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AirPods 2 Teardown

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Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#61

Post by babypuncher »

pfranz wrote: post #48
snthd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recy... > "Materials are manually and mechanically disassembled and shredded into commodity-sized fractions of metals, plastics, and glass," John Yeider, Apple's recycling program manager, wrote under a heading called "Takeback Program Report" in a 2013 report to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. "All hard drives are shredded in confetti-sized pieces…

Thinking back, I've handed down and repurposed so many Apple products. Way more than any other company--especially for tech. I hear so many stories about hand-me-downs with kids, too. There's only a few items I've dropped off to Apple to dispose of...most were part of a buy-back program (I'm curious where those ended up; one was an original Apple Watch they recently gave $25 for and another a few year old iPhone. I w…

My iPod Mini still gets use today because my 2013 Hyundai has better iPod integration than bluetooth support. All I've done to it is replace the microdrive with a compact flash card. Shockingly, iTunes has no problem syncing music to a 256GB iPod Mini.

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#62

Post by simonebrunozzi »

mikestew wrote: post #26
bluetidepro wrote: post #4

Side note, this teardown is very well done, and organized. I don't think I've ever seen these before, but I'm a big fan. I love how easy it is to digest, and all the supporting media for it is great. Awesome detail, and very informative!

I don't think I've ever seen these before You've...never seen an iFixit teardown before? Much like discovering the alt-text of XKCD years after you started reading it, you've got some back catalog to catch up on. And if you ever get the DIY itch, they'll sell you every tool they use. Decent quality kit, too. (EDIT: and to those of today's 10,000 with regards to XKCD, I am so, so sorry. Enjoy the rest of your non-prod…

I'm one of today's 10,000 then. I didn't know about alt-text!! Does every XKCD contain alt-text?

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#63

Post by Eric_WVGG »

pfranz wrote: post #48
snthd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/yp73jw/apple-recy... > "Materials are manually and mechanically disassembled and shredded into commodity-sized fractions of metals, plastics, and glass," John Yeider, Apple's recycling program manager, wrote under a heading called "Takeback Program Report" in a 2013 report to Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. "All hard drives are shredded in confetti-sized pieces…

Thinking back, I've handed down and repurposed so many Apple products. Way more than any other company--especially for tech. I hear so many stories about hand-me-downs with kids, too. There's only a few items I've dropped off to Apple to dispose of...most were part of a buy-back program (I'm curious where those ended up; one was an original Apple Watch they recently gave $25 for and another a few year old iPhone. I w…

I think the responder was talking about re-use of parts, though, not devices.

On the day of the iPad Mini announcement last week, my iPad spontaneously threw itself off the bed in a fit of grief and shattered on my concrete floor. Battery is a bit old but the logic board is perfectly okay; Apple is just gonna shred it into confetti.

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#64

Post by prolepunk »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #45

How can anyone in their right mind claim that Apple is a 'green' company? In 5-10 years we will have 10s of million dead and useless AirPods due to degraded and broken batteries. So much unnecessary e-waste!

There's an article an a thread on that from a week ago -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19455467

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#65

Post by Wowfunhappy »

okcando wrote: post #55
yoodenvranx wrote: post #45

How can anyone in their right mind claim that Apple is a 'green' company? In 5-10 years we will have 10s of million dead and useless AirPods due to degraded and broken batteries. So much unnecessary e-waste!

Were people not going to use wireless headphones had Apple not given us AirPods? They all have batteries limiting their lifespans and are generally not easily repaired.

Apple has put a lot of marketing behind its particular brand of wireless headphones. This almost certainly has had an effect on adoption of wireless earbuds as a category.

It isn't a foregone conclusion that wireless earbuds would become popular. The wire isn't all that annoying, and going wireless is much more expensive and requires recharging.

Consider also the alternate "neckbud" solution, which removes the most annoying wire while also leaving more space for a longer (and possible to remove) battery. Without the AirPods, maybe those would have become the standard.

Apple removing the headphone jack from the iPhone undoubtably helped, too.

But yes, the entire category is environmentally questionable. Although, I'm not clear that they are all truly impossible to repair like the Airpods are.

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#66

Post by dmitrygr »

jaxbot wrote: post #2

My main interest is in Bluetooth 5. Walking around NYC, in even semi-congested areas of Manhattan, my audio cuts out with my phone in my front pants pocket. I literally have to hold it in my hand or coat pocket in order to cut through the interference. Has anyone experienced improvement when upgrading in this regard?

> My main interest is in Bluetooth 5

Bluetooth 5 does not help you here at all. Stereo audio is still done over Bluetooth classic which has not been updated since version 2.1

source: i work on bluetooth

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#67

Post by bretthopper »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #13
jaxbot wrote: post #2

My main interest is in Bluetooth 5. Walking around NYC, in even semi-congested areas of Manhattan, my audio cuts out with my phone in my front pants pocket. I literally have to hold it in my hand or coat pocket in order to cut through the interference. Has anyone experienced improvement when upgrading in this regard?

I received some first-gen Airpods as a gift recently. I haven't really had problems downtown Toronto. I have had the odd blip, but no real cutting out or anything like that.

I have this exact problem all the time in downtown Toronto. There's a even a few intersections where I know it's going to be bad (University/Richmond, Yonge/Adelaide, Front/George). So obviously some signals at intersections interfere, but I've wondered if a replacement would help.

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#68

Post by dmitrygr »

jvagner wrote: post #16
frou_dh wrote: post #11

You can get good knockoffs ("i12 TWS") for ~$25 delivered from China, these days. If it's the combination of non-repairability and price that bothers you, a 6x price warp sure softens the blow.

Have you actually tried these? interesting that these knockoffs claim Bluetooth 5.

Every feature added to bluetooth since version 2.1 has been optional, so you can take any BT 2.1 chip and validly claim it is a BT 5.0 chip (it just lacks all the optional features).

source: i work on bluetooth

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#69

Post by Wowfunhappy »

gumby wrote: post #38
turtlebits wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that Apple will send you prepaid shipping label to recycle your devices, I don't expect they would just toss them in the landfill.

Why? Nescafe happily takes back used coffee pods and then tosses them. It's good PR -- good enough that my GF dumps them in the recycling "because they are recyclable: Nescafe takes them".

> My GF dumps [Nescafe coffee pods] in the recycling "because they are recyclable: Nescafe takes them".

With all possible respect, this is terrible logic. Apple recycles iPhones, but that doesn't mean you can throw iPhones in your household recycling.

Putting non-recyclables into the recycling can contaminate and ruin the entire load. As a general rule, if you're not sure whether something can be recycled, you should err on the side of not recycling it. https://www.vox.com/videos/2019/3/12/18252188/recycling-wron...

Re: AirPods 2 Teardown

#70

Post by dangoor »

yoodenvranx wrote: post #45

How can anyone in their right mind claim that Apple is a 'green' company? In 5-10 years we will have 10s of million dead and useless AirPods due to degraded and broken batteries. So much unnecessary e-waste!

I don't know if this applies to AirPods, but Apple is aiming to have a "closed loop" product line where they get a lot of the material they need for new products from old ones: https://www.apple.com/environment/resources/
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