Over at PCMag.com, Mark Hachman has a good piece on the controversial new earbud-embedded remote control for Apple’s new iPod Shuffle. Folks have theorized that Apple will demand royalties on third-party headphones that incorporate remote controls, and that it might be encrypting commands send from the remote to the Shuffle to prevent unauthorized clones. And maybe even that it was planning to spread such a design to other iPods.

Hachman’s piece is based largely on an interview with a Monster Cable exec; that company plans to make lots of Shuffle-compatible headphones, and says that the commands aren’t encrypted and that it thinks that manufacturers could make compatible headphones without Apple’s blessing. On the other hand, the remote functionality apparently does fall under Apple’s “Made for iPod” logo program, which involves paying a fee to Apple if a company chooses to participate.

Bottom line: It looks like the remote may be a new revenue stream for Apple, but that it isn’t a nefarious plot to monopolize the iPod headphone market. Which doesn’t mean that the Shuffle’s design won’t continue to be controversial. I seem to be one of relatively few reviewers who was sort of won over by it–not that I decided it makes sense for everybody–and I remain very curious whether consumers will end up giving it a thumbs up. (The most obvious way to tell that will be if the design continues on to the fourth-generation Shuffle, whenever that shows up…)

 
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