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My complaint with the current alerts is they should be a bit more contextual. My phone knows I am asleep at 3am. A loud amber alert at 3am, unless it is for literally next door, is not ideal. Alerts should be better targeted. Often they are looking for a car on a highway, so the most effort should be made to let someone driving in the area know of the alert.
I think those alerts are managed by government entities.
Apple should only allow those alert to sound on the phone itself. The problem is that if you happen have your phone in your ear you will get a nasty blast too.
 
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.
 
The lawsuit claims that the Amber Alert "tore apart" B.G.'s eardrum, damaged his cochlea, and caused injuries to his hearing. He has since suffered from bouts of dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus, and nausea, and there is permanent hearing loss in his right ear, requiring him to wear a hearing aid.
AirPods Pro don't have that kind of power.
 
That’s odd, there should be a sound. I’m not sure at what % it goes off, but it sounds like this.

My bad, I thought it meant the phone itself produces a sound for the low battery alert. I didn’t realize it was for the AirPods.
 
For those who believe this BS story read this....

 
I think we would have already heard of a LOT more cases of this happening if it were true. Amber alerts are fairly common and like half the population has AirPods. I honestly cannot recall hearing an amber alert through AirPods or at least not at that high a volume. Could've been a bug or glitch with this one though.
 
Shouldn’t be that loud by default. If someone wants these alerts blared, it should be at their behest.

The only thing that should be loud and on by default are time sensitive messages that are life and death to the device’s user, such as tornado and tsunami alerts. Otherwise, just keep it pinned to the Lock Screen until dismissed (same policy as those stupid “traveling with you” AirTag reminders). They’ll still get seen and read.
 
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To be fair Ive been extremely annoyed by how loud these alerts are before. It is a stupid idea and mostly always a "test". Stupid government forcing more crap that we dont want or need down our throats. I say sue the government for their bad policy making and ideas. It is unnecessary to blast FULL VOLUME. EVERYONE THIS IS A TEST> PLEASE NOTE THIS TEST BECAUSE IT COULD HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT. **** the full volume is not necessary and I havnt seen this used in a practical way TO DATE.

If you ask me it is all just a trick to open a back door of our phones up to "emergency services". But call me crazy I suppose. In Alberta they even added a small "emergency services" monthly charge - so they are charging us for this "service" too, for fs sake.
 
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To be fair Ive been extremely annoyed by how loud these alerts are before. It is a stupid idea and mostly always a "test". Stupid government forcing more crap that we dont want or need down our throats. I say sue the government for their bad policy making and ideas. It is unnecessary to blast FULL VOLUME. EVERYONE THIS IS A TEST> PLEASE NOTE THIS TEST BECAUSE IT COULD HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT. **** the full volume is not necessary and I havnt seen this used in a practical way TO DATE.

If you ask me it is all just a trick to open a back door of our phones up to "emergency services". But call me crazy I suppose. In Alberta they even added a small "emergency services" monthly charge - so they are charging us for this "service" too, for fs sake.
Cessna charging for this in Alberta but to be honest it’s a wash compared to us in Ontario you guys pay no provincial tax we do
 
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.

Can you point me to any official information detailing what volume can be delivered by the AirPods Pro if all the safety limits are overridden?
 
Can you point me to any official information detailing what volume can be delivered by the AirPods Pro if all the safety limits are overridden?

From everything I can find, they top out at ~112dB. Way way under what’s required to do this amount of damage.

I suspect that this’ll not get anywhere once the facts come in.
 
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There's a difference between rupturing your eardrum due to a physical force (like in diving) or getting slapped in the head and one from purely sound itself.
No kidding!?!? Where exactly am I talking about diving? I am talking about pressure variations (like you get from sound waves, even pure ones) BTW Einstein, it is all physical force, even if it is sound. The physical force is called a pressure wave. I mean, I just deal with this stuff on the daily, but please mansplain me on the subject. #egolargerthanintelligence
 
This is apparently part of the evidence of the incident. According the the lawsuit, this is a picture of B.G. after the incident.

The other thing that I’m not seeing in the lawsuit is where the parents took B.G. to a medical center for diagnosis directly afterwards. In fact there’s nothing to show they did much of anything that day.

In addition, what isB.G. wearing? This looks to my (totally uneducated eyes) that it’s some sort of bike getup - not sure this paints a picture of a boy enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon watching Netflix.

1652832754786.png
 
I hope they win the lawsuit and it lights a fire under their tushies to get the code under control.

iOS 15 is 🗑🔥
 
I got tired of 2 AM Amber Alerts and disabled them soon after that first started years ago. I’m not surprised they have resulted in a lawsuit for AirPod use. Apple probably deserves it on this one.
 
No kidding!?!? Where exactly am I talking about diving? I am talking about pressure variations (like you get from sound waves, even pure ones) BTW Einstein, it is all physical force, even if it is sound. The physical force is called a pressure wave. I mean, I just deal with this stuff on the daily, but please mansplain me on the subject. #egolargerthanintelligence

Well, that's not exactly true. The tympanic membrane is ruptured or torn due to pressure differences which is why you see it most commonly in underwater incidents where I can guarantee you, it is nowhere near 165 decibels. If the kid wearing them had sinus congestion blocking the canals, coupled with a tight fitting pair of buds, a pressure difference to tear the thin membrane could be accomplished with way less than 165 decibels.

Where exactly were you talking about diving? Bolded and highlighted for ya there bud.

I didn't say it wasn't force that caused a TM perf. But claiming that since someone can rupture their TM's going 20ft underwater means it is possible to perforate your eardrum via a sound wave that is "nowhere near 165dBSPL" is simply not correct. There is a difference between barotrauma and acoustic trauma. We know how much SPL it takes to perforate an eardrum. And since your so smart I'm sure you're aware that 80% of TM perforations heal on their own. Tell me, what "canals" are blocked exactly with sinus congestion? Not your ear canals, they're not connected.

Good for you that you do this as a living, so do I.
 
Hope they also include a volume slider or on-off toggle for all the alert sounds in AirPods. The low-battery and transparency activation sounds are ear piercing for me.
THIS!! Say what you want about this lawsuit. I have experienced this on truly 4 different sets of AirPods across 3 iOS devices. it's almost like there's two "sound profiles" within iOS for AirPods. One for traditional media volume. Another seemingly for "System Notification / Alert"-style sounds that is SO loud. (And I'm NOT talking about the ringer setting. Even with the ringer and notification setting set to 10-20%, I've had the low battery alert truly blare in my ear).

Have you ever clicked the volume button up once or twice on iPhone, only to have the media volume jump to 100% on AirPods Pro? I'm not alone in this experience.

It seems some folks on here can be very quick to d*-ride Apple and dismiss claims against them. People getting caught up in the "rupture".... rupture or not, hearing loss with loud unexpected sounds like this is no joke. iOS is inconsistent and not great at managing the variety of unique volume settings.

Ever experience your iPhone alarm-app go off in your ear, while you are listening to a voicemail? 100% alarm right in your ear when the system knows you have the phone to your head. With iPhone switch on silent. I was on the phone with AppleCare about this, genuinely trying to report a possible bug (not making a fuss). They got me off the phone to "escalate this issue". A few days later, I was given a call back by Apple Legal team (they didn't call themselves by that name), asking if I was hurt, did I see an ENT Doctor, etc. Right after the call, I got an email out the blue from Apple stating my "replacement iPhone 12 mini" was ready for me at a local store. They wanted the old one back... I did not ask for a replacement and we never discussed it.

Before we dismiss this hearing damage claim as nonsense, let's take a moment to consider the times Apple's volume on iOS is inconsistent in levels.
 
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Below, is the recommended exposure limit according to World Health Organization:
  • 75dB: 127 hours/7 days
  • 80dB: 40 hours/7 days
  • 90dB: 4 hours/7 days
  • 100dB: 24 minutes/7 days
  • 110dB: 2 minutes/7 days
  • 120dB+: very dangerous to the hair cells even for 10 seconds.
Given the advice by WHO, and we heard from some online that we are discussing amber alert full volume on AirPods do you have any info on Maximum sound pressure in decibels AirPods are capable of, because some larger headphones are capable of 117db to 123 db, but are the diminutive AirPods capable of the same?

Anything above 90dBa can cause permanent hearing loss. OSHA utilizes a time weighted average (TWA) to protect workers. What that means is at 90dBa the exposure should be limited to 8hrs TWA. 95dBa 4hrs, 100dBa 2hrs, 105dBa 1hr, 110dBa 30min, 115dBa 15min.
 
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Anything above 90dBa can cause permanent hearing loss. OSHA utilizes a time weighted average (TWA) to protect workers. What that means is at 90dBa the exposure should be limited to 8hrs TWA. 95dBa 4hrs, 100dBa 2hrs, 105dBa 1hr, 110dBa 30min, 115dBa 15min.
In other words then, even at the max of 112dB it would take more than 5 seconds of this to do the damage claimed…
 
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