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Comment by bsamuels | Hacker News Reader

I will personally love to see someone justify spending $250 on wireless earphones whose batteries cannot be replaced.

I'm a year and a half into my normal airpods and they already need new batteries.

Why spend $100 on a nice dinner, we'll just have to eat again in 8 hours.

There used to be an expectation of longevity in the electronics we purchase. Even while Moore's law was in full effect, you could find good uses for a 6 year old computer. Today's computer hardware can easily remain fully usable for a decade. The notion of buying a laptop or phone, let alone headphones, every year is ludicrous and actively harmful to the environment.

Let alone headphones? You could throw away a pair of AirPods every day and it would still constitute a tiny fraction of what (Americans) produce in waste on a yearly basis.

"It doesn't matter how much garbage I produce, everyone else makes way more!"

Replace "everyone" with "large corporations" and I think it's a pretty sound argument.

Uuuugh. This line of thinking, though rooted in good intentions (hold corporations responsible for better behavior) is deeply flawed.

Corporations don't exist in a vacuum. They have customers they're serving. We don't get to just pretend our behavior doesn't matter because some bogeymen (corporations) are doing worse things, then continue to voluntarily hand our money to those very same corporations.

We (individuals) bear responsibility, too. We vote with out dollars. Yes, we can't control the other 7.7 Billion people on the planet. But we can control our own behavior, and lead by example.

I like this line of thinking too, but there should be a line drawn somewhere between consumer's responsibility and law maker's responsibility to hold corporations accountable for their environmental impact. It is not a single person at home dumping pollution into a river or factory smoke into the air. And it's downright difficult for an average consumer to know what impact each option for a purchase has on the environment.

I think it's an argument somewhat like the "don't water your lawn in a drought" argument - even in aggregate, domestic/consumer impact is miniscule. 2005 numbers say that domestic water use is 8.5% of freshwater use, and of that, irrigation is at most 5.3% (the "other" category). Yet we in California were told to let our lawns die or given money to convert to high-efficiency landscape.

An average shower uses 17 gallons of water. A single pound of almonds uses 1,900 gallons.

Anyway, all this to say that I think the GP's argument is convincing.

> The notion of buying a laptop or phone, let alone headphones, every year is ludicrous and actively harmful to the environment.

Is this notion in your head? My electronics, especially recent ones, last many years.

That is the point I was making. The devices last (as we both have experienced), but today it is "fashionable" to dispose of them and buy new ones on a schedule much shorter than their lifespans (because of some new gimmick that provides an inconsequential improvement in the usability of the newer model).

My point is that perhaps you might have that impression, but what does the data say?

Even higher income people I know don't swap out their phones and laptops every year. It's a pain in the ass to reconfigure everything, and even when the devices get replaced, the old ones get passed down to the kids or elders.

http://www.asymco.com/2018/02/27/the-number/

Perhaps low end devices are getting replaced more and more often, but I would bet high end devices get used for much longer. Especially with a widening wealth/income gap, how would people even afford to replace working electronics for no reason?

Well, batteries have never had a long useful life, and since the batteries (Airpods + case) make up most of the mass, replacing the battery would have most of the environmental impact.

The answer then, is that goods like this may not be worthwhile purchases, comparing the environmental impact they cause to the limited (nonexistent?) benefits that they bring to our society.

And who gets to decide “the benefits to society”?

Could you say the same about everything that uses a battery? We could all just be using payphones.

I'd be glad if we all could use mobile phones where we are able to change the battery. There is no way around, batteries are wearing parts. And I know that most phones (and even laptop computers) use small/weird form factors to use the even the last bit of space available, but I'd be glad to do with a little less battery life, if I just could switch batteries.

That still doesn’t help the environment. The batteries can be changed and they still have to be disposed of. Having less battery capacity doesn’t help. In fact, you would need to change them more often.

You must have lived in a different "Used to be" than I did. I owned multiple Walkman style cassette players back in the 80s and if you got 2 years use out of those foam covered headphones, it was a small miracle. Even buying replacement foam, the cords got snagged and destroyed quickly. Also, the cheap plastic doors on the players were notoriously prone to failing. Not to mention all of them were powered by disposable batteries which powered them for just a few hours and had to be tossed out.

Exactly this. When in-ear buds became the standard (90's?), the lifespan would be dictated by how quickly the cable frayed.

Step 1: superglue

Step 2: tape

Step 3: buy new ones

I agree about the headphones, but I got a full decade of use from my WM-D6 Walkman Pro and its (optional, removable) rechargeable battery pack. I replaced it with a WM-D6C which still worked the last time I tried it, a few years ago now.

High-quality gear was definitely available in the '80s, if you were willing to pay for it — and might have been cheaper in the long run.

So instead of tiny, expensive headphones last 18-24 months, you had an even more expensive cassette player which might last 5 years, with headphones that lasted less than a year, and expensive bulky rechargeable battery packs which lasted about 6 months if you were lucky.

How is this better than a set of headphones which last 18+ months? Just the NiCd battery packs were something like 20 times bulkier than the AirPods and lasted less than a third the time with careful use. Normal replacement cycle on those battery packs would be more expensive over 2 years than my AirPods, particularly if you consider inflation.

I'm not suggesting it was better overall; I'm not sure how you read me that way. I'm just saying that reliable gear was available.

(Only 6 months out of a set of NiCds??? I got multiple years out of more than one set. NiCds are very easy to take care of; just remember that they need exercise. Always drain them fully before charging, and make sure not to overcharge.)

I’ve been using the same etymotic ear buds since 2004.

This is such a bad frame of mind if you're someone who owns more than a dorm room of stuff. I used to feel like this about stuff. "Oh it's just $100 and we use it every day, totally okay to replace every few years."

But it adds up when you start having to replace 100 different "it's pretty cheap given how often we use it" items in a year.

And it's not just the cost. It's also the time you commit to being a consumer. Thinking about which one to buy, reading reviews, etc. Some people enjoy being consumers and that's fine. But it takes away from what I want to be doing with my life. I want to buy something once and not have to think about it for a long time.

I don't think people have a frame of reference in their short lives to realize just how much time they spend being consumers and how that doesn't have to be normal.

> I want to buy something once and not have to think about it for a long time.

A thousand times this ^ And ideally for everything: phone, computer, headphones, clothes, etc.

Personally, I own one pair of pants that I know will last about 2 years before I need to replace them, then just buy exactly the same pair again. Same with t-shirts, except I own about 10 of the same and replace 2 or 3 once a year (each one will last 2-3 years).

Kind of trying something similar. My jeans seem to be tough enough, but I’ve had a hard time with t-shirts. I’m looking for plain t-shirts without logos. What brands do you buy?

For nice t-shirts without logo, check Muji (their bio cotton collection) or Uniqlo (their Supima cotton collection). Less than $15, great fit, good enough durability.

A little pricey, but they're merino so can be worn a few times without needing to be washed, and they're amazingly breathable and quick drying.

woolly.clothing

For t-shirts, Banana Republic (although they keep changing the styles and colors slightly over time, which could also be considered a good thing).

For jeans, Levi's.

Haven't really tried too many brands, but those two were good enough for me that I don't feel like I need to make the decision for those two items ever again.

Is the cumulative time spent screwing around reading reviews, comparing brands and choosing products more than the time spent replacing broken things? Just buying the cheapest thing that does what you are looking for saves a heck of a lot of time.

Everybody loves to go on about quality but quality doesn't always pan out in terms of time or money cost. There's plenty of cases where some thing you've bought will meet its end in a way unrelated to whether it's high or low quality. If you really want to optimize you have to tailor your purchasing to your specific use case.

I've tried all kinds of strategies.

A simple approach is to just pull the trigger quickly on whatever has a million 5 star reviews and looks acceptable and is cheap. This feels environmentally offensive. Throwing away something that 99% works with one broken part. I feel sick when I have to do this.

Another approach is to try to get something expensive but durable and fixable. Unfortunately we live in a crappy future where nobody has any pride anymore and nothing's built to last decades. I have a 30 year old jigsaw I got from my grandfather and I frickin' love it.

I don't think I own 100 items that use batteries. I mean, I'm curious, and I'll make a list, but I'm definitely not replacing things every year.

I've got a MacBook that's a few years old, an iPhone that's two years old, and AirPods that are less than a year old, and... my Apple TV remote is many years old and still only needs charging every couple of months. My Kindle is many years old and only needs charging every couple of weeks. My two USB power bricks still seem to be doing well. One is three years old, the other almost a year old. Apple Watch is about two years old, still makes it through almost two full days on a charge.

I think everything else electronic either plugs in or uses replaceable batteries (garage door opener, car keys).

I might be forgetting something, but 100 items is an order of magnitude more than I think I use, and I'm not replacing most of them most years.

And yes, I clearly consume a lot of Apple kit. I like to think I don't do so blindly, though.

I'm speaking more generally, not just about battery replacement. I cannot be in the mindset of disposable merchandise because I would be thinking about this stuff all the time.

Perhaps using numbers that are an order-of-magnitude out of line aren't helpful to your main point? If you're talking about replacing 100 items per year in a world where even ardent consumers of electronics own less than one-tenth that an replace, on average, none, that seems like a hard case to make.

I think there's a trend toward seeing electronics as consumable that bothers me, and I try to think carefully about my purchases, and yet somehow I've still ended up with at least eight items that use non-replaceable batteries, and maybe others that are "disposable" for other reasons.

Still, for each item I own, I've considered the "disposable" nature and yet bought it anyway.

To put this into perspective, you produce more waste with a grocery trip or a takeout order than you do with owning AirPods.

So let's start with the more impactful stuff before we get down to headphones that are used several hours a day every single day for a couple years.

Not to mention Apple has an extensive recycling program for most of their products.

> To put this into perspective, you produce more waste with a grocery trip or a takeout order than you do with owning AirPods.

That is probably only true in the US given the amount of regulation on compostable bags and boxes we have now in the EU.

Secondly, e-waste is orders of magnitude more difficult to dispose of and it often contains some rare minerals that got mined in some war zone in Africa: that should give you more of an incentive to recycle than some random styrofoam container.

Why charge your phone, you can just buy a new one tomorrow.

Your dinner isn’t made of mold injected plastic.

Dinner for many people in the world was made using fertiliser, or feedstock was. Fertiliser is often nitrogen based, made from ammonia, made from natural gas. Using natural gas and oil is often worse than plastics (which somewhat embed the energy).

https://grist.org/article/2010-02-11-tracking-u-s-farmers-su...

That's your argument? That we should now expect high-end consumer electronics to last as long as something that is literally consumable? Weak sauce.

Yes, if the _only_ reason you need to replace an item is because the battery can't be replaced, that is only because it is in the manufacturer's interest to make it that way. It is not in your interest. They've got to keep you on the endless upgrade cycle one way or another, it gets harder as products mature and become 'good enough.

Perhaps there are alternatives that allow you to refill your plate with the original nice dinner for a fraction of the cost of the plate+dinner.

Just don't go to Starbucks 50 times!

you are not required to buy ugly wireless earbuds with a battery that only last a few hours... you are required to eat though

Yeah you might want to read up on climate chance.

I have Apple's PowerBeats Pros. They cost $250, and the batteries cannot be replaced. I expect them to last about two years, based on AirPods usage. And the footprint on those things is so minuscule in comparison to other aspects of my life that I could easily improve, I feel no need to justify my choice whatsoever.

EDIT: another comment prompted me to explain better. Money aside, for a bit of trash I get two years of entertainment, a quality experience, more enjoyable runs, something to listen to on my commute, a voice assistant for when my hands are full. All for a little pile of garbage after a few years. Now let's take a trip down the street to the teriyaki place close to work. EVERY TAKEOUT MEAL THEY SERVE generates more garbage than my earphones. If not the lithium batteries, for sure more plastic by weight or volume (let's not forget the styrofoam, either). For something that's going to be forgotten and floating in the toilet tomorrow morning.

I don't eat at the teriyaki place anymore for the above reasons. Leave me the hell alone about my headset choices. /EDIT

Though with a minute of thought, I'm pretty sure I could mount a reasonable argument for disposable, but smart, earphones reducing my footprint. But that's a longer discussion and beside the point. EDIT: for one example, see user ogre_codes experience with Walkmans.

Why would AirPods usage be a useful model for estimating the expected lifetime of Powerbeats pros?

What other data do I have to go on? PBPs have only been out for like a year. I figure I'll use the new ones in patterns similar to the old ones. PBPs have a bigger battery, so if I get two years out of AirPods it's not unreasonable to expect the same or more out of PBPs.

Miniaturization carries a stiff penalty. I'd expect the size-class needs to be similar before one can make a meaningful comparison.

> let's take a trip down the street to the teriyaki place close to work. EVERY TAKEOUT MEAL THEY SERVE generates more garbage than my earphones

This is a superficial analysis of waste, because it only takes into account the finished product, not the production process.

Let me introduce you to the best pair of headphones for travel that I own:

Bose QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones, Apple Devices, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X9KV0HU

They are $250, wired and have a small battery brick that is not replaceable that is charged by micro usb.

The newer one by Bose is one of those neck things and is $300.

I've owned the QC20i (two of them actually). The battery was never the issue. The durability was! I take a great care of all my electronics. And no matter how careful I was, the QC20i never lasted more than 2 years without some sort of connection issues.

Agreed. I've had 3 or 4 of them over the years - great headset and in particular noise cancellation (airplanes, trains, etc.), but man, they break so easily. The plastic on the "brick" comes off, the little plastic ridge that holds the ear tips in place has come off on one side (so the ear tip falls off constantly), if you have the thing plugged in with the airplane adapter to the socket in your armrest and stand up, the whole 3.5 mm plug can rip off, the cable frays, etc. etc.

Just as another anecdotal data point, my QC20i lasted 2 years, and then I tried to clean them, and the little metal grill went away. I thought it would be good to still have them, so I went to a local Bose store, and they were willing to fix it, which was pretty nice. I've had mine since 2015 and they've been around the world with me multiple times.

oh I had a pair of those for YEARS. LOVED them. Battery lasted ages. great small size for traveling. I wish they had a better form factor (I hate that neck thing format).

The Sony 1000's are so much better than any of the Bose noise canceling headphones

The Nuraphones are better than the Sonys and the Boses.

You can't "replace" the battery, but Apple will give you a new pair as the "replacement" for $69 out of warranty.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2019/03/04/apple-airpods-batte...

that's $69 PER bud

What's killing me is the doublespeak. "We must be eco friendly ! we must save the world ! climate change bad ! look at our renewable energy data centers ! yay !" and then they ship you products that are either unfixable or you need to replace half the product to change the broken part.

Is there some type of battery technology out there that would be better? The batteries are half the product.

> Is there some type of battery technology out there that would be better?

I think the argument is yes, there is - end user replaceable battery.

And since most of the mass of the AirPod + case is the battery, how is it really helping with the environment if the battery is the most toxic part?

It's much more ecological to recycle a battery than to recycle a 100% working product because the internal battery died.

When more than 50% of the mass is the battery?

Yes, as then the whole product doesn't have to be produced from scratch - just the battery.

In the older bose headsets you could slap an AAA batteries and be good for a while. These types of batteries won't disappear anytime soon.

Anyway, in 5 years when bose stops producing the qc35 battery pack no one will be able to replace them whereas people using bose qc25 will just have to get new AAA batteries. Either apple talks the talk and walks the walk or it simply shut up about climate, no one cares about virtue signalling if it's to fuck the user for 3% more margin in the end. I'm surethey could have designed it better and fit at the very least user replaceable batteries.

And you still are having to throw away the batteries - the most toxic part of the device. By mass, the three batteries are most of the mass.

> In the older bose headsets you could slap an AAA batteries and be good for a while. These types of batteries won't disappear anytime soon.

You'll generate far more waste from AAA batteries in the time it takes for the Airpod batteries to require disposal.

There are rechargeable ones.

Yep, just like in the Airpods. And just like the ones in the Airpods, they'll eventually stop holding a charge. The only difference is, they're significantly bigger than the Airpods, and have more of the toxic waste.

Apple is a premium brand, and so you pay premium prices.

$250 seems in line with high-end noise-cancelling earbuds: https://headphonesaddict.com/best-noise-cancelling-earbuds/

Can't speak to quality since they're not released yet, or the complaint about replaceable battery, but I imagine the demographic of people who want a replaceable battery isn't the largest, and for better or worse Apple has eschewed replaceable batteries for going on a decade now.

I dunno, I felt the same way about the normal Airpods until I relented and bought them and its almost weird to say that its been a huge quality of life improvement for me. Running is far more enjoyable without the cables. Pretty easy to carry them around too.

But then again I didn't shop around the other brands at all.

I have a $30 set of over-hear bluetooth headphones I use for running. I'd describe the sound quality as "reasonably good" and the battery life as "excellent".

5 minutes shopping around on Amazon.

For sure, I mean I always knew I could find something else looking around, but I was into the idea of having something that connected super easily and that I could trust would work. Plus half of my co-workers had them and swore by them, word of mouth is a powerful thing.

I use behind the neck BT headphones with over-ear cups as I'd be worried about sweat on an expensive piece of equipment I use every day.

I put my airpods through the washer and dryer about 2 weeks into ownership (oops). They still work perfect to this day, almost a year later. I also run a couple miles every other day with them in, during the summer that means 90 degree weather and me drenched in sweat. Sweat is a non-issue for them.

Same experience for me, but I do understand that they don't snuggly fit everyone's ears.

I got about 18 months out of my first pair of AirPods before I lost them and while battery life wasn't great at the end, it was mostly tolerable. Seems like 18 months - 2 years is the typical lifespan of headphones for me. They they get lost, batteries die, the earbuds wear out, cables get broken, take a bath, etc.

I bought a second set of AirPods after losing my first and when these die/ get lost/ take a bath/ whatever I'll either buy another pair or maybe upgrade to the $250 ones... with the expectation that they will last 18-24 months. For me, the form factor is worth it.

We already went through the "why buy an X whose batteries can't be replaced" when the iPhone showed up. Same reasoning: between smaller size, greater capacity, less breakage, and wanting a reason to buy the new model ~2 years hence, most are happy to replace devices over dead fixed batteries.

I'm on conference calls >4 hours daily. Wore out my AirPods series 1 set, bought a replacement series 2 (wireless charging) set a couple months ago, no question would have ordered the Pro today if not having just bought the series 2.

Compact convenience has its own value.

People are already spending that much on the power beats pro, sennheiser momentum true wireless, and sony wf-1000xm3. It's only $50 more than the AirPods with wireless charging case.

These would be a day one purchase for me if I didn't already have the over-the-ear Sony WH-1000xm3 headphones for 90% of my listening and a recently purchased set of AirPods for the other 10%.

How do you like the WH-1000xm3’s?

I think they’re a really dumb pair of headphones considering the fact that they automatically connect to either my phone or laptop at random and I have to reconnect them by holding the power button for 5 seconds every time to switch between laptop and phone.

Despite this, the sound quality is pretty good... but it still doesn’t justify how relatively dumb these pair of headphones are.

What makes me mad about the Sony headphones: they can’t be used as a microphone when connected via a cable.

I like them quite a bit, haven't run into any issues like that. I use them with my phone 95% of the time so switching devices isn't a big deal for me.

The airpods do provide a better experience when it comes to connecting and switching between devices (at least apple devices).

Anecdote: my OG AirPods still have great battery. How often do you use them during the day? Also how do you know the devices need new batteries?

I use them for about 4 hours a day, about 1 conference call every other day.

I know they need new batteries because from full charge, they won't get through a single hour-long conference call anymore without blasting the low battery warning.

I used to be able to eek out about 2 1-hour conference calls before getting the warning.

Surprised you can wear those things that long. I've found my iPhone or MBP speaker have better noise reduction than the AirPods, and they're not comfortable to have in for multiple hours at a time.

When I need to do this - I only wear one AirPods, and keep the other charged in the case. Mic quality seems improved also with only 1 AirPods.

I guess that I’m the odd headphone user that buys them to listen to music with. Didn’t know people bought them to replace the batteries.

You can get the batteries of your AirPods replaced, it seems:

https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service

The wording on that page shows replacing the batteries mean they give you an entire new Airpod (or 2). They say "replacement airpod" instead of "repaired airpod".

Great for the environment...

And if they "replaced" the battery -- the thing that causes the most environmental harm???

The electronics and plastic casing are in working order, no? How much did producing those cost the environment (materials, energy, waste by-products), not throwing them away would make sense.

I see everyone bringing this up, but what if they’re taking them back to their shop, repairing them and selling them as refurbished?

They will just replace your AirPods. Not actually replace the batteries. iFixIt[1] had to physically cut them open to get to the battery, there's no way Apple is actually replacing the battery as opposed to recycling what parts they can and tossing the rest when they come in for service.

[1]https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+Teardown/75578

Interesting, I didn't know that. But if you look at it purely from a cost perspective, it's at least a lot cheaper have the airpods swapped for 2x $49 when the battery dies, compared to buying a new pair with case for $199.

Obviously replaceable batteries would be even better. How do other brands of wireless earbuds of the same size fare in this regard?

TCO is pretty brutal for anybody who bothers to do the back of the napkin math on how long the batteries will hold out (IF you don't lose or break them first) but the experience is pretty good. The aesthetic appeal, the sound quality bump from the elimination of cable knock, and practicality are nice.

I would go as far as to call wired IEMs inherently inferior if price is no object and I don't care if you're buying a $1000 pair with an amp. You're buying a less practical product with a sound quality improvement only in SOME situations. The only reasons to go that road now are running time (if you listen to music ALL day) or cost.

Still either lifespan needs to improve or price needs to drop or both these to be a non-stupid purchase for the vast majority of the market. Most people really don't have the disposible income for these including half the people who buy them.

Still shocked Apple gets such good PR about their environmental work when one of their most popular products is 3 batteries in plastic sarcophaguses that needs to be replaced every 18 months.

At the end of humanity there will still be corroded burst airpods and funko dolls washing up on beaches.

My food truck curry order contains more unrecyclable waste than AirPods.

So have you found rechargeaeble batteries that don't need to be replaced in 18 months?

Recall that Apple is big into 100% recycling. Don't discard dead AirPods, get them "repaired" (replaced) at cost and let Apple recycle the components/materials.

What about all the people who are just going to chuck these in a landfill instead of properly recycling them? Apple can get all chuffed about acting like they're green, but they have to know these are landfill fodder.

If you look at through the lens of cost per use. 1-2 dollars a day isn’t that bad.

If you look at it through the lens of cost selling weapons to saudi arabia and burning fossil fuel is somewhere on the top of the list too.

I've had the OG Airpods since release, and haven't had to replace battery. Not sure how often you use yours, but I'm on maybe 1-2 hrs a day and still can go almost a week between needing to charge.

I use mine every day for at least an hour of running. Yesterday they ran out of power at just over two hours of running. I have had mine for a couple of years now.

I’m looking forward to buying these new ones as they are water resistant and the original model is not, requiring me to dry the sweat off of them very carefully.

They don't advertise the water resistance but I run with mine drenched in sweat and have never had an issue. I also put them through the washer and dryer (not in the case) and they work fine almost a year later. I wouldn't worry about carefully drying them..

I have not had the same success as you. I do a lot of running and I sweat a lot while running at full speed. Formerly, I would put my AirPods into their case as quickly as possible after a run to avoid losing them. The charging contacts ended up becoming corroded and I have cleaned them off multiple times to get the batteries to charge. The AirPods were not fully wet, they just had a sheen of sweat on them. Now I set them out to dry in the air for a while before putting them in the case. I suspect the new version will have the same problem. They are not really meant for vigorous exercise.

[Edited to answer your question to which I cannot reply because it is marked as dead:] The corrosion to which I was referring is clearly oxidation to my eye. It has a green color and requires scraping. Maybe our environments and usage are too different for comparison. I live in Central Florida, where it is quite hot and humid. According to my receipts, I bought these AirPods on April 5, 2017. I have been running with them almost every day since then.

Thats pretty interesting, you made me take a look at my charging contacts and they're still completely new looking.

I wonder why you experienced that and I didn't - I don't take particularly good care of my AirPods. The only thing I do occasionally is hit them with a paperclip to remove any earwax buildup because they get pretty gross after a few weeks of use.

I mean I'll go for runs in the rain, run in super humid weather, sleep with them in sometimes, and a host of other probably not good ideas and they just keep on working perfect after a year of this 'abuse'.

I would guess however that they weren't corroded in the traditional sense of the word, more likely just covered in a gross film?

I will personally love to see someone justify spending $250 on AirPods if he just can buy normal full-size headphones, where music is music, not random noises.

I am sooo going to buy them the moment they are available; convenience is totally worth it for me, even if they have to be replaced every year

Your comment makes me think of this image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTipZ...

what convenience? I do not understand the appeal of air pods over any other wireless earplug.

FWIW it seems like if you stay within the apple ecosystem apple products have a much better user experience

They are incredibly convenient if you use multiple apple devices. You can change from your iPhone to Mac/iPad and watch almost seemingly. with traditional Bluetooth headphones it’s always a hassle to change devices. I either have to press buttons on the headphones and it doesn’t work well with more then two devices or I have to disconnect them manually from my device and open Bluetooth on the other. Connecting to a different device takes usually less then 10 secs with AirPods/Beats, which is super nice.

That being said, if you don’t use Apple products (or only one apple product), they are not really more convenient then any other headphones.

I see, thanks for the explanation, I can see how that might be useful.

Not having an iPad, I always got by with having a single set of earphones plugged in my work machine, and bluetooth ones for my phone, which I use for running.

I can imagine having many more devices and using the same set for all could be preferable.

Have you ever needed to be on a phone call while doing something else with your hands? Running with music and not having cords whip around your neck is pretty nice too.

>over any wireless earplug

Not OP, but let me try:

Have you ever needed to be on a phone call after you took the call on the phone, but would like to switch headset, but because Bluetooth still sucks it doesn't even show the headset in the list, so you have to power down the headset, restart in pairing mode...

Yeah, I've done that plenty of times using a Bluetooth headset. You will never do that using an iPhone and AirPods. You'll just push the button, and it will switch without drama. And it will work that way tomorrow, too. That's why I've paid eye-watering sums for headsets with W1/H1 chips in them.

I'm not sure that I follow, but do you mean be listening to music on the earphones, take a phone call on the handset speaker, then end the call and go back to the earphones? If that's the case then there's literally to switch between earphone/handset speaker/loudspeaker, on my phone at least.

Also, isn't the point of a bluetooth handset that you can make the call there?

And then there is seamless switching between an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV.....

even if they have to be replaced every year

These are undeniably really nice products for the target audience, but the direction we as a humanity are going with disposable products has been and still is problematic and products like this do not help, on the contrary. Everyone is free to ignore that, but I personally cannot justify it. Especially knowing that just adding a wire buys me a better sounding product which lasts way, way longer. But yes: the wire is not too convenient. Though after 20+ years of using it I also got accustomed so no deal breaker.

you are missing the point; convenience is in having noise-cancelling headphones in my pocket, for when I want to do some coding in a cafe or in flight

for sound quality, I have my Sennheiser over-ears and an external sound card

I'm sure buying 1 airpods per year (per month even) is less waste than buying plastic-packed groceries every day (i.e. what we need to survive). I too oppose this, but to pretend AirPods are the real issue is just FUD. We need to have laws / taxes against this, but they need to be fair - not people e.g. promoting anti-AirPods policies but supporting /ignoring plastic-wrapped veggies, or promoting anti-meat policies but tolerating non-electric cars. Institute taxes that accurately account for the actual environmental impact of a product, and let (1) the people, and (2) the market sort it out (by reducing waste, improving recycling, deciding whether they want to spend more on meat or on petrol, etc.)

I'm sure buying 1 airpods per year (per month even) is less waste than buying plastic-packed groceries every day

It sure is, but that is besides the point. So yes as you mention, time for mentality change/laws/...

Anyway we're pretty lucky here already and can buy fruits/vegetables/seeds/... i.e. a majority of what we eat daily without packaging.

Especially when you can get the same thing, sans the apple logo, for 30$.

EDIT: You can downvote, but it's still the truth :p

Considering they’re not out and they use Apple custom hardware, how can you make this claim? And if you still want to make it, prove it.

I was talking about the previous generation airpods.

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