More on the environmental effects of airpods: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neaz3d/airpods-are-a-trag... That they're unreliable is just the icing on this sandwich.
Admittedly not tiny little wireless earbuds, and costing twice what airpods do, my Sony XM3 noise cancelling headset had 30 hours of battery life when it was new. After 1 year of full day usage during the work week, they last 24 hours. Kinda surprised the Airpods battery dies so quick.
My airpods last not even 15 minutes of phone call. They were about 18months old
I've gotten both my left and my right Airpod pro replaced on different occasions. My right one after 4 months and my left one 1 month later. So far, all of my friends/coworkers that own the pro's also got them replaced at some point within 6 months, or are dealing with the 'Rattlegate' issue. I am blown away by the quality of the pro, both positive and negative. How is it that we are all paying $280 and still have to…
>> How is it that we are all paying $280 and still have to replace them every year.
That was always the deal; the non-serviceable li-on cells degrade significantly after a year of constant use.
I always wonder with "gates" like this: how many people (what percentage) are affected? 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)?
Disatisfied people tend to be more vocal. 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.
A Reason why Apple is affected relatively often is the huge volumes of products they ship. No other manufacturer ships that many identical phones and probably no one has shipped that many identical headphones over such a short time frame.
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.
I've gotten both my left and my right Airpod pro replaced on different occasions. My right one after 4 months and my left one 1 month later. So far, all of my friends/coworkers that own the pro's also got them replaced at some point within 6 months, or are dealing with the 'Rattlegate' issue. I am blown away by the quality of the pro, both positive and negative. How is it that we are all paying $280 and still have to…
Isn't a 2 year warranty mandatory in the Netherlands/EU?
Warranty is 2 years minimum but manufacturers tend to add a voluntary 1 year warranty on top. The hope (often successfully) seems to be that customers "forget" that they still can claim warranty after more than one year.
I don't know dude, they've replaced like, 3 laptops for me, all the keyboards, everything. They fix it all, no problem, everything is easy when it's scheduled by appointment. I'm never at fault for the issue though.
That's only for first-world countries with Apple stores. Without both of these, you are out of luck.
You say that, from what I've experienced their support is far inferior in the UK to what you'd get in the US.
I don't know dude, they've replaced like, 3 laptops for me, all the keyboards, everything. They fix it all, no problem, everything is easy when it's scheduled by appointment. I'm never at fault for the issue though.
That's only for first-world countries with Apple stores. Without both of these, you are out of luck.
I had an MBP with a fried motherboard, out of warranty and paid for it to be replaced out of pocket (400 eur or so). Some months later Apple contacted me and WIRED money to my bank account to compensate the cost. This was for an Early 2011 MBP and they had GPU replacement program for it after a lot of reports about issues.
All of this in North Macedonia, with no Apple stores (but the fix was done at an authorized reseller). To be honest I was kind of amazed they did that and definitely left a lasting good impression of them.
Disatisfied people tend to be more vocal. 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.
A Reason why Apple is affected relatively often is the huge volumes of products they ship. No other manufacturer ships that many identical phones and probably no one has shipped that many identical headphones over such a short time frame. 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…
There is also the expectation of quality, given the branding, price and the presentation. If a $50 pair of headphones break, it's not a big deal. If a $300 pair of headphones break (repeatedly, it seems), you start to talk about it.
I just had my right airpod returned and replaced under warranty, it's only a matter of time before the left goes. It took me two hours to get a person on the phone, and we went through no less than 3 reset cycles. :| Then the advisor told me I have to return it in person to an apple store (which is closed) or to an apple authorized repair store, and mentioned there will be a $29 fee, but fortunately for me, she was r…
Try using the official Apple Support App and chatting w them. They should send you a replacement airpod pro the same way you got a cable. They will just place a hold on your card for the amount of the replacement part until you return the defective one. They ship with a pre-filled return label - at least in the US
Nope, chatting didn't help for me, it only added to the time wasting. I had the same AirPod Pro problem and started with chat Not only did they not solve it via chat (despite detailed troubleshooting notes I provided), they wasted a lot of time asking me to try things that clearly had nothing to do w/ the problem. After a long time of this, they said I'd have to call. Even with a case number, I basically started from scratch on the phone, took about 1hr. After all that, they did finally send me one replacement (right side only). It fixed the problem, though I will say that now they perpetually unbalanced in terms of ear pressure.
I have been through this exact process as well. Mine started to make the rattle noise and I used the chat support to get a replacement sent. Your credit card is "charged" in the event you don't send the broken headphone back. The charge is reversed upon Apple receiving the broken headphone. My replacement was free.
Sucks if you don't have a credit card. And also sucks as a warranty experience. Every other large company I've dealt with similarly (Amazon, Dish, Comcast, to name some) ship your replacement, and say that the return is due back to them within 30 days. They don't charge (or even pre-auth) your card for you initiating a warranty replacement. I'm mind-blown (or maybe not, this is Apple) that people find this acceptable…
Atleast where I live I would just have the charge cancelled by my credit card provider. Risk of shipping in cases of warranty is on the seller/manufacturer, Apple shouldn't be abusing customers like this.
Started a couple of weeks on my pair. Called up Apple. The support representative didn't ask me a lot of questions and said I'd get a replacement Airpods for free.
Then I got quoted for a £75 deposit held until sent back the broken one back and no clarity from the representative on when the deposit would be repaid. So I just issued a replacement request with Amazon instead.