AppleDisco: Coordinated group musical experience

I enjoy going to silent discos. However, there are a few inconveniences with them:

• Health: The headphones at silent discos are shared, which may turn many people off in this post-pandemic world.
• Hardware: The provided headphones are usually of much lower quality (~$60 per pair). Music quality is much better in AirPods Max headphones.
• Maintenance: People do not generally care for rentals, so buttons or volume controls can be damaged, reducing the lifespan of the hardware. Venue staff are responsible for taking care of the equipment, but they generally care less than consumers who own their own headphones.
• Environment: Current silent disco headphones are sitting in storage most of the time, with different venues having their own sets. Manufacturing something with a short lifespan that is sitting idle most of the time when most consumers most likely already own a pair of higher-quality headphones does not make much sense.

Here is why Apple is uniquely qualified to make this feature:

• Apple already has a patent from 2010 to accomplish this: US8521316B2 (Coordinated Group Musical Experience)
• Apple has strong commitments to going green.
• Ecosystem: Apple has multiple products that would interact well with this feature: iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Music.
• Reach: Apple is a trendsetter, and its base strongly leans toward young people who would enjoy this feature.

Since this would create private/public channels for audio, many other things would be possible:

• Listening to music with your friends, whether they are next to you or in a different country.
• Drive-in movie theaters.
• Hearing impaired people could use this technology at movie theaters, live events, or other venues.
• Exercise classes.
• Guided tours at museums or zoos.
• Other groups who want to listen to any audio together.