Some of us have been handed a nasty surprise from Apple after recently updating to IOS 14.2. Our phones have a feature called headphone safety which notifies us that the volume of our headphones is too high and lowers it back down autonomously every 20 minutes in some cases.

Once you update your phone to iOS 14.2 there is no longer an option to disable/modify this headphone safety feature).  Okay, so what’s the big deal? Well, first thing, ethically speaking, medical concerns such as hearing loss, which this feature is trying to prevent, should remain a personal choice.

The feature/restriction has been designed terribly. It cannot differentiate between Bluetooth headsets, Bluetooth speakers, and Bluetooth receivers for your car radio. We typically listen to music quite loud on Bluetooth speakers, since they are typically further away from us, however since the phone cannot differentiate between a Bluetooth speaker and Bluetooth headphones, it assumes your listening to headphones too loud and lowers the volume for you to 50%. If you higher the volume manually it will continue to lower it every 20-30 minutes. This experience becomes dangerous when driving as it forces you to either pull over or reach for your phone and fiddle with the buttons while driving, which can have dangerous consequences.

Professionals who use their phones to broadcast music to external speakers are left out in the cold with this feature. Individuals who are already deaf/ acoustically impaired are also penalized by this feature, are they not as important as the rest of us?

We have tried reaching out to apple, and we were met with disappointing results.  The recommended help was to submit your feedback to apples feedback page: https://www.apple.com/feedback/ Upon accessing the feedback page, there isn’t even an option to report any feedback for iOS 14.2 bugs/ features.

Shockingly, posts submitted to the apple community boards/forums kept being deleted, and I was personally threatened to have my apple ID deleted and ISP blocked if I continued to raise awareness in regards to this issue. This is truly a first for Apple, in 13 years that I’ve been a customer, I never thought I would get threatened this way. So one must assume there is no help coming, no consideration, no willingness to engage in discourse by Apple in regards to this with the impacted users.

Apples mythological existence was largely propelled by the introduction of the iPod, a device that made it easy for us to enjoy music, how we wanted, where we wanted. Today, amongst so many limitations due to the global pandemic, all we really ask is to please, let us enjoy our music uninterrupted, un-convoluted, we need this right now, for some of us, music is the only thing we have left to keep us afloat.

We discovered that the new regulation in place is UL 62368-1 clause 10.6, however, the regulation dictates that a visual warning of the effects of extend exposure to loud sounds should appear every 20 hours if a user listens to music at a level greater then 85 DB for extended periods. We understand Apple needs to follow regulations, but their implementation of this regulation is much more intrusive and irritating then it needs to be. Samsung phones do not lower your volume every 20 minutes regardless of what volume you listen too, it warns you about the harmful effects every 20 hours of music listening.

This petition is to invite Apple to return to its roots and Think different ™ Apple, please implement a different solution to abide by the regulations that isn’t so toxic and intrusive. We need our music.

This is not a smear campaign against Apple, we just want to be heard, much like we just want to hear our music. Therefore, I ask you to share this petition anywhere and everywhere in forums, tech websites, media and email a copy to tcook@apple.com.