Apple's white earphones, from an iPod Shuffle. Photo Liam Dunn, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Wired earbuds
What it took directly
- documentedThe white wired earbud comes from Apple's iPod headphones, designed by Jonathan Ive and sold from 2001"But earbuds didn’t hit their market peak until after 2001, when Apple started selling them for use with MP3 players. The white iPod headphones, designed by Jonathan Ive, would become a status symbol for early adopters" Daniel Engber, “Who Made That Earbud?”, The New York Times Magazine (May 2014)
- documentedThe earbud took from the Sony Walkman, whose owners wanted sleeker headphones in the 1980s"But the major burst of earphone innovation did not occur until the 1980s, when the Sony Walkman was introduced. Consumers wanted sleeker, less obtrusive headphones for their portable devices." Daniel Engber, The New York Times Magazine (May 2014)
- inferredThe earbud's rubber tip comes from the rubber-covered tip of Ernest Mercadier's in-ear telephone receiver (U.S. patent 454,138, 1891)"This nipple is adapted for insertion into the ear, and is ordinarily covered with a rubber cover to lessen the friction against the orifice of the ear." inferred — Mercadier's own patent describes a rubber-covered tip made for insertion into the ear, and the Smithsonian notes its likeness to today's earbuds; no source traces a direct line from it
- statedJohn C. Koss's SP/3 stereophone (1958) took from World War II military headphones"At the dawn of the transistor era, John Koss Sr. designed a set of commercial headphones using World War II military headphones." Koss Corporation's company history
- statedJohn C. Koss's SP/3 stereophone (1958) took from the portable stereo phonograph he built with engineer Martin Lange Jr."In 1958, John C. Koss teamed up with engineer Martin Lange, Jr. to develop a portable stereo phonograph player with side-wing speakers." Koss Corporation's company history
- documentedThe headphone took from Nathaniel Baldwin's prototype headsets, sent from Utah to the U.S. Navy in 1910"In 1910, a particularly memorable letter written in purple ink on blue and pink paper came from Utah native Nathaniel Baldwin, whose missive arrived with a pair of prototype telephone headsets offered for military testing." Jimmy Stamp, “A Partial History of Headphones”, Smithsonian (2013)
What it learned to do
- documentedNathaniel Baldwin's headset learned from the U.S. Navy's suggested changes, which made it comfortable enough for everyday use"The Navy offered Baldwin some suggestions for a a few tweaks, which he promptly incorporated into a new design that, while still clunky, was comfortable enough for everyday use." Jimmy Stamp, Smithsonian (2013)
The tradition it sits in
- documentedThe earbud comes from Ernest Mercadier's in-ear telephone receivers, patented in 1891"His design is an incredible feat of miniaturization and is remarkably similar to contemporary earbud headphones, down to the use of a rubber cover" Jimmy Stamp, Smithsonian (2013)
- documentedThe headphone comes from the headsets of the U.S. Navy and of telephone operators"The first headphones were used by the US navy and telephone operators: bulky contraptions consisting of moving iron transducers that were uncomfortable and threatened users with electric shocks." Caspar Llewellyn Smith, “Now hear this: the history of headphones”, The Guardian (October 2011)
- documentedThe earbud comes from over-ear stereo “cans” that shrank, after the Walkman, to on-ear and then in-ear designs"Stereo headphones evolved to become smaller. Circumaural "cans" enclosing the ear gave way to the superaural designs – those that sit lightly on the ear with a piece of foam padding and intraaural, which sit inside the ear lobe." Caspar Llewellyn Smith, The Guardian (October 2011)
- documentedThe earbud comes from listening tubes on Thomas Edison's phonograph"Thomas Edison attached stethoscopelike headphones to his phonograph machine, which played sound off wax cylinders." Daniel Engber, The New York Times Magazine (May 2014)
- inferredThe earbud comes from a two-line ancestry: in-ear tips (the stethoscope, Mercadier's 1891 receiver) and over-ear headsets (Baldwin, Koss), which met in the small headphones of the Walkman years"In-ear listening devices had been around for at least a century." inferred — the New York Times traces in-ear devices back a century and the Smithsonian traces the over-ear headset through Baldwin and Koss; neither joins the two lines, and that join is this page's reading
Where the whole form comes from
- documentedThe earbud comes from the stethoscope, whose ivory ear tips doctors used from the early 1850s"Starting in the early 1850s, doctors inserted the ivory tips of stethoscopes into each ear, and a few decades later, similar “ear tubes” were used to listen to recorded music." Daniel Engber, The New York Times Magazine (May 2014)
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