It is the same bet they have made repeatedly with their phones. Smaller sim card (obsoleting old approaches) - removing headphone jack, switching to lighting, doing totally sealed (but durable) devices etc.
It's generally paid off - oddly people seem to prefer used apple products (ie, beleive in their durability) over used logitech headphones or android phones - so the actual life of apple products ends up being pretty long.
Apple's battery service fee is $49 for airpods and useful life is perhaps around 3 years, if you keep wanting to replace the batteries every three years. My quick sense is that most folks may retire their airpods after the second battery (6 years in) at the longer end.
So far their approach has paid of tremendously for them.
I am curious what other headphone providers are doing here. Ie, how easy is it to get a fresh set of batteries after 3 years that are of high quality and replace them. I've gotten burned replacing batteries in products with amazon replacements and the mfg sometimes doesn't even stock or sell new batteries for their devices so I've gone with Apple for now - if you go into their store for a new battery I've never had a problem with quality.
The question I have is if they are able to meaningfully recycle the used AirPods or if they just end up in the landfill?
Yes it's still wasteful, but one of the absolute least impactful places to start optimizing your life given how useful the things can be over their 2-3 year lifespan.
First they get sold as refurbished products in their primary market, or sold in 3rd world markets at a discount, and then they end up in landfills.
I've always just cut the old ones to fit and it's worked fine.
Apple apparently DOES offer battery service for these, but it's $49 PER AirPod. If it was $49 for both I might be up for it.
Apple's battery service across the board is just too damn expensive. I get that it's the labor costs involved, but I wish they would put more thought into this.
I have three older iPads, a few older iPhones and a MacBook Air that are perfectly usable minus the batteries. but it would costs hundreds of dollars to replace them all so they just end up sitting in a bin because I don't have the heart to toss them.
I can't imagine the genius bar has tweezers and microscopes for battery replacements in-store...
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo+DS+Lite+Battery+Replac...
and here's the battery that you can order for $15 on Nintendo's official store. https://store.nintendo.com/battery-pack-nintendo-ds-lite.htm...
Needless to say, I said no thanks. I'm about ready to throw these away and I'll probably buy a pair of Sony headphones this time.
Their laptops and phones do not have replaceable batteries, why would their headphones?
Practically, an iPhone battery is replaceable in you average mall tech shop in a mid sized town. In the 5/6 era, it was a 30 minute job if you’re being slow and careful. (I’ve got 3 screen replacements and 2 battery swaps under my belt from that era).
My understanding of the AirPods is that the complexity level is more akin to component level fixes for a main phone board. I’d expect that there are people who can do it, but they’re rare, and they’ve got specialized equipment, and it’s probably not worth it for an earphone battery.
> An update to Monday’s report: Apple has confirmed that the new AirPods Pro are no more repairable than previous versions of the wireless earbuds. The pods are made partly with recyclable materials but due to size and build process (i.e glue) it doesn’t repair. Just replace.
If they aren't replaceable by you, they aren't replaceable.
It is true, and it is indeed a pretty decent deal. $49 over the course of a few years is imo a reasonable price I am willing to pay for this. They also have a similar reasonably-priced battery replacement program for iPhones as well.
That's like comparing a car to wheels. Laptops/phones have infinitely more use cases to them. Headphones are accessories.
What are you talking about?
To replace the batteries: $50 each airpod, $50 for the charging case
My understanding is that opening an AirPod without damaging the plastic casing is close to impossible to do.
My guess would be they replace them then strip the components out of your returned AirPod or charging case and recycle/reuse what they can.
https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2019/09/airpods-face-sti...
Now I'm looking at iFixit teardown and it looks very different.
I guess you're right.
I think that's about the right tradeoff for something that will be done once every 2 years.
ipads, iphones, even some modern mac laptops that have the disks soldered and batteries glued, etc.
Airpods are an exception to the rule here.
I wonder where this narrative comes from, can you please explain why do you think that Apple products degrade rapidly and are thrown away?
That's an entire generation of Apple laptops of all kinds - Apple MacBook Air 13, Macbook Pro 13, Macbook Pro 15 - all of them having their keyboards eventually malfunctioning, and ultimately needing their keyboards refurbished or replaced outright.
If you think this doesn't indicate Apple has a quality problem I don't know what you're thinking about. (They admitted it themselves and have a repair program that basically has their entire slate of MacBook products on permanent free repair for the foreseeable future)
And by the way, when you take your laptop to Apple, and they offer to replace the "Top Case" for your laptop for free, where do you think it's going? the battery probably goes to refurb, but a large portion of it is just getting junked because it has a genuine design issue to begin with.
Macbook Pro from 2008: Still boots iPhone 4 (2010): Still functioning (although obviously does not run latest OS) iPhone 5s (2013): Still functioning (running iOS 12 just fine) iPhone 7: (2016): Still flawless