Q: I have a pair of Shure SE210s and will soon have a second-generation iPod touch. I was wondering if the Shure Music Phone Adapter’s music controls worked for the iPod touch. I heard that double clicking the call button is used for skipping songs.
Also, if you could recommend any other inline music control solutions for my iPod touch and Shure earphones I’d greatly appreciate it.
– Luis
A: The MPA-3C adapter will work as expected with the new second-generation iPod touch, fourth-generation iPod nano, and the updated 120GB iPod classic in much the same way as it does for the iPhone—pressing the button will pause and resume playback, double-tapping the button will skip to the next track, and triple-tapping the button will skip to the previous track.
As an added bonus, the inline microphone on the MPA-3C should also work for any third-party applications that provide voice recording or other audio input support.
The 2008 iPod classic and the fourth-generation iPod nano both include built-in voice recording capabilities that support the MPA-3C and other inline microphone solutions that were designed for the iPhone. Unfortunately, the second-generation iPod touch does not include a built-in voice recording application, and at this point voice recording applications developed for the iPhone cannot be installed on the iPod touch (although this appears to be due to nothing more than an “iPhone-only” compatibility flag in the application itself which will hopefully be resolved in updated versions from the various third-party developers).
While there are also third-party microphone solutions available from Griffin and Monster, if you’re using any of the SE series Shure earphones such as the SE210’s, the MPA-3C is probably the best solution due to the manner in which it simply replaces your existing extension cable with a mic-enabled option.