$79 for airpods max battery service [0]. user-replaceable battery certainly would be nicer. but to describe as "throw-away" seems extreme.
[0] https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service#battery
I have a pair of Audio Technica A700s, about $150 new that are now 12 years old; I'm on my 3rd set of earpads. AT gave me a new set free the first time I asked, and it cost me $10 with shipping to get new ones out of warranty. The current ones are 3rd party that are much better than the OEM pads and cost me ~$20.
So you buy a new set of earpads on those every 4 years. But we can also compare with the same-market-segment-as-AirPod-Max (wireless+ANC+mic) Bose QC35, where many people have to replace their earpads _every_ _year_⁰ at $35 a pair (or $20 for third party ones that might last longer but definitely feel worse). So the question I think will be how long the pads last on these. Do you have to replace them every year like with the Bose ones or only every 4 years?
⁰ - QC35 ear pad extreme comfort but lack of durability is basically a meme among owners now.
Price went up I see, but I've had them for 2+ years now, no complaints. The velour is comfy.
And regular AirPods are definitely a throw-away product, since the 'battery service' is really just a full replacement. You'd have to physically destroy them to remove the battery.
Also, why not make it so that they can be used passively? What's the downside?
And, why use the lightning port?! Aside from the price, choosing to not use USB-C for a charging port killed it for me. I like being able to charge all my devices off one power brick, and I'm not spending $600 on headphones if I need a stupid lightning port for the next 6+ years.
My laptop, my work laptop, my headphones, my phone, my tablet/e-reader (remarkable).
It's insanely liberating to know that I can pretty much always find a charger for everything, and I only ever need to pack a single wall-wart.
Flying? One charger. Road trip? One charger. Biking to work? One charger.
Better yet - Leave a charger at work, keep a charger at home, don't need to carry 5lbs back and forth every day.
Forgot my charger? Every person I hang out with has a usb-c charger floating around somewhere.
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You know what I really don't want to have to carry around anymore? Fucking cable adapters. You know what no one will have if I forget my charger? Fucking cable adapters.
Honestly - I probably wouldn't have bought these headphones yet because I'm quite happy with my current headphones.
But I'm very, very close to no longer even considering devices that ship without a USB-C port. And that's a shame, because I otherwise really like the Max, and probably would have slotted it in when my current cans die.
Getting over the hump to convert to USB-C initially was fairly expensive, but my job is good and I can splurge. I don't want to go back.
But your comment seems like it might be contrived to begin with. This headset only really makes sense for iPhone users. That is the target. Those people are already carrying using lightning cables in their life. Pretty much anyone in the Apple ecosystem has to charge a multitude of things with lightning still.
I just yesterday picked up a few more usb-c wall adapters and some 6 feet usb-c to lightning cables to get most of my day to day charging off of usb-a
I'm not really what's contrived about the other poster's comment. If these headphones look good and sound good and have good noise cancelling, why would I only want to use them with my iPhone? I'm sure they'll sound great whether I use them with my MacBook, or iPhone, or my Dell XPS, or my Windows desktop, or my smart TV.
The lightning port isn't a deal breaker, but it can be an ergonomic annoyance. I've recently been favoring on Galaxy S9 over my newer iPhone because all of my other devices charge via USB-C and the iPhone is the odd duck that requires extra work. I have a USB-C to lighting cable so it's not that bad, but it's still extra annoyance I would rather not deal with.
The guy I replied to 20 days ago here on HN, talking about Apple: "Don't buy their shit. Period."
No, they were never going to buy this headset. They are not the target market. What they demand would actually be detrimental to the target market.
Of the actual target market, the majority will have no problem with it needing a lightning cable. Their iPhones use lightning. Any iPad but the newest use lightning. The AppleTV remote uses lightning. The Magic Keyboard and the Magic Mouse use lightning. It just seems to be something that a person who would have no interest in this device would see as a problem (in the same way that people who don't use the Magic Mouse are absolute certain that the charger port on the bottom is an egregious deadly fault, while actual users just enjoy a fantastic mouse and it's an utter non-issue. It's why Apple should never listen to these people).
The chargers that ship with modern devices tend to be USB-C to USB-C (including Apple's own macbook charger).
I have absolutely no desire to fit a lightning cable into my life, and I'm hardly the only person I know who has a macbook and an android phone (about half of my company of 300 falls into the exact same bucket).
I don't typically buy Apple devices because I think they're oppressively locked down, but that's not really something I care that much about for headphones.
Plus, given the whole market for decent bluetooth headphones is ridiculously price inflated anyways, Apple's price here doesn't dissuade me nearly as much as normal.
Basically - I would absolutely consider picking up a Max, but lightning is a serious knock against the product.
No, there was no chance you were ever buying this headset. You may see it as legitimizing your grievances, but I don't think any reasonable person actually buys that.
You, 20 days ago, regarding Apple - "Don't buy their shit. Period."
Of the actual people who would buy this, I'd wager that 99%+ have iPhones. Being able to charge the headset with the same cable you use to charge your phone seems pretty obvious.
Regardless, this complaint is pretty spurious. The device is clearly marketed to iPhone/iPad users, who carry a USB to Lightning cable with them as a matter of normative standards.
People just like bitching sometimes.
I personally think it’s pretty silly that it has neither usb-c nor wireless charging, given the price point and when it’s being launched.
I get I'm not the target market but that doesn't make my point valid. Please don't negate it as bitching.
I have a battery pack that doesn't charge with a lightning port, and can charge my phone without a lighting port (wireless).
When I'm traveling light, I don't need a lightning port for anything.
When I'm at my office, I can top off my headphones/iPad/etc off with the same cable I use to connect my laptop to my screen. I never have to worry about bringing an extra cable with me to work.
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It's just too bad, that's all. Apple seemed like they were ready to phase out the lightning port in favor of USB-C and wireless charging. They've done such a great job with all their other audio accessories that a lot of tech-minded people like myself were looking forward to these.
I have a C cable on my desk, the charger is hidden under it, I don't want to replace the cable ever. This one cable can charge my phone, laptop, power bank, earbuds, gaming headset, Nintendo Switch, heck, it powers my soldering iron – of course I don't ever want to buy anything with a different port!
This is like complaining that the microwave at Best Buy doesn't have a Europlug because you're in Italy and that's what you use. Great, but not important to the actual buyer of the microwave in Milwaukee.
If by passively you mean plugged into a headphone port, the answer is that they can’t because they need power. Their big selling point is supposed to be computational audio. That obviously doesn’t work without the compute part, which in turn requires power.
iPad or iPhone only, apparently. Not with a Mac or Apple TV, or, of course, anything else.
(source: article)
Previously (think iPhone 4S and prior), the phone opened from the back. So a screen replacement necessitated deconstructing the entire device.
Could it be more accessible? Most likely. They could put in removable batteries (like older phones had), but they’ve chosen not to (presumably for space reasons (internal batteries take up less space)), and it seems the entire industry followed. But just because they’re not easily replaceable, doesn’t mean they’re not easily serviceable. It takes a bit, but an experienced person can do it about 30 minutes or even less. iFixIt’s guides help a lot here.
Sites/Apps were already breaking on my parent's iphone 6.
Apple supports devices longer than any other manufacturer. Case in point is iOS 14, which came out a few months ago and still supports the iPhone 6s, which came out in 2015.
That's fair if the device we're talking about is a phone. Those will of course become obsolete much sooner. But headphones don't get worse just by the passage of time. I'd love to still use them in 15+ years. Do you think Apple will still service them then?
Also, why not make it so that they can be used passively? What's the downside?
Re: passive listening, I don't know why they didn't. But I think it is fair to assume there was a real trade-off. Do you really think a smart business like Apple would make their excessively expensive headphones less functional for absolutely no reason?
They didn't when they were just speakers on a strap, but that is a bad mental model for thinking about modern wireless headphones. Remember that a lot of these headphones now have CPUs in them, and they're integrating into a moving spec. The iPhone 6 mentioned here only supported Bluetooth 4, while the iPhone 12 supports Bluetooth 5.0, plus some other addons like LE and A2DP. And that's before we consider any protocols that manufacturers add on top of that, like Airplay.
Even Airpods aren't "fire and forget" devices nowadays. Apple is still shipping firmware updates for Airpods. It's fair to say that long term support for these will be much less costly than an old iPhone, but it's not free.
> Also, why not make it so that they can be used passively? What's the downside?
The simplest answer is probably "Apple customers don't want it". If you really care about using your headphones passively with a wire 20 years from now when the battery is dead and Apple won't service it, you were pretty unlikely to be buying Apple anyways. There are tons of available headphones on the market to serve that set of requirements. And since Apple really values clean lines, removing a jack that they don't think many of their customers will use is a no-brainer for them.
"Your wired headphones are reliable mechanical-electrical devices. Apple is making a computer that you wear on your head, and it just can't compete in areas like reliability, repairability, and Apple's profitability."
Google Glass also aren’t as reliable as my reading glasses, but here we are.
We can argue that it's a trade-off that you should be free to make for yourself... but it's very in-character for Apple to just take a strong stance on that kind of thing.
With a 20 hour battery life I'm personally okay with it. If it was more like 4-5 hours then the need for a passive mode would be more pressing.
> Also, why not make it so they can be used passively? What's the downside?
My quasi-educated guess is part marketing, and part technology. The marketing part: Apple considers these AirPods Pros that cover your ears, and insist that they have all the AirPods Pro features. The technology part: from what I can tell, these headphones are DSP-ed up the wazoo, more like HomePods than AirPods, so there's a good chance that passive mode will sound like crap.
I know a practical counter-argument is "so what, there are other active noise-cancelling headphones that let you switch them to passive mood and they sound like crap when you do that and everybody's just okay with it," but, that is not Apple.
(For the record, the AirPods Max are not on my shopping list.)
When did five years become a massive time for support in general? For phones it is, but there are plenty of things with longer than 5 year support.
Not really in consumer electronics.
I don't like MS, but what they do right, they do right.
5 years is quite a long time for a phone, but nowhere near unheard of for PC's
Apple is very aggressive about transitioning stuff when a decision is made. In 1999, your new, pre-iMac laserwriter became a legacy product when iMac was released. MagSafe 1 laptops were orphaned for power adapters pretty quickly. Many HP and Lenovo devices utilize common power supplies that have been around for 10-15 years.
Other products, like AirPods are engineered with planned obsolescence. It's not a dig on Apple, it's part of their process and part of why they are so good at what they do -- Apple builds for a specific customer persona, which may or may not be you. Similarly, the need for commercial customers to have a common power supply is something that makes HP or Lenovo a good choice.
In the more open market, interfaces live a long time. My dad uses an Epson FX-80 dot matrix printer (which was purchased used when I was like 6 years old in the 80s) to print invoices, on a newish computer he found that still supports parallel interface.
And was sold until September 2018. Two years' support for a newly purchased phone shouldn't be considered particularly impressive.
Please don't — they're recyclable[1]. Recyclers wouldn't normally make money from recovering recyclable materials, but Apple pays[2] to make up the difference.
[1] https://www.apple.com/shop/trade-in
[2] https://onezero.medium.com/what-really-happens-to-airpods-wh...
Apple's "few years" is "seven years after Apple stops selling them", for most countries: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624
This isn't a phone.
How many headphones do you have that are still usable after 7 years?