For example, I never had an issue ever with my AirPods Pro since I bought them six months ago. Does that make me the outlier? Or is it just that 1% have issues, but they are very vocal about it (for understanable reasons)?
Something I learnt many years ago when I worked in sales was that a happy customer might tell one or two people but a pissed off one will tell everybody.
That said it doesn't negate the underlying issue if it's a real one.
Even a problem affecting only 0.01% has a sizeable number of affected customers if you ship 100 million devices. If you only ship 1 million, that same problem is much less likely to find public support. Apple already has good quality control (my opinion) but to reach the same level of public complains as other companies, they need to be several magnitudes better.
> How Widespread is This?
> It seems this is very widespread. Just a quick internet search turns up tons of people having the same issue. Sadly, most people think it is specific to them, that they've done something wrong, or they're waiting for a firmware update to see if that fixes it.
See https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/airpods-pro-rattlegate....
I’m sure there’s something going on, but it’s very hard to tell how widespread it is. Apple knows, but won’t tell world. If they start an out-of-warranty replacement program, that will be a hint.
Both time Apple replaced them quickly with no fuss.