Apple Bricked my AirPods and now wants me to buy new ones | Hacker News Reader

Apple Bricked my AirPods and now wants me to buy new ones

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62 pointsmattcantstop63 comments

I got an M1 macbook pro when they first came out, in about April of this year the screen suddenly stopped working without warning. External display worked fine, internal one just showed random colours. Took it to apple for repair, they tried various things and said the mainboard need to be replaced at a cost of something like £700. I refused and just put the laptop away until someone at work mentioned that in the UK we have the consumer rights law that gives us 6 years for which we can expect our purchases to continue to function properly. I messaged apple support and mentioned my consumer law rights under the law and the immediately dispatched a box for me to send the laptop to them and had it collected the next day. In under a week it was back, repaird (new display, top case) at no cost to me. It's amazing what a difference knowing your rights makes!

Apple was already punished for this behavior in Italy[1], but of course they still don't care about it elsewhere. I had to deal with it again in the UK and they had to "research" the subject before getting back to me on the phone. I had to send them a link to their own apple.com site.

    [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2011/12/27/2663489/apple-fined-1-2m-in-italy-for-misleading-warranty-claims

I’ve had no problem getting fixes or replacements for Apple hardware even a few years old. I’ve even had a hard drive replaced for free that was a few months out of warranty.

Experiences generally differ depending on location, who you end up dealing with, etc.

Does Germany feature similar consumer rights laws?

2 years minimum in the EU, some countries extend it https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...

2 years right

It is more nuanced. It differs a bit per country [1] as it is a directive. For example, in The Netherlands after one year if you did not buy additional warranty in the second year you need to prove you used the product normally.

Also, something like a washing machine has more than 2 years warranty because you can expect such device to work longer than 2 years.

Also, you have the right for updates to keep the device working (if you bought it after April 27th 2022) [2].

The government has very good official documentation available on your rights but it is complex [3].

[1] https://www.consumentenbond.nl/juridisch-advies/garantie-rep...

[2] https://www.consumentenbond.nl/juridisch-advies/garantie-rep...

[3] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/bescherming-van-con...

Yeah about 2 years, I think it was just outside their warranty by a few months. The original experience was very frustrating and really put me off apple. That trust hasn't been recovered but I'm glad I know my rights now.

https://nitter.net/mattcantstop/status/1712680601340579891

The monopoly giveth, and the monopoly taketh away. Blessed be the name of the monopoly.

You’re in the wrong thread. Search for “U.S. meat processors” or “baby formula” or “fiber to the home.”

I left the Apple Store worse off than when I arrived. They have a bug in their software when you add a replacement AirPod that makes them unable to reconnect (the case, in my situation). They then pass the pain of that bug in their software to the consumer.

Did you get back on to the store and seek resolution? If you're coming back in with the same serials they tried to fix earlier they will have a record of it.

According to op's comment in another thread [1]

> I brought it back to Apple after lots of phone calls and troubleshooting and Apple has now told me that something must have gotten messed up with the software. I am able to buy a new pair of AirPods if I would like to, or I can spend $250 for them to diagnose the issue (the price of a new set of AirPods).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37866470

Not allowed in EU. Software bugs shouldn't render such devices unusable. See my other comment.

Tho I just read it concerns someone in Denver, Colorado. Who previously worked at Apple.

That hardly seems like OPs issue

"It's not a bug, it's a feature".

I am sure/I hope that with some more patience and visits to an apple store you will be able to resolve that.

(written by someone who quit the Apple garden when the batterygate happened)

see my question in the other post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37867368

I have to say their products and their attitude towards warranty and repair is trash. I bought a top spec iPad last year, and for some reason, only when using Facetime, the audio has a static noise about it.

I personally have a real issue with buying a top spec product that's faulty and being offered "refurbished" replacement, why not just replace it with a new device? I have no idea how long the screen on the refurb model has been in use, for example.

Anyweay it to a "genius" bar , they had no idea , they didn't even have a test number I could call to verify the problem, so I clumsily had to call family and ask them if they could hear me.

The best they could offer me so far is that I travel 3.5 hours, very costly trip via rail to pick up my second hand replacement device, they refuse to ship it to my location. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I've had quite a few issues with their devices lately, really starting to turn me off their stuff.

Disclaimer: I do use Linux a lot and I'm open to other vendors, not just a blind fanboy, though I do over all like their products and use them frequently.

That "Not Yours" in the screenshot cracks me up for some reason. Feels like it's saying "Hey, give them back asshole!"

It's actually a pretty cool feature (when it works as intended), I once saw this dialog when visiting a friend who also had a pair of Airpods and we mixed them by accident.

I much prefer that when I connect my gf's headphones to my phone, or vice versa, or anything to anything, they just work. There is no excuse for this. It's ridiculous to even contemplate really.

How come over the last idk 40 years since portable electronics with headphones have been around, I never had any such calamity that my headphones got confused with someone else's? Oh right, they weren't $200 for no reason for one thing so who tf cared if it ever did happen, and there were 6000 different companies and models and styles instead of everyone in the world having the exact same thing.

When is an Apple product truly yours, really?

Did you gasp go to the apple store and tell them what happened?

Seems like you should do that before complaining on Twitter. Mistakes happen, it's about how they handle them that matters.

> Did you gasp go to the apple store and tell them what happened?

This is a good point, the author wrote:

> I arrived at the @Apple store with 1 working AirPod case and 1 working headphone. I spent $95 for a replacement AirPod and left the store with the case and both AirPods not working.

All we know is that he went to the Apple store. It is not clear whether or not he described his issue while he was getting a replacement AirPod from that store.

When I took my bricked MacBook Pro (Sonoma update defect) to the store today, the Apple rep independently mentioned that he’s seeing a lot of fucked-up AirPods.

Earbuds and Bluetooth suck. Never let Apple off the hook for deleting the headphone jack.

It must be a mistake since Apple says you can replace just one lost AirPod for $89. https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair

And that would be ~$95 with sales tax in a lot of states.

I'm just saying clearly he shouldn't have to pay for new AirPods.

Countless people have had replacement AirPods without issue, so what’s different here?

We need more information.

What do you mean “their software didn’t work”? Was this special tooling used by Apple support, or did you remove the AirPods from your account manually?

Did you escalate the situation? Call the support line?

If you remove the replacement AirPod, does the original one still work? If not, why not?

Can you get a refund on your botched replacement?

It's a thread. The issue is Apple identifying the pair as mismatched

I see only see three messages and none of them answer any of these questions. Am I using X wrong?

Apple’s Sonoma update bricked my M1 MacBook Pro today. “Luckily” the Apple Store only had to wipe the whole computer.

Talk about shit QA. No excuse.

Small claims court? Certainly you’ll want to dispute the $95 charge. Assuming there is no third party software that can fix it.

OP was wearing them wrong /s

airpods are literal garbage; I never understood why everyone uses them

because they aren't literal garbage

Brush yourself off, man. Apple used to make $20 wired Earpods that had a better mic and driver than the $180 disposable Airpods. They are, in fact, trash. Expensive garbage, intended to occupy your landfill and drive an upgrade cycle.

They still do: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMTN2AM/A/earpods-lightni...

The AirPods are a great product. This is very likely why they are so popular.

It very well could be part of it. Part of it could also be the exclusive API access Apple has as a first-party manufacturer.

It's kinda like saying "The App Store is a great product, this is very likely why it is so popular". They're not really correlated; the App Store is the only product of it's class on iOS. Apple makes sure of that using their monopoly (eg. "vertical") integration. If you wanted to create wireless earbuds the same way Apple does, Apple would not give you the software access you need. Quality aside, Airpods are part of an artificially-enforced market segment.

They could be (and have been) the worst wireless headphones on the market - people buy them anyways. It's why designating Apple as a Gatekeeper is so important for a competitive market.

High priced garbage.

They're no more expensive than any of the other products in the category: https://www.theverge.com/21309820/best-wireless-earbuds

They're not garbage! What are you talking about!?

I will never buy any Bluetooth streamed headphones. I will always prefer good wired headphones.

That's fine but obviously not having a wire is very useful for many situations.

You should think on that a bit. There’s an opportunity for self growth there.

I don't think AirPods are bad, but Apple's mindshare and consumers' lack of awareness towards other options certainly contributes a lot to their popularity.

A few years back when I was looking at it, compared to the Base AirPods (2 maybe?), the Huawei FreeBuds 4i had about twice the in ear battery life, ANC / transparency, perfectly okay sound quality and comparable / better splash resistance. And all that for like half the price or less. I don't know what the options look like today. Airpods do have the auto switching thingy, but most people only have iPhones here, so that shouldn't matter.

Yeah that are OK but really not worth the asking price. The reality is that it doesn't matter to most peoples who buy them. I learned this when I was younger quite a while ago (about 20 years). I had the 1.5 gen iPod and a friend's big brother had the 2nd or 3rd gen and he complained that he had lost the earbuds. I told him that I could find him some pretty good earbuds for a decent price but then he asked me if they would have the same look. Of course I told him that they would look pretty different but it didn't matter because they would have better audio quality anyway. But he really didn't see it that way, he would rather pay the same amount of money and get the looks. This day I learned how vain people can be (this guy is rather smart, nowadays he has a PhD...). I barely used the earbuds sold with the iPod ; I thought they were included just to have something usable but not to expensive and it wasn't in Apple's core competence to provide something better.

In the end it seems that most people would chose the worse experience just to signal they have an expensive product and I believe this is what happens with the AirPods as well.

I had some, used them for a year, found they had many annoyances and too short battery life after just one year of middling use. I bought a replacement for half price that are better in most ways and sold the airpods to a friend for 30 bucks. He knew all the criticism I had for them as well as the short battery life ; I even told him that for 20 bucks more he would find something that could be more satisfying. He didn't care and as soon as he had them he started wearing them in public everywhere even though he had never been using earbuds previously.

The funny thing is that considering how cheap you can buy them second hand and how everybody and their mothers has them it cannot be seriously taken as a sign of wealth nor appartenance to a special community in the know.

It really all boils down to vain irrationality...

I tried them a few times but plugs are just not my thing; the quality is horrendous; they are overpriced; connect badly or not at all to non apple device; and break easily.

If using airpods is selfgrowth im very happy to stay small

I meant reflecting on why other people like them, understanding the needs and likes of other people. Understanding where the value of a product comes from.

No actual adult ever says grow up. Some self growth to reflect on there for ya master yoda.

I think after some self growth, you stop telling other people to self growth.

You’re not in a mentoring position I’m guessing.

Mentoring usually entails teaching something, not writing the apologia for $180 disposable headphones. Do you have any particular reason why the Airpods aren't a garbage, forced iteration on the Earpods?

I didn’t say I was mentoring anyone, merely pointing out that if you think a hugely successful product is garbage, and that you state you can’t understand why it’s successful you might want to reflect on that a bit, especially in a forum such as this where many people are trying to build successful products.

Yeah, why don't you reflect on why Lightning was such a "successful" connector and get back to me on that one. I'm sure there's a lot of interesting reasons besides the profitability of a license for a serial connector.

Lightning was a small reversible connector that apple said would last 10 years, and it did. This was at the time when others were coming out with things like the usb 3.0 micro b plug.

Living through this and subsequent events has been quite amusing. Irrational apple haters at the time branded lightning a “money grab” by apple to make people buy new accessories, all while other manufacturers moved from mini to micro to usb-c in short order.

It’s been a wild ride watching this over the years. As far as I can tell, these same people also believe that apple slowed phones down to sell more. They will even post articles to “prove” this that quite clearly reference batterygate and talk about batteries. Their irrational hate cannot be reasoned with, and they will spread these falsehoods at any opportunity. In the next breath they will complain about imaginary insufferable apple fans that apparently claim that apple invented everything.

It’s been 15 years of phones but apparently all these repeat satisfied apple customers are still idiots.

I wish I was making up a strawman here, but every time you poke it blood comes out.

Well, my N+1 anecdata is that Lightning is a poor choice for most devices. For example: I own a Magic Trackpad, a Mac peripheral I use with my Linux desktop. As Mac hardware, it should connect to the Mac connector, USB-C. Curiously though, you need a Lightning-to-USB cable in order to facilitate that. Their desktop peripheral uses a mobile connector... it's almost baffling. If I didn't know any better, I'd accuse them of using their vertical control to force licensed IP down their user's throats like they do with the App Store.

Apple might as well have announced Lightning would last 20 years, for how little it evolved in the past 10 years. For the first half of it's life it was a welcome replacement to the godawful 30-pin connector, and for the last half of it's life it was a sluggish ecosystem liability. Everyone I've known who is a casual Apple customer shares the same sentiment, the only people I've known who defend Lightning are fully "bought in" anyways. Again though, just my own anecdote; reflect on that however you please =)

My anecdata is that my mother tried to charge my son’s Nintendo Switch (usb-c) by jamming in a lightning connector. She made it fit! Between that and the alt-mode compatibility and cable differences I think I’m in for a painful transition.

Well, hopefully now you can see why some countries want to standardize something as simple as power delivery and serial data.

Because Apple.

The mass market are shills for Apple products.

Don't get me wrong - I love my MacBook; but I don't buy it because Apple - I just happen to love MacOS and the hardware.

But I hate their phones and headphones.

In my co-working center, probably 75% of people with over-ear headphones have AirPod Max. I did my own research and decided no way in hell I wanted those, nor would suggest for my partner (Who loves Apple). Both of us happy with Sony MX headsets. I laugh internally whenever I see the other people because I'm sure they bought it just on brand recognition alone.

Or, perhaps, there are more nuanced reasons?

I had a pair of Sony WH-1000XM3. The earpads collapsed quite badly after about a year of constant use at work, and the inside of the (very shallow!) ear cups starting pressing on my ears, which ended up being painful to wear for more than a few hours.

I contacted Sony, expecting to be able to buy replacement earpads like basically every major headphone manufacturer on earth supplies (yes, even Apple and Bose), and they informed me that earpads are not user serviceable and that I would have to send the headphones into their service centre for a paid for repair. The repair would have ended up costing more than a new pair of the same headphones from Amazon. I'm not replacing my headphones annually, it's ridiculous (both from a cost and a waste PoV).

I looked online and found replacement pads available from third parties, and tried a set of Dekoni pads, which noticeably changed the sound signature of the headphones and caused ANC problems.

So I started looking for a replacement, discounted Sony's line completely, and ended up buying AirPods Max from Amazon when they were decently discounted in a Prime sale, and... they're fine. ANC is competent, sound quality is reasonable, unlike the WH-1000XM3 when I want to move them between Apple devices I don't have to do the re-pairing mess or stop bluetooth from autoconnecting on my other devices, earcups are lovely and deep, and the pads are user replaceable.

They're honestly not a bad product, they're just a bit too expensive without a discount.

My 1000-mx3 headphones have garbage cancellation compared to my AirPods. I live next to a busy street and can hear everything with the Sonys on. With AirPods, I thought we were having an earthquake recently but it was just a car with very loud music. I had to remove my AirPods to realize that.

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