them b/c sound is going to trump the inconvenience of tangled wires.
They are currently patent-pending. We are working with a manufacturer who already produce headphones. They make a range of models from cheap, average quality headphones to expensive high quality models. We can incorporate this design into all of them.
Yeah but are they Sennheisers? Are they Koss Porta-Pros? Are they as attractive as Skullcandies? People take their choice in headphones very seriously and for many reasons other this magnet thing. I'd buy this if it sold as a kit that I could mod my existing cans with, but I'm not going to switch headphone brand just to have slightlier easier cables.
These will likely be prohibitively expensive given the cost of materials. Considering that the headphones cost $29 and that each magnet (in bulk) costs $0.90, you're looking at headphones that cost $99.20 to produce in materials alone. After labor, fixed costs, and profit, you're looking at a very expensive pair of headphones with bad sound quality.
This is a cool idea but the price of rare-earth metals might be its undoing.
It's fine to put magnets like this on hard drives. They are not strong enough to do any damage, especially given the space between the platters and the magnet that the case of the drive and iPod ensure. (Credit cards with high-coercivity magstripes are similarly immune.)
Other commenters here seem to think that they wouldn't be a problem. I would find out definitively and say one way or the other on your product page. Geeks will worry about it.
The only models in question would be the hard drive based models. There will be no problems with the iPhone, iPad, iPod nano or shuffle. The iPad case uses these same magnets.
They do a very good job staying how you place them. If you didn't wrap them and threw them into a bag you will have problems but if you neatly wrap it before you toss them into a bag they will stay nice and neat.
I'm confused about the Compatibility section. Do these headphones not work in non-Apple devices? If so, why? I wasn't aware that there were proprietary specs for headphones. I use the standard Apple headphones in other devices all of the time without issue. What is different about this product?
The headphones will work in non-Apple devices. The compatibility is for the attached mic/remote. The microphone will most likely work in other devices but the remote probably will not.
Am I the only one that can use the Apple provided slider, slide it to the top, then wrap my headphones neatly and put them into a pocket in my bag and have them come out the same way they went in?
I haven't had issues with tangled headphones for years now...
Once someone pointed me to the Better Way to wrap headphones [1] I also haven't had a problem with tangles.
Though Apple increased the stiffness of the stock earbud cords at some point, so using this method (IME) can cause the cords to spiral and twist in weird ways. The extra weight of some magnets might well hold down that problem. [2]
This just isn't a big enough issue for me to move away from high quality sound.
ps: it's pretty sweet how this problem belongs to Apple. If headphones are Apple's biggest product problem, it's because their headphones suck, not because the cords get tangled.
For me that's the main problem of Apple headphones: they are utter crap in terms of sound quality.
Another problem I could see: you add weight to the chord which will make the headphones more likely to fall from the ear, that's a big deal if you do sports with it.