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Comment by nolaspring | Hacker News Reader

I contacted apple support and got a new pair. Free (with credit card hold until I sent the defective pair back). So far so good. But if it happens again... yeah not sustainable.

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My guess is that Apple can replace them 7 times and still be ahead profit-wise.

My guess is that the damage to Apple's brand name that occurs with each replacement is larger than the cost of replacing the product.

I once had an expensive brand of computer mouse. After eight months the mouse failed. Later I bought another mouse from the same brand. The mouse failed after 14 months. I stopped buying from the brand. The same thing can happen to Apple, and they need to be careful about the quality of the products they sale when they charge premium prices.

I daresay an iPhone, after R&D costs to Apple and third parties, probably costs less than $100 in materials.

You'd be very wrong. Component cost (not including any assembly cost) for any modern flagship smart phone is well north of $100. North of $300 on most phones.

Take a look at the cost estimates that most folks do on smartphones (Ex. https://www.techinsights.com/blog/samsung-galaxy-s10-teardow...). Apple isn't undercutting other companies by $300+.

Do you think third party vendors don’t charge for R&D?

You think the actual BOM cost for AirPods Pro's is less than $32? (Assuming you mean replace both earphones 7 times, so 8 total earphones)

Pretty sure that's on the low side. Plus, logistics cost of dealing with replacements and such adds far more than just absolute BOM cost.

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