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The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

annoying.technology

321–330 of 473 posts

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've been in both sides of this. Seems like there's a limited range of issues they consider "valid", which tends to exclude design flaws (c.f. "you're holding it wrong", staingate). Outside of that visual confirmation seems to help a lot, my success rate on the phone is low until I start sending photos (and they still take days for replacements with parts in-stock). Anecdotally Dell and Lenovo will send technicians o…

Add HP to the list of companies with on site support. I got several components replaced at home in my laptops in the last 14 years.

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#322

This thread shows the absurd level of Stockholm Syndrome between Apple users. Year after year of user hostility and people still write "at least Apple has great service" (which is clearly not the case for a noticeable part of users here).

I've started to notice a tremendous "herd mentality" I watched a school of fish the other day, how they just all swim together and suddenly thought "Apple Users". I probably do the same thing and someone could say "Apple Detractors". Is this new or am I only just now paying attention?

You're some 40 years late :-)

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#323
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention their extensive recycling programme.

Apple’s re-cycling program has always been corporate green-washing. It’s far greener to make the maximum possible use of your very resource intensive products. That would eat into Apple’s profits however, so they go out of their way to make it as difficult as possible. Re-use beats re-cycling every time: Next time Apple crows about their “Green” recycling program ask how many of those devices are put back into use.

Their laptops have the highest resale values and their iOS devices have far far longer lifespans than their Android equivalents, I think it's hard to fault them on this

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#324

Wow. I've had this same problem for months. I spent over an hour on the phone with Support just trying to describe the problem, until they came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no way to send me new ones or to have me send them my broken ones...because I live in Puerto Rico. The week prior, Apple had sent me a new cable for my phone in 2 days flat, yet when I had a problem, there was nothing they could do…

This is a very known feature of Apple, especially if you are subscribed to Louis Rossmann's channel. Basically, Apple is going to treat you first class only until you have a hardware problem. Not just allergic to any hardware needing repair, Apple will go out of their way to make your life miserable. At the very best their repair is to replace most of your device for a hefty price, at worst they will flat out refuse…

I dunno. I'm sure there are people who have bad experiences, but I've always had good experiences getting Apple hardware fixed with and without Apple Care. It's one of the reasons I've used Apple hardware for so long. Maybe my experiences are routinely good because I live near an Apple store and only deal with people in person?

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#325

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)?

Happened to me... twice.

Both time Apple replaced them quickly with no fuss.

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very known feature of Apple, especially if you are subscribed to Louis Rossmann's channel. Basically, Apple is going to treat you first class only until you have a hardware problem. Not just allergic to any hardware needing repair, Apple will go out of their way to make your life miserable. At the very best their repair is to replace most of your device for a hefty price, at worst they will flat out refuse…

I dunno. I'm sure there are people who have bad experiences, but I've always had good experiences getting Apple hardware fixed with and without Apple Care. It's one of the reasons I've used Apple hardware for so long. Maybe my experiences are routinely good because I live near an Apple store and only deal with people in person?

I understand that ANY corporation that has enough customers will have some of the customers unhappy, treated in error, etc. There is always possibility for bad employees, mistakes, missteps, etc.

What I look at is the apparent policy of the company. Claiming shipment of refurbished touchscreens (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kxzpy/apple-is-still-try...) or waiting for huge number of customers cry out loud for a long time to even acknowledge a problem is a policy problem.

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#327

This thread shows the absurd level of Stockholm Syndrome between Apple users. Year after year of user hostility and people still write "at least Apple has great service" (which is clearly not the case for a noticeable part of users here).

I've been an Apple user since the G4 days, and always have had great support experiences with and without Apple Care. I'm sure there are people who have bad experiences, but I don't think that is the norm. Apple routinely earns top support marks.

https://9to5mac.com/2019/04/24/apple-customer-support-rankin...

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#328
post #264

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)?

Apple sold over 60 millions AirPods. Even if 0.01% is affected - thats 6,000 negative complaints for you. The page that is linked to the post has about 200 quoted complaints.

Most people won't post about it though. I had this exact issue (replaced the left airpod 2 weeks ago) but hadn't posted about it. Until this post, anyway!

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#329
I had this problem with my AirPods Pro, too. Funny thing though... I have intermittent tinnitus in my left ear, and it took me a few weeks to realize it wasn’t my ears making the noise but rather a problem w the AirPods. I had been switching between noise-cancelling and transparency mode, swapping ears, etc to see if it would go away. It didn’t, so I assumed it wasn’t an audio processing issue. Then one day I realized I hadn’t tested on “off” mode (since you only get to this mode through the UI I had forgotten it even existed). The noise issue went away instantly. Called Apple and they replaced it without hassle.

Still kinda blows me away that this issue sounded so identical to my tinnitus that I literally couldn’t tell the difference.

Re: The AirPods Pro “Rattlegate”

#330
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quality is a broad concept. Warranties are probably more about durability and cost of replacement. Two manufacturers giving the same period of warranty (no matter how long and no matter the number of items they sell) probably expect the same failure rate or service costs as % of their margin. The functionality can be much different though.
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