WTF is with the iPods these days?

There are actually quite a few aftermarket headphones like that. My Ultimate 5fvi headphones have it, as well as including a microphone into that dongle.

My iPod doesn’t have controls on the headphones. I wish it did - my iPod lives in a pocket or a bag for much of the time, and it would be great to be able to skip, adjust the volume etc without having to reach in, take it out, and open the case.

I really like shake to shuffle when I’m in my car and it’s hooked up to the radio. The thing I HATE is that you can’t hit “back” if you shook it to shuffle and listen to the song you just accidentally missed.

FWIW, I found the default iTouch music player lacking, the controls are too tiny to hit while you’re driving or busy with something. I found a player called FlickTunes that lets you use one, two, and even three fingered screen gestures to control the music; next song, previous song, pause, play, volume up/down, etc.

If you have the right kind of iPod, you can use one of these. Unfortunately all the brands seem to have low ratings. I have the Schoshe one for my iTouch. It works fine but I had to return the first one I had because of a bad connection, and the replacement one has had a couple of connection issues as well, although not bad enough to motivate me to return it again. Anyway, if you can find one that works, it’s a good solution for you and also for mkecane if he wants to buy a third-party set of headphones.

Seems to be turning into an epidemic there–it’s what may have caused all the reception issues with the new iPhone. I’ve been hearing that all the engineers are being slaved to the design team. I.e., the design team comes up with something that looks really cool, and everyone else then has to find a way to make it work–even if it won’t.

The only time I had a music player with cord controls was on a CD player (which could also play MP3 CDs), and it was a whole separate part of the cord. I.e., the part of the cord with the controller plugged into the player, and then regular headphones plugged into that controller. (You could also plug headphones straight into the player and use the player’s built-in controls. I just liked being able to lock those, chuck the player in my bag, and then clip the controller onto a strap or something like that.)