Trigger Finger

Seriously, why are companies not falling over themselves to produce fully functional iPhone headphones? The stock ones are as terrible as ever, but I am forced to use them fairly frequently. The main reason is that they act as a hands-free kit for the phone as they have the click button and microphone that enable me to make and receive calls. With normal headphones, every time a call comes in I am forced to fumble around, rip the headphones from the phone and then eventually accept the call (extra dangerous when driving!).

Why are the OEM Apple iPhone headphones so bad? Well for one thing, the sound quality is the usual tinny/baseless quality as normal ipod headphones, but the other thing is that they absolutely refuse to stay in anyone’s ear for more than 5 seconds. It’s not just me, I have asked maybe 6 or 7 people to test them for a little while and they all report the same thing… it’s like they were designed to actually repel ears! When driving, it’s almost to the point where I cannot look left or right at junctions without one or both buds falling out. So I have a choice of either not looking left and right (dangerous!) or fumbling around after the junction trying to find them again after they have fallen out (just as dangerous!).

When not using them I have a wonderful set of Sennheiser PMX70′s  which are truly the best sounding headphones I have ever had the pleasure of popping in my ears. Unfortunately the band around the back of the head is really uncomfortable when lying down, reclining in a chair or generally sitting in any relaxed position. So I would like to get the OMX70′s instead as they would essentially cut out the only bad part of the headphones… the band, yet still stay in my difficult ears.

But of course then I would still be in the situation of having no hands-free iphone function and checking out the alternatives is a depressing alternative.

V-Moda were out of the gate early with some fully iPhone compatible headphones, but reviews are mixed. The sound quality and build quality seem to have a lot of question marks raised about them. They have the mic and the click button for full control of calls and music; the most thorough review I have see is Macgirl’s  and I would be prepared to take a chance on them if they were so seemingly expensive for a dubious sound/build quality.

Errmmm and thats it! I cannot find a single fully-compatible alternative to these.

So here is the challenge for readers, and manufacturers. Tell me of some fully iphone-compatible headphones.

By fully compatible I mean:

• The headphone Jack Fits in the iphone without the need for an adapter
• Has a built in microphone that can be used for calls
• Has the music/phone control button (or similar implementation) that the OEM headphone have

For Bonus Points:

• They will be some "can’t-fall-out-of-the-ear" solution like the PMX/OMX 70′s above
• They would be cordless (bluetooth)

If you are a manufacturer, get in touch about a review and i will give them as fair and objective test as I can, and guarantee to sing your praises from the hilltops if they are suitably boombastic!