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iFixit Teardown Reveals Apple's New AirPods Are 'Disappointingly Disposable' (arstechnica.com)
After tearing apart Apple's new second-generation AirPods, the repair guide site found that there is no practical way to service or repair them even at a professional shop. They labeled them as "disappointingly disposable." Ars Technica reports: iFixit had to go to almost comical lengths to open the AirPods up, and despite their expertise and tools, the iFixit team was unable to do so without permanently damaging the product. [...] That's disappointing, given that the batteries in the AirPods won't last longer than a few years with heavy use, and they're hard to recycle. Apple does offer to recycle headphones through partners as part of its Apple GiveBack program, but the GiveBack Web portal does not offer a product-specific category for AirPods to consumers like it does with most other Apple products. Consumers may simply select a general "headphones & speakers" category on the site.
The teardown also revealed some differences from the first-generation AirPods. The battery is the same size, but iFixit identified the new, Bluetooth 5-ready H1 chip in the earbuds themselves. The site also found some small differences likely related to Apple's efforts to increase the case's water resistance. For all the details, visit iFixit's teardown page for the product. All told, iFixit gave the AirPods a 0 out of 10 for repairability -- that's low even for Apple products. By contrast, the site also opened up Samsung's Galaxy Buds and gave them a 6 out of 10.
The teardown also revealed some differences from the first-generation AirPods. The battery is the same size, but iFixit identified the new, Bluetooth 5-ready H1 chip in the earbuds themselves. The site also found some small differences likely related to Apple's efforts to increase the case's water resistance. For all the details, visit iFixit's teardown page for the product. All told, iFixit gave the AirPods a 0 out of 10 for repairability -- that's low even for Apple products. By contrast, the site also opened up Samsung's Galaxy Buds and gave them a 6 out of 10.
Do you fix burned-out light bulbs, too? At some point, the subsystem is the component.
They are what, $160? Assuming you use for 2 years, that is under $7/month. I am not inclined to cry about replacing them after that 24th month.
I agree with previous poster. They are disposable - who cares?
"But old clothes are beastly," continued the untiring whisper. "We always throw away old clothes. Ending is better than mending, ending is better than mending, ending is better â¦"
This is by design. Making serviceable goods yields very little revenue, especially with "right to repair" laws coming to public focus lately. Apple ran out of innovation, so now they have to survive selling services and disposable accessories - earpods, headphone adapters, charging cables. Why do you think Apple makes everything proprietary? Because even charging cables break and are disposable and Apple doesn't want to miss out on the recurring revenue. I don't use Apple products, but my family does, and they go through cables and adapters at a fairly steady rate (they stop working, not lost).
Now will people believe me when I say Right to Repair won't accomplish what they think it will? It'll just end up pushing manufacturers to create unrepairable products, to force you to buy a new one when it breaks.
Instead, treat it like a lease - force manufacturers to extend the warranty to cover whatever period they won't allow you to repair it. With control comes responsibility. They want to exert control over something after they "sell" it to you, then they're also responsible for fixing it until they cede that control. If they make it unfixable, then the warranty should default to some upper threshold like 5 or 7 years. If an unfixable product breaks within 5 or 7 years, the manufacturer has to replace it at no cost to you.
That'll encourage product designs which are reliable and fixable, and discourage repair lock-in unless the manufacturer is prepared to eat the cost of all the repairs during the lock-in period.
Apple's version of the right to repair. You have the freedom to try, but you'll fail. Makes a mockery of its environmental friendly energy and whatnot image polish.
iFixit Teardown Reveals Apple's New AirPods Are 'Disappointingly Disposable'
I generally don't like to throw things away so I'll go out of my way to repair them but I don't think I've ever seen a set of earbuds that did not fit that description. Even the legendary 3,5mm jack equipped corded earbuds and headphones are a bitch to re-solder to a new jack when the cord gives in to metal fatigue because the copper wires are coated and very, very, very fine and delicate. In fact, apart from the big over-ear headphones from brands like Sennheiser for which you can **GHASP** actually get spare parts, headphones in general are somewhere between a nightmare and impossible to (economically) repair.
Did IQs suddenly drop while I was away? You could feed a family of four with what these cost. When they stop working you just throw them out?! I have a few decent $8 earbuds from over 5 years ago that still work and sound perfect to this day. In my opinion, they make people look ridiculous, at least Spock and Uhura's earpieces looked better on them than these things. I weep for the future.
Average income after paying for essentials is less than $1000/mo. Even if you look at just the $50k-$70k income range, it's only about $1200/mo. At $7/mo, you're spending ($7/$1200) = 0.6% of that on headphones. Or put another way, you can only afford to own 171 such toys. Even a minimalist owns 1.5x as many things. What you're proposing is not a sustainable lifestyle unless your income is substantially higher.
(Of course the counterargument is that you shouldn't be buying these unless you're making six figures. You should be buying wireless headphones which cost on the order of $25 instead.)
People expect these things to be light weight and water proof. You can't exactly make something like that which is easy to crack open and repair. People need to check their expectations against reality.
should NOT be on the market. unless the manufacturer provides repair service at a reasonable cost for a reasonable amount of time (10 years, i'd say for these, or more, would be an expected lifespan if the batteries were serviceable) and pays into a fund that guarantees the buy-back of them for recycling and further provides for other environmental efforts.
They're horribly disposable. Sometimes I see them on the footpath, so people must just throw them on the ground instead of binning them.
Bluetooth Chip "In the Earbuds"? Gee, that sounds healthy for the brain. (Not).
When they stop working you just throw them out?
Why would they stop working if they are well sealed?
If they start to not last as long, you can have Apple replace the battery.
And if they are dead dead you can turn them into Apple for recycling.
The reason they are popular is they work really well, are a good size, and are more comfortable (to me) than any other earbud I have used. They do things like auto-stop playback when you take one out, the charging case is a really nice way to approach charging.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
anyone .. anyone.. anyone??
ohhhh ....
too soon?
Repairability has to stop somewhere.
I mean, say your CPU fails tests. Are you expected to be able to replace individual transistors in your CPU to repair it - clearly not, they are microscopic. It can't be done because that is the way the technology is manufactured.
So where do you draw the line - it appears the line is somewhere between full sized headphones which can be repaired, and airpods which are probably manufactured by machines and a human never goes near them in the manufacturing process.
Take a $10 item, turn it into a disposable consumption item, charge $200 for it, and then brag about how "green" and "environmentally atoned" your business is.
If you buy Apple products, you are part of this problem.
...If an Apple millenialhipsterfanboiette opened up an apple product and found swastikas, bible verses (and not the 'kind' ones) and pro-Trump propaganda scrawled all over the inside of the case with "-and we got your money, fag!" as a final gut-punch.
What's worse than the garbage Apple spews by telling everyone how environmentally friendly Apple is? The literal garbage Apple generates by making products which don't last very long, and cannot be repaired or upgraded.
They're better than everyone else's gold because they are Apple!
iFixit is a parts/tool store. They rate products based on the number of accessories they can sell to help people fix/break them at home. If they can't find anything to shill, the product will get a bad review.
Your idea of product life warranty also encourages REAL environmentalism. Instead of being an i-poser CEO who claims to be green, but then makes products that are designed to last 2-3 that use horrific CVD processes. Nice idea.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
If I spent $200US for a burned-out lightbulb you bet you arse I'd be fixing it rather than throwing it away. Now go back to ruining the economy from your penthouse office you crappy 1%er.
A better question would be: who the fuck wants a pair of crappy headphones for literally 10 times what they're actually worth?
Apple eliminated the headphone jack to save money AND to make MORE money, (having recently acquired Beats, a wireless headphone maker,) by trying to force users to buy something ELSE just to get BACK to the level of functionality and utility they previous had with their older phones, i.e., their own proprietary Bluetooth "+" (basically) headphones or Beats, which I understand incorporates similar proprietary technology to make them interoperate with iPhones and other Apple products (maybe) a tiny bit better (W1 chip) and thus giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. (Cough cough microsoft cough cough...)
If Chevrolet pulled this shit, (for example, just to illustrate how nuts this all is,) this is what it would look like:
The all-new 2020 Chevrolet Camaro will be 7 percent lighter than in previous years, because it does not come with a trunk. "At Chevy," they'll announce, "we're freeing drivers from having to have a trunk!" Where the trunk would have been, the Camaro will now have mounts on the backside of the passenger compartment where you can attach an optional Chevrolet "yTrunk". The reason for this is that yTrunk is so super-advanced it's detachable!
"Chevrolet's new yTrunk opens from the bottom instead of top or back; the floor of yTrunk lowers to the ground for loading and unloading, so you don't have to hoist things up and OVER the back of the trunk." (Audience applauds.) "Starting with a base volume of 20 liters storage space, yTrunk will sell for only $1,795, and is available to buy starting today online or at your local Chevrolet Store!"
Market analysts will opine that Chevy decided the target market for the Camaro would rather have the car weigh 100 fewer pounds, and pay nearly two grand (after taxes and fees) to get a trunk with whiz-bang features they never knew they were supposed to want. "Essentially, it's a lift-gate, so you can just place stuff ON the trunk's floor, and it hoists what you put on that up INTO the trunk," they'll say. It even comes with its own little gas tank, they'll enthuse, because Chevy didn't want it to have to be plumbed into the fuel system of the car itself. That would be dangerous, hard to implement, and defeat the purpose if they designed it to be in any way capable of getting power to operate from the car's fuel source. On the down side, it uses fuel constantly whenever the car's in motion to keep the bottom from dropping to the roadway; and needs to have fuel to raise or lower the bottom. If you let it run out of fuel, not only does the trunk become useless, it loses all your groceries or whatever you had in the trunk if you hit the slightest bump. Naturally you can find out how much fuel is left in THAT tank, but you have to press several buttons on the dashboard just to see what the level IS.
If you don't remember to fill the tank every time, (and NO, you can't just plumb it into the car's gas tank,) it becomes effectively useless dead-weight as you're driving around town, or down the freeway and maybe even a road-hazard and legal liability for you.
Someone will then ask, (at a Chevy Product Launch event in the Louis Chevrolet Auditorium,) why they deliberately reduced the utility of one of their best-selling and most important and iconic cars, didn't lower the price versus previous years' models, (indeed, raised it,) and made it so people had to pay through the nose for something that they already HAD and worked just fine in previous generations of Camaros... moreover, he or she will ask, why do this when the new one has smaller capacity, could get lost, needs to be independently powered to open or close, and could so easily dump its contents while
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.