“Dave Legeret silently fumed as the man seated beside him on the plane blasted techno music on his iPod at full volume,” Erin Carlson reports for The Associated Press.
“‘It was kind of rude,’ recalled Legeret, 38, a jewelry designer from Sandy Hook, Conn., who was forced to listen while flying from New York City to Disney World with his wife and 8-year-old son,” Carlson reports, “‘Listen to it at a level that just you can hear it and everyone else doesn’t have to be subject to it.'”
Carlson reports, “Apple Inc.’s ubiquitous iPod is best known as an instrument of solitude – unless the user ignores standards of etiquette by invading the eardrums of fellow commuters, officemates or other innocent bystanders. Then it starts to get annoying. Especially when you’re stuck in close proximity.”
Carlson reports, “Anna Post, an etiquette instructor at The Emily Post Institute, said she’d heard a story about a woman who asked an iPod-using subway rider to turn down the volume, only to have her request ignored. So she used another tactic: Singing along to the music. ‘And, all of a sudden, boy, did that iPod get shut off,’ said Post, who stressed that ‘a little social shame can go a long way.'”
“‘I got to the point where I’m like, ‘You know what? You really can’t beat it,” said Aimee Wendt, a 27-year-old web designer from Madison, Wis.,” Carlson reports, “‘If you look around, there are so many people with iPods – you might as well join ’em.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Jim – TIV” for the heads up.]
Punk on bus: [plays loud music on a bus with boom box]
Kirk: Excuse me.
Punk on bus: [doesn’t listen]
Kirk: Excuse me. Would you mind stopping that noise?
Punk on bus: [turns it up louder]
Kirk: [louder and firmer] Excuse me! Would you mind stopping that damn noise?
Punk on bus: [flips him off]
Kirk: [looks at Spock]
Spock: [gives the punk the Vulcan nerve pinch, knocking him unconscious (his head hitting the boom box turned it off), with much applause from fellow bus passengers]
[Thanks MacDailyNews reader “ChrissyOne” for the refresher. (below)]
Star Trek IV Geekery in an MDN take. This is a good Wednesday. š
Maybe if Dave wasn’t such a wuss, he could have asked the guy to turn it down.
If you sit there and silently fume it’s your own fault.
Excellent MDN Take. One of my fav movies.
“Captain, I have noticed your use of colorful metaphors.”
As the MDN take points out, this has been a problem for years….so why focus on the iPod yet again?
Same thing was said about Sony Walkman and now with people screaming into their cell phones. Common decency applies here.
In comparison to how many other portable music players there are and have been, iPods are no more dominant than the walkmans or discmans of the world. This is nonsense.
As you can see, this problem is limited to the iPod and is an issue that Apple needs to address. No one gets annoyed by Zune users cranking the volume on their little brown box. Mostly because it’s near impossible to find anyone using one.
hey maybe dave was still feeling the effects of too much LDS!
I was an extra in the movie. Some of the outdoor scenes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Good pull MDN.
I’m slightly peeved that the iPod has to be the negative example yet again as if before the iPod there was hardly every any similar problems.
However, it does make me want to suggest that Apple, and ALL manufacturers of personal listening devices, including pocs [plain ‘ole cell phones] give the listener a clue about what volume settings on their respective listening devices represent the threshold of where others at a given footage begin to perceive your personal tunage. I realize it would be somewhat subjective with lots of variables, but it would be helpful anyway.
Found myself in the same situation… tapped the guy on the shoulder and told him we all could hear his music, and asked him to turn it down… He complied readily… no problem… the others on the plane were glad I spoke up…
“Spock: [gives the punk the Vulcan nerve pinch, knocking him unconscious (and magically stopping the boom box noise), with much applause from fellow bus passengers]”
It wasn’t magic. The guys head hit the STOP button. Sheesh!!!
Not exactly an iPod story, people have been annoying from the first walkman (as noted). I asked a lady to turn hers down once and got kicked in response.
I agree with RL, well said.
On the other hand being offended by annoying things that people do and say is a part of everyday life.
We have to get used to it and deal with in our own way even when it really pisses us off big time.
I have to put up with a ton of crap every single day in the course of a job and just living. Everyone does.
It’s all part of life, children.
piss on em
I just want to know where they keep the nuclear wessles.
Once again, common people have been distracted from the real problem and are jumping in the worng direction.
It ain’t the iPod that is the noise problem…
IT IS THE CRAP HEADPHONES THAT PEOPLE ARE WEARING!!
Now who can recommend a decent pair (under $400US) please?
No sound leaks from my Shure in-ear headphones – tell people to buy them instead!
The fault is Apple’s, who makes CRAPPY earbuds that lets half the sound come off your ears. If they made a DECENT in-ear phone, with silicone tips, people would use half the volume than usual, and preserve their ear drums.
Just the thought gives me post-pranidal upper-abdominal distention.
MDN Magic WordĀ®: filled
Mikal in NYC, US$400 is the price of a really professional in-ear phone. If you’d like to spend that much, get the Ultimate Ears Triple.fi. It’s the top of the top.
But if you want something great and cheap, get a Sennheiser CX300, Sony MDR-EX90 or Audio Technica ATH-CK7 or CK9. They’re wonderful and cheap.
I get the feeling that if I ever went to a Star Trek convention I would get the chance to meet you all.
@MIKAL
Sennheiser CX300
Apple store has them, as do others of course.
@stuart
I think she was no lady!
@SniperMac
Thx for the advice…I would like something not too cheap but with good bass response also.
I will check out the ones you have recommended.
And yes $400 is not what I intend to spend.
How is this an iPod phenomenon? I remember idiot with their tape cassette walkmans doing the same thing.
Oh… capitalize on a popular brand. Now, I get it…
Nothing new here especially for the people old enough who used the Walkman in the 80’s.
The guy really wasn’t talking about iPods, he was talking about MP3 players in general. It’s just that iPod so totally dominates the market that “iPod” has become a generic term like Kleenex for tissues or Coke for cola drinks.
I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, but it is.
what a load of crap.
We used to have walkman’s in the eighties,
I never heard someone specifically complain about Sony.
Funny me, I thought iPods had NO speakers. ???? Maybe the noise from the ear phones was SO LOUD that it overcame the HUGE drone of the jet engines???
But then again, I guess the shreeking coming from the other mp3 players was a pleasent relief.
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Still, from the article above, I am not really sure what this guys complaint was??
en
Of course anyone listening to any mp3 player full blast is going to go deaf pretty quick anyway
The guy should’ve sliced him across the face with his hidden box cutter
I do realize that this is the iPod generation, but it’s not like portable music players were invented yesterday. Teenagers with Walkmans used to do the same thing. Before that, it was transistor radios. Sometimes you just have to get in somebody’s face instead of blaming the poor music player!
Thanks … for the refresher below… below the what? I’ll be darned, I thought MDN were using eunuchs.
The best part of the article is at the end when the author basically says, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” and recommends that everyone get their own iPod.
And in other news… When you are trying to sleep on a Greyhound bus or an Amtrak train during the night, people like to tell everyone about their entire lives ALL NIGHT LONG.
STFU already! No one wants to listen to you while they are trying to sleep, you stupid dee-dee-dees.
That man should have been grateful to have been in the vicinity of the ipod. Inbred microsoft moron.
It was twenty years ago that I asked someone on the train to turn down their WALKMAN, not their “portable personal cassette player”. (He did. Smiles all ’round.)
The interesting thing is that, as pieter De Becker pointed out, no-one complained about SONY back then, but there was lots of irritated rattle about “Walkmans”, even though other companies also made personal cassette players.
Do you think Sony minded that the word “walkman” was being used, even though Panasonic, Toshiba, and Aiwa all eventually pushed their own devices, not named “walkman”, onto the market? ( Walkman Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman )
I wonder how upset Apple’s marketing department is, that the common term for an MP3 player today, is “iPod”?
I have the Shure E3C earphones, and I love them. Great bass response, as long as you insert them correctly. They’re worth it at $150. I have heard that the E2C’s are also good ($99).
I’m sure a similar article was written when Sony’s Walkman was all the rage. And before that, the transistor radio. The real news here is that for the popular media, the iPod is no longer a specific product, but the general device for (in this case) listening to music too loudly and bothering nearby people. Go iPod…
Why do teenagers always get the blame for loud music.
Us old folks have to crank it up because we can’t hear a damn thing until you turn the knob past 10.
OK, dumb MDN take.
1.You can’t play “boomboxes” on the bus.
2. Boomboxes? Really? Is this 2007 or 1987?
Considering all the engine noise, conversation chatter, snoring and screaming brats…
If someone is upset that they can hear the faint sounds of techno coming from my headsphone…
TOO FUCKING BAD!!!
Too bad? HAH ! ! !
That’s why I carry an ice pick.
Back in Mozart’s time, you had these powdered punks in purple breeches screeching away on their violins (in 5/4 time!) on public carriages giving ladies the vapors and irritating true gentlemen. They were usually beaten unconscious and left in shallow graves.
This is another example of Apple trying to get away with paying us less than what is rightfully ours! Those individuals on the plane and elsewhere were PIRATING our music in “sharing” it with bystanders without authorization – and the people who were hearing it were also pirating it as they didn’t own (er – license) it.
We demand that Steve Jobs immediately:
1) issue a software update to disable the iPod volume from being turned up past 25%
2) implement audio “leak detection” DRM in future iPod revisions that will detect audio squirting out from around the headphones and will automatically bill both the iPod user and the bystanders at a per-minute rate based on the popularity of the song being played
3) Pay us $20 per iPod sold, just in case the above measures fail (we know that users will find some way around them, being the sneaky, theiving, no-good little cheats that they all are)
The part of the annoying punk with the boombox in that Star Trek movie was played by William Shatner’s son, AFAIK.
Sorry, no, it was a producer on the film named Kirk Thatcher….
Why are people acting like this is a new phenomenon? I remember the same thing being said when the Walkman came out in what, ’82 or whatever.
Anyway, I have to agree that it is rude. Get a pair of canal phones so you can blast your choons as loud as you like, while not disturbing those around you. If you have the means, I recommend the Etymotic ER4P’s. Absolutely amazing sound. Worth every single penny.
Magic word: Tinnitus
Prolonged exposure to noise levels as low as 70 dB can result in damage to hearing (see noise health effects).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus
Last week while flying back from Los Angeles the guy next to me was listening to his iPod and passing gas the whole flight. All I could do was sit there and smell this gasbag iPod user.
Damned iPods.
Impossible an iPod never overrules the airplane noise… a Handy is very irritating in public.
@ TMF. After the vapours one would need the vespers!!!
@ schmluss. Do you think that was the Camel’s Milk Drinker? sounds like the sort of thing he/she indulges in!!!
“Star Trek IV Geekery in an MDN take.”
When you run a fanboy website from mommy’s basement, what do you expect?