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Apple files papers for a mono playback option on the iPod

By Joshua Schnell Thu, Jul 22, 2010 @ 12:01 PM

6a0120a5580826970c0134859d1f51970c 800wi 500x260 Apple files papers for a mono playback option on the iPod

I know a lot of people who prefer to listen to audio podcasts in mono (We know we need to get back on our daily podcasts). Some people even prefer to have the option available to them when they’re listening to music. I’m not one of those people. Personally I think stereo audio tracks are created for a reason and we should use them when we can, including in podcasts.

It seems like Apple’s heard the cries for mono control on the iPod, so they’ve been working on a solution that would let a user switch between audio and mono playback options. Kids on the playground are probably rejoicing right now. If you can remember the days of rocking a walkman or cd player during recess, you probably remember being stuck with the crappy ear bud with bass and drum beats and a faint lyric track. Man did I hate that. Hell, I still hate that at concerts. Anyway, Apple’s filed the paperwork for a patent on their algorithm and hopefully this nifty little feature makes it into the iPod lineup. Kids everywhere will be thankful.

Article Via Patently Apple

  • http://grantbrunner.com Grant Brünner

    Stereo has it’s uses. If the engineer really knows what he/she is doing, it could even be a great listening experience. However, most engineers don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, so they have weird shitty mixes with the xylophone in one ear and the tambourine in the other.

    For the majority of situations (ESPECIALLY in podcasts), mono is either as good or better than stereo in my opinion.

    • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

      I almost deleted this as spam. ;) In other news, we have two ears for a reason. lol.

  • Kelly Coyle

    I can only hear out of one ear, so having mono would would be a blessing.

    • http://www.macgasm.net Joshua Schnell

      Now that’s something I never even thought about. Is there any products on the market that convert audio for you already?

  • http://mswebby.com Mike Weber

    The newer iPhones already have this option under the accessibility section (my old iPhone No-G doesn’t). I wonder why they need a pantent for it?
    http://www.apple.com/accessibility/iphone/hearing.html (see Mono Audio)

    Looking at the picture, I think they are pitching this to teenage girls that like to share a set of headphones and listen to the same music. I see it all the time on the train.

    I’m also deaf in one ear and have the same problems as Kelly. It’s a huge p.i.t.a. with stereo music; I’m constantly choosing between guitar and vocals by using my good ear with the right or left ear bud. One solution is to get a stereo to mono adapter, but they are huge and clunky, and are sometimes too big to fit in around the headphone jack.

    So I’m also mono++

  • Geoff

    I shot Apple an e-mail precisely about this on July 20th, pleading them to cater to people like me who suffer from single-sided deafness. Looks like they’re actually going to do something about it!!

    Right now, they have a “mono audio” option available for the iPod Touch as of Fall ’09, where both channels are “merged” into one earbud and played on both earbuds. Hopefully they can transfer this feature onto the iPod Classics in a firmware update or something similar.

    The thing with those stereo-to-mono adapters is that, yes they do channels into one earbud, but you cannot control which earbud that is. So even though my left ear is deaf, I’m getting the sound out of the left earbud; I have to switch the headset around to hear properly and it ends up feeling unnatural.

    There’s already a way to bypass these issues in iTunes, where you can go to Edit > Preferences > CD Import Settings > MP3 (or any format which supports mono) > Custom > Mono. You can then right-click any song in your library and click “Create MP3 version”. Problem is, you have to re-convert all of your existing songs (in my case it’s thousands), so it’s a long and tedious process. Additionally, the quality is slightly reduced and although you “hear” everything, the individual channels are no longer as clear and defined (probably due to the merging process). I end up wanting to keep the original songs as well as their mono counterparts and this can take up a HUGE amount of hard drive capacity.

    Well I’ve gone on for a while. Kudos to Apple for listening to me and other sufferers!