Apple's in-ear headphones look and feel high-quality, as we saw first-hand at the recent launch. They include two balanced-armature drivers in each earpiece, three pairs of differently sized silicone ear tips, a screw-on metal grille covering the aperture, two extra replacement grilles and a plastic case with a cable wrap.
They also include an in-line set of playback controls on the cable (play/pause/skip), along with a tiny microphone that activates the voice-recording feature on the new iPod nano. They're listed on the Apple Web site at £55 and as 'coming soon'.
Apple makes some amazing software and hardware, but we had doubts they would devote internal resources to designing a pair of headphones as good as the ones we were holding. We naively asked an Apple rep who it had worked with to make these headphones. No comment.
We have a theory about who's cooking up Apple's high-end earphones (any guesses?), but in the end, it doesn't matter. Apple will probably sell a shedload of these things, especially to customers who've only ever heard their music through the tin-pan earbuds that come bundled with their iPod. Take a look at our video for more. -Donald Bell
