Hi,
this was the thread that finally made me register to the forum.
First of all, many, many thanks to Elispus for mentioning the standards. This question was bugging me for years. I am currently using a Galaxy Nexus until my FP2 arrives, and I had a headset not working and couldn’t find out why. Ok, I’m still found no specification for my phone and obviously no headset seller sees it necessary to give information about the used standard, which drives me nuts. But thats just my rant to this topic.
Why I answered is actually this very useful information; concerning your specific problem the following part is important:
Additionally, Apple has patents on their TRRS connection- in fact on the resistances (the actual ohm resistance in-line on the controls- not to get scientific or anything ) so that the headphones are designed to work only with Apple products. In other words- you could have a device with the same TRRS Pinout as apple products- but the headset wont work because the resistances (ohms) of the headphones send signals that your phone is not allowed to interpret into the correct actions (since apple patented these)
I hope this helps.