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Apple Facing Lawsuit After AirPods Allegedly Ruptured Child's Eardrums With Amber Alert

MajorFubar said:
At 12 years old did he not instantly whip them out his ears or did he just sit there with this siren going off down his lugholes thinking maybe I'll just sit here til my ear drums pop.
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The claim is that the damage was done instantly, not by listening for a long amount of time. Whether that it's plausible or not can be easily tested by someone qualified enough and would definitely be evidence in the lawsuit one way or the other.

MajorFubar said:
Definitely seems to be one of those 'only in America' things. Like the woman who sued McDonalds cos her hot coffee was actually, would you believe it, hot.
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Amber Alerts are an "only in America thing" I guess, so it makes sense? Although I think some other countries have similar alerts, there are none where I live.

The McDonalds lawsuit had actually merit, but as always the devil is in the details. You can find a recap of the case and an explanation why it was not frivolous here.
 
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bsolar said:
The claim is that the damage was done instantly, not by listening for a long amount of time. Whether that it's plausible or not can be easily tested by someone qualified enough and would definitely be evidence in the lawsuit one way or the other.
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I'm obviously not an Apple engineer but I'm pretty sure the engineers will have had all the relevant data available concerning the maximum safe level they should activate the siren/alert and they will know precisely how loud it was in dBs. I do sympathise with the lad but pretty sure Apple will have abided by the guidelines / legal limits. If they are found to have been in breach...well gonna be a big payout day for them. Well, when I say big, big for the average Jo. Apple could pay someone eg $10m compensation and feel it the same on their balance sheet as me throwing ten pence at a beggar.
 
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AdamNC said:
To burst an ear drum requires over 165db. I call absolute BS on this story. Parents just trying to make a buck.

The noise intensity to rupture an eardrum would have to be very loud, usually 165 decibels or more. This would correspond to the sound intensity of a gunshot at close range, fireworks or extremely loud music. Although the eardrum will heal, damage to the inner ear is often permeant.
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And you pulled that information from where exactly? Your colon? Not only ignorant, but also victim shaming. Congrats.

I developed permanent damage (tinnitus) on one ear from a 120db fire alarm that went off without reason. My father developed hearing damage from using a hammer, and that was probably less than 110db. Genetics, and the distance from the source, play a major role. Quoting decibels, without specifying the distance from the source, is almost meaningless, as sound intensity falls off inversely proportionally to the distance. If the victim had the airpods in his ear, the distance is effectively less than 1 cm, and it will take a lot less than 165 db to cause permanent damage. It's medicine + physics + reasoning really, which seem beyond the capacity of some people.
 
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v0lume4 said:
Yes. Hopefully it our lifetime. That’s be great. :)

The more I’ve opened up to others about tinnitus the more people that I find out that have it. There’s a number of people that actually have it really bad. People that I know very well. But they’re completely happy and live a good life. People like that help get me through. It’ll be ok. :)
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Yes, if asking around it seems relatively common that people have at least some kind of mild tinnitus. The more intrusive variants seem less common, but like you say there are people who seem to have it pretty bad and still are ”okay”. The thing is it's difficult to compare this condition – I think some variants are more difficult to cope with than others and I believe some people also have easier to care less about sound and tinnitus than others, i.e. even the same perceived sound can be varyingly intrusive for two different individuals.

It is great that people manage to habituate, but at the same time it makes me really uncomfortable since it then seems concluded that everyone with tinnitus can habituate and thus we don't really need to cure it! 😮

We cannot settle with this. There are many that are affected by their tinnitus negatively large parts of the time being awake. I'm one of them unfortunately. Over one year now since onset it still feels surreal every time I wake up in the morning hearing the sound and knowing I will have a feeling of lasers going through my skull all day long. 😞
 
jav6454 said:
The sound level required to cause that type of damage is beyond what AirPods are capable off.

Quick Google search, and several sources state that 155-165 dB is what is required to burst the eardrum.
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Your quick google search does not amount to a medical physics degree. Good thing you are not testifying as an expert in court...
 
It's troubling to see people's outrage over something like this, when all any of us really know about the issue is from an over-the-top account written by a lawyer hoping to make a bunch of money. The only thing we know for *sure* is that the lawyer's account is not balanced and objective. It might contain some truth, and it might not. But none of us are actually better informed for having read it.
 
ToeCough said:
I've had to turn off Amber Alerts and Silver Alerts due to how buggy and misused they are. For example, I've had the same amber alert delivered to be every 5 minutes for an hour.

Just this week, Los Angeles residents received an evacuation order alert that was supposed to be just an internal test. I've lost all trust in the system.
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Local law enforcement systems also overissue them, especially Amber Alerts. They’re supposed to be an all-hands “this child may be killed if we don’t find them pronto” notice. Instead, they often get issued for non-custodial parental abductions and the like, where the kid likely isn’t at immediate risk of death. They also get used for an overly broad geographic area. I did weather spotter training last night, and the topic of WEA (Wireless Emergency Alerts) came up. The person from the NOAA doing the training noted that they don’t typically release WEAs for low level hazards like Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, instead reserving them for more serious things like Tornado Warnings, where failure to act could certainly lead to loss of life. Seems like WEAs for Amber Alerts should follow a similar standard to avoid overuse.
 
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darngooddesign said:
It's a Pro feature.
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Sedulous said:
I am a bit surprised these earbuds have enough power to do that kind of damage in a single “blast”. Even at full volume, it is unpleasant but far from blowing up the ear.
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Amber alerts (and fire alarms) sound at a high frequency, around 3000 Hz, where the ear is most sensitive. This frequency is a high pitched noise that can inflict maximum damage. Don't confuse the full volume unpleasantness with the ear piercing effect of an amber alert or fire alarm. They have very different frequency spectra. One is like a dull knife, the other is like a highly sharpened knife. Very different result.

I have suffered permanent ear damage and tinnitus from a fire alarm, just because I had to get close to it to turn it off, and it only took seconds to cause the damage. Since then I have ear ringing all night, and I wake up at 3 or 4am from it. It can ruin a person's life.

The people in here that dispute what happened to that kid are unempathetic, willing to victim shame just to maintain their apple fanboyism and illusions. Pathetic.
 
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I turn these alerts off on all my devices. There is nothing more annoying than getting an Amber Alert at 3AM for a vehicle last seen 100+ miles from and headed away from my location.
 
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BurgDog said:
When the non-custodial parent, usually the father, doesn't return the child after a visit, it is considered an abduction and the alert is issued. Sometimes it is a child abducted by a stranger but that is rare.
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It’s rare that children are abducted by strangers? Ummmmm 🙄
 
Clix Pix said:
Nobody seems to have noticed that the kid was listening with the AirPods on HIS iPhone.... Why would a 12-year-old kid even need any sort of alerts on his own phone, anyway? He's not going to be doing much in the way of anything useful in helping to find a missing child somewhere four or five states away from where he lives, anyway, or even in his own state. Why weren't Amber Alerts turned off on his iPhone right from the get-go?
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Why? It’s built into the OS 🙄
 
bg1419 said:
Hot take: I hate amber alerts. They’re so startling, and every time I get one, it’s about some “missing” kid HUNDREDS of miles away (I live in a wide state). And the thing is, they’re never really stolen children, it’s always just a case of “we didn’t realize child was with grandma” or “other parent has kid this weekend” or something dumb like that. And in any case, ESPECIALLY when it’s not within like a mile of my location, I just don’t care. It’s not my job to recover some irresponsible parent’s child.
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Thank you for showing us you have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about.
 
Clix Pix said:
I know that -- but his parents or he should have turned the Amber Alert notification off before the kid even started using the phone.
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I certainly do. But you're making a big assumption that every parent knows about the emergency alert settings on their phone and how to turn them on and off. Most folks have a hard time adding contact info to their phone.

My beef is that Apple knew about the issue, but chose to ignore it.😡
MacRumors said:
There have been other social media complaints about the noise of Amber Alerts when wearing AirPods.
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The best solution, IMO, has been posted many times in this thread: allow the alert sound to come from the phone speakers only. If by the off chance someone is talking on the phone when the alert goes off, they're gonna pull that phone away in a fraction of a second. Not so easy with wired headphones and nigh impossible with wireless. By the time you pull the headphones/AirPods off, the alert sound would have been over.
 
THe fact for a very long time with headphones on an iphone while listening to music if you got an alert it played at full ringer volume, destroying your hearing and even while silenced the phone would play the tone still.

other phones never did that and for years its been that way.

needless to say apples at fault for this one. Idk any other phone that would play the ringer at full volume while listening to other content on a different volume with headphones on.
 
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Mousse said:
I certainly do. But you're making a big assumption that every parent knows about the emergency alert settings on their phone and how to turn them on and off. Most folks have a hard time adding contact info to their phone.

My beef is that Apple knew about the issue, but chose to ignore it.😡

The best solution, IMO, has been posted many times in this thread: allow the alert sound to come from the phone speakers only. If by the off chance someone is talking on the phone when the alert goes off, they're gonna pull that phone away in a fraction of a second. Not so easy with wired headphones and nigh impossible with wireless. By the time you pull the headphones/AirPods off, the alert sound would have been over.
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the fix is to play the alert volume at the volume you are listening to stuff at at the bare min like others due for hearing safety. The fact it plays at whatever the ringer volume is irregardless of the sound volume with headphones on is moronic.
 
Clix Pix said:
I know that -- but his parents or he should have turned the Amber Alert notification off before the kid even started using the phone.
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Why should they have turned it off? Who are you to tell anyone else what they should be doing? Seriously?
 
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PC_tech said:
Because this is the same type of scenario 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
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You mean like trying to get into Apple's pocket for this nonsense?

* These people made no mention of a suit.. I think that was lost on you
 
iGeneo said:
You mean like trying to get into Apple's pocket for this nonsense?

* These people made no mention of a suit.. I think that was lost on you
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It’s nonsense because you say so? 😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂
 
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