Except they won't. Have you seen the video with the repairable case at the start of this thread?
There's at least another video of another guy being able to repair AirPods without any aesthetic changes at all.
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AirPods Repairability Project Adds USB-C Port and 3D-Printed Casing
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Except they won't. Have you seen the video with the repairable case at the start of this thread?
There's at least another video of another guy being able to repair AirPods without any aesthetic changes at all.
You don’t have to bite, I’m talking about these people you’re citing that think people can freely move and choose to buy in a market full of barriers. It’s like Apple Pay as tap to pay and e-commerce: oh just go Google Pay no one forces you to use this over that.
Not everyone can vote with their dollars. They can’t vote on something inside a big box that is required to make the bigger thing in the box work. And Apple and its stakeholders have no incentive, actually a disincentive, to bother. So how does voting with bucks work?
I’m saying you’re right. It has to be government unless people actually think consumers think irrationally. This isn’t buying toilet paper in a pandemic, it’s using/buying the thing connected to the thing you actually want to use. It’s the opposite of voting with dollars for the consumer. I don’t get these criticisms of basic economics.
Licensing fees from MFi are a rounding error.
Removing the charging brick had more to do with trying to get more iPhones in the same amount of space to compensate for greatly reduced freight capacity in 2020, as well as rising transport prices.
Please stop posting about things which you clearly know nothing about.
To make them replaceable/fixable to the masses they would look like hearing aids there is a reason hearing aids have not changed much over the years.
100%. When I worked Apple Retail, the 30 pin connector broke quite often in the way you're describing. The lightning cable (I feel) is a better design than the USB-C cable in terms of longevity.
It's disgusting and obsene that I had to throw my $169 headphones in the garbage because the battery wasn't replaceable. What a waste of money. As to the environment, Tim Cook knows damn well millions of people will not bring it to the store to be recycled. He stands up there all proud of himself as if he's some kind of beacon of hope for humanity. Millions of people bought these and will buy these and not consider the batteries at all for awhile, not knowing they'll have to thriow their headphones in the garbage.
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Good thing literally every other device in existence has an easily swappable battery. Only AirPods suffer this issue. And you clearly care so much about this, which is why you own multiple devices without easy to swap batteries.
What happens is what millions will be finding out sooner or later. USB-C is a horrible connector for a portable device.
You probably don’t want to imagine how bad GoerTek Vietnam is on that front. China, Vietnam and Apple can claim recycling all they want but they can barely recover anything of value from an airpod… copper? Then they spend energy sorting through the tons of mass plastic and making batteries in the first place. Hence why you can’t go on an Asian vacation beach without drifting on a trash float or grow crops. The solution is probably less trying to recycle the unrecyclable and charge $299 for regular AirPods if we want to be environmental stewards.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes, Apple made a "horrible" mistake by building it into MacBooks and iPads for years now.
It's been nothing but perfectly fine in my own Apple mobile devices that already use it.
Huh?
I didn't claim that using Lightning makes no difference to me. Re-read my post and the one I responded to.
...out of my Mac, iPad, and iPhone...most of my Apple devices are USB-C.
I don't see how it hurts it either. These are the kinds of things people love to claim, without any evidence whatsoever. As if you're just supposed to accept that everything hurts the environment. Nonsense.
All that was proved was that it’s easy to copy a design. That’s it.You disagree why? We've had devices with removable batteries since forever. This guy has PROVED it doesn't take much to design devices that last. What's with consumers having a device that will last for a long time?
Doesn't Apple want to go green? Well, having repairable devices is green!
Oh, but that won't give Apple as much money, will it?
Perhaps I wasn't clear. People have lightning cables now, right? Eventually, they will wear out. At that point they can be recycled (unlikely) or trashed. Lightning cables are ONLY useful for certain Apple products. Presumably people have other consumer electronic devices that use USB-C (such as, I dunno, an iPad Air or Pro). So rather than have TWO cables (at a minimum) that will end up in the trash, if Apple ditches lightning, you just need ONE cable for all your stuff. And that lightning cable that was eventually going to end up in the trash will still do so, but now you don't have to replace it with another lightning cable.
I personally am not impressed with usb-c and have a mix of devices with lightning, micro-usb and usb-c. I would be happy to see lightning prevail.
I agree that from a durability perspective lightning is a better connector. But everything is moving to USB-C, and nothing outside of the Apple ecosystem uses lightning. And lightning is still limited to USB 2.0 speeds unless they make major changes to the architecture. It's a dead-end for Apple and they're better off moving everything over to USB-C ASAP.
I was just talking with a family member who had the plastic fin in the USB-C port break, rendering their electronic device unusable (can’t recharge). Granted, it was from less-than-desirable handling by children but Lightning ports are by design more sturdy.
I'm not saying Apple should stick with Lightning but USB-C has a design flaw (I say that as someone who likes USB-C). The port should be as sturdy as possible and that’s not how USB-C is designed. Cables are easy to fix but ports less so.
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He's not saying AirPods should not exist. He's saying the components should be repairable. And I agree after watching that awesome video!
I completely disagree! I've had two iPhones fail to continue charging by Lighting because the internal contacts bent. I'm not rough with my stuff, but two iPhones in a row (both SE) convinced me that USB-C is superior in this regard.
Right... the "Green" stuff goes way too far at times. There's basically nobody really "repairing" electronics inside any earbud type headphones, or for that matter, any of the Bluetooth headsets out there for cellphones.
If you want to use items with this much functionality in something so small in size? You're going to have to live with it being non-repairable. It's just not feasible.
The older electronics that people DID repair themselves on a workbench with a soldering iron were also of the type where the bad components you unsoldered and threw away were about the same size as entire products like AirPods!
Ahem, without wire, you wont even get the power from power plants to your house to power those wireless gadgets, all of which is charged through charging pads of some sort anyways.
Government intervention is desperately needed here to clean up the mess and force Apple to work with everybody else in this issue. Free market power should have been proven insufficient and underwhelming decades ago, and hoping customers collective action to change the course is just futile.