Last week, Apple announced their third generation iPod shuffle. The new version is so small that the controls don’t fit on the body and are actually located on the earphone cable.

Personally I don’t understand why anybody would want a music player that’s so small you could lose it among the lint in the bottom of your pocket, but that isn’t the reason it’s still in the news.

The gurus over at iLounge reported that Apple have included a proprietary chip in the unit that determines whether or not you are using Apple’s earphones to enjoy your music. It seems that regular earphones will allow you to listen, but if you want to actually control what you’re listening to, you’ll need the Apple headphones to do so.

In iLounge’s words, this

needlessly and seriously complicates controls by switching to a buttonless body, which cannot be controlled without Apple headphones or not-yet-manufactured third-party proprietary remote control solutions.

This will certainly slow down the flood of manufacturers making compatible accessories to a crawl – not only can apple choose whether or not to share the specifications with the various earphone manufacturers, they can also choose who in particular to share them with.

Forget the manufacturers – this is bad news for the punters. It means that they will be stuck with the supplied accessories until such a time that Apple has shared the necessary specifications and in turn, the manufacturers have been able to adjust their production lines accordingly.

Sorry folks, you’re stuck with the tell-tale white ones for now.