Earphones

I miss a pair of earphones that is currently lost somewhere between the tangled wires of several other useless white earphones. I miss them not because they produced better sound and definitely not because they fit better. That particular pair of earphones came with a portable cassette player that I had won in a competition that involved chewing a lot of Wrigley’s gum. You would think Philips continues to make products that make sense and remain simple. Sure they do, but this is one place where they’ve actually undone the good work they started.

They weren’t designed to be cool, they just were. To add to the coolness, they were available at my local grocery store for Rs.100(2 USD). That’s not all. They tried to correct the one fundamental design flaw in every other set of earphones I have used till date, which is what I wanted to talk about in the first place.

I have been using Philips, Sony, Panasonic and Apple earbud earphones. All of them came bundled with portable music players. The best one came with the cheapest portable music player you could buy then. Now they just don’t come with any bundle, however cheap!

All I need to do to show you the design flaw and how it was corrected is to add some colour to my most recent pair of Apple Earphones:

That’s it. One change. That’s what I’m making a big fuss about.The Philips earphones used blue and red to distinguish L and R. I did not have to twist them and turn them to be able to make out how to wear them.

Apple can make this change. Sony can. Philips can make it again. Those earphones were beautiful. And I miss them. Now. Even more.