Apple to Stop Including EarPods With Every iPhone Sold in France From Next Week

[I7guy]

I shouldn't have to buy a charger to begin with.

Its just another high margin accessory Apple wants to sell me instead of provide with the purchase.

Its like selling a pair of shoes but don't include laces... you surely have shoe laces, don't you? just use those? Oh and by the way we also sell shoe laces at premium margins.

Oh great news, you won't have to buy another set of shoe laces next time.....

Most of my increasing number of household items that charge via usb do not come with a charger. I guess the manufacturers assume there is some type of "brick" in the house. They would be correct. You are lucky, you do not have to give Apple the revenue from a charger, cable or headset..if you don't have any other headsets available to you.

 

[GloboGymLLC.]

Most of my increasing number of household items that charge via usb do not come with a charger. I guess the manufacturers assume there is some type of "brick" in the house. They would be correct. You are lucky, you do not have to give Apple the revenue from a charger, cable or headset..if you don't have any other headsets available to you.

these things ALWAYS end up with excellent outcomes for everyone.

 

[I7guy]

these things ALWAYS end up with excellent outcomes for everyone.

For everyone meaning 100%…or for many?

 

[Abazigal]

Just another way to make money, under the pretence of saving the environment. So we now have to order a new cable, a new plug and a new pair of ear phones - three different boxes, packaged in another box and delivered by another van on another occasion. How does that save the environment?!

It helps when not everyone is going to do that.

I think at this point, many people buying an iPhone would not be new to smartphones, and would ideally have an existing charger from an earlier smartphone (be it iPhone or android handset).

The charging cable still comes bundled with the iPhone, though if all you have is a type A charger, you would still need a new charging brick.

Earphones - honestly, I never really liked the ones that Apple bundled (being lightning-based, it really limits their usefulness to just iPhones).

Take me for example. I have never used the 5w charger that came with every generation of iPhone, or the bundled EarPods. Even the 18w charger that came with my 2018 iPad Pro is replaced by a dual-port 30w Anker charging brick. I used a multi-hub usb charger with my 5s / 6s, then switched to a 3-in-1 charger when I got my 8+ (that I also use to charge my watch), and am now using the Belkin 3-in-1 MagSafe charger. To me, it's an opportunity. To have the freedom of being able to customise my charging setup however I wish, without being hit with the nagging feeling that I am somehow wasting resources by not using any of Apple's default packaged accessories.

Oh, and the lightning to usb-c charging cable that came with my 13 pro max and AirPods 3 are still in the original box, untouched, thanks to this little baby. Notice how none of them are officially included Apple accessories?

It's a classic exercise in short term pain for long term gain. You just need to get the accessories you lack once at the start (and it likely won't be all of them for anyone save a very small subset of really new entrants to the market), and they will carry over to your subsequent purchases as well. Given the scale that Apple operates at, there really is potential to cut down on a lot of e-waste even if not everyone is on board.

 

[I7guy]

Nice! Politicians and mega companies collaborating to save costs with the excuse of environment! Wow.
This is a net negative for the environment, as it will only encourage sales of Airpods, which has limited shelf life due to battery and not repairable (thus more likely to be tossed away).

Imo, this isn’t as black and white as your post makes it out to be. Firstly, people could just go out and buy a wired headset. Secondarily people who want airpods buy them because they are airpods. Why spend $150+ on an item when one can get a wired headset for $2.99?

 

[cupcakes2000]

I’d like to think most readers on here would be able to discern opinion from fact without having to be explicitly told. Obviously not.

This is the internet. You must know that you need to be explicit when stating fact or opinion.

So has the risk to developing brains been reduced/eliminated? If not, seems the French are considering the environment more important than developing brains.

Or they have revised an outdated law to be more inline with modern thinking?

I shouldn't have to buy a charger to begin with.

Its just another high margin accessory Apple wants to sell me instead of provide with the purchase.

Its like selling a pair of shoes but don't include laces... you surely have shoe laces, don't you? just use those? Oh and by the way we also sell shoe laces at premium margins.

Oh great news, you won't have to buy another set of shoe laces next time.....

It’s really not the same thing now is it.

 

[cupcakes2000]

According to a notice posted by French carrier Fnac

Fnac is not a carrier at all. It’s a shop.

 

[ThomasJL]

one more thing gone from the box

and the price stays the same.

Another Tim Cook make more money idea. give em less and keep the price the same.

Exactly. Or, give them less and increase the price.

 

[Abazigal]

one more thing gone from the box

and the price stays the same.

Another Tim Cook make more money idea. give em less and keep the price the same.

It helps offset what may have been a higher price tag overall.

I think this video does a good job of explaining it.

 

[svish]

Without the law in place, Apple is never going to include EarPods in box.

 

[hans1972]

you've totally missed the point.

No, you missed the point. The point is for Apple to reduce their carbon footprint by producing as few chargers and cables as possible since not producing anything doesn't produce any carbon footprint.

The best way to achieve such a ting is to make them more expensive and/or more cumbersome to get.

Apple have achieved both.

 

[AdonisSMU]

I think they should remove the phone from the box since most of us already have a phone. A true step forward in protecting the environment.

Or you could just not buy one every year. ??‍♂️

 

[AdonisSMU]

No, you missed the point. The point is for Apple to reduce their carbon footprint by producing as few chargers and cables as possible since not producing anything doesn't produce any carbon footprint.

The best way to achieve such a ting is to make them more expensive and/or more cumbersome to get.

Apple have achieved both.

It means people who need them can get them but they will no longer be given away for free woth each iPhone.

I always saw the EarPods as a free item Apple threw in as a reward/added benefit for being willing to spend so much on a smartphone. Whats a $20-$30 giveaway when people are paying $500+ for a smartphone?

Nowadays people have their own headphone preferences. So why keep giving people e-waste when 99.9999% really only care about the phone to begin with? These freebees were being written off as a loss to begin with. Now having them in the box just doesnt make any sense at all.

The French government stepped in when it didnt need to and came to the same conclusion Apple did. ??‍♂️

 

[hans1972]

yeah there are only new 385,000 potential smartphone buyers born each day.
even if only a small percentage of them buy a smartphone, that's still a lot.

Apple has been selling around 200 million iPhones a year. Even if 50 million people bought a separate charger, it would still reduce the carbon footprint for Apple.

The number of smartphones sold by year has been around 1.5 billions. Do we really need 1.5 billions new chargers every year?

 

[hans1972]

only until a new "standard" comes along and then everything has to start again from scratch.
just like we did when micro-USB to USB-A was made the standard port, or when apple changed from original port to lightning. the new standard will be USB-C to USB-C for a limited amount of time, but Apple throw a spanner in the works by using lightning to USB-C (except for the iPad devices they have chosen to use USB-C on).

You can still charge the newest iPhones and Android phones with a 20 year old USB-A charger.

But let's say you buy a new phone every 4 years and the standard changes every 10 year. That's 2-3 chargers over a 20 year period instead of 5 charges included with every phone.

Also it's the charger which is the biggest problem, not the cable. You seem to be obsessed with cable being free. Cables are cheap, just buy the ones you need.

 

[hans1972]

all the apologists are missing the point though.
the plug and cable should be made optional in the box, not mandatory in the box.

if someone comes along that buys a device that doesn't already have the required charging options then they should be given the option of having them included.

that means those that don't need those items don't get them, but those that do need them get them included.
it's not like apple aren't already manufacturing the cables and plugs anyway (to sell to you at a nice markup), so there in real terms there acually is no environmental benefit.

The purpose of Apple's move is to reduce the numbers of cables customers get from them. By making them free and easy to get, more people will get them.

Apple are producing a lot less chargers, because a lot of people don't need them or they buy chargers from third party. Before this move, Apple was producing upwards of 200 million chargers per year just for iPhones.

People are not buying 200 million chargers from Apple at Apple's prices every year.

I have had iPhones since iPhone 5 and I have never used the included charger. For a lot of people, the included charger is a waste since they don't really need it.

 

[hans1972]

it's being put across as fact, when in reality it isn't. you have no idea what someone may or may not have in the house

it's a bit rich to buy a phone at a considerable cost, only to be told that, actually, if you want to charge said phone you'll need to pony up another £20 to be able to charge it.

Let's say produces X number of phones and includes X number of chargers with it.

If we find ONE person who doesn't use the included charger, like me, it was only necessary for Apple to produce X - 1 chargers.

X - 1 < X

The number of people who have or will have in the future a charger from another device they can reuse is pretty large by my own experience. People are also buying chargers from third party like yourself.

So there is no way that Apple's solution will produce more chargers. At worst it will only be a slight reduction.

But I can't see that Apple will sell more chargers after this move, upwards of to 200 millions chargers at a minimum cost of $19 each year.

 

[hans1972]

later in the year though, we did have to buy another USB-C charger because the apple watch cable is USB-C as well now (previous version was USB-A). previous apple watch was using USB-A charging plug, which is now of no use for any device. we bought a U-Green dual USB-C plug which was only slightly more expensive than the apple single USB-C offering.

I do believe you can use an old USB-A charger with the old cable on new Apple Watches, although it might not charge at full speed.

"we bought a U-Green dual USB-C plug"

And this charger you bought you can use for 10 years for multiple iPhones and Apple Watches.

If you have this charger, why would you need to buy a new charger when you get a new iPhone?

 

[Razorpit]

When I think the time they spent to render that law at the first place… to undo it now. Useless politics.

Hey, some one’s family member in France made some good money from that law. ?

Why wouldn’t you use your existing cable, plug and headphones?

Because you don’t have them.

Funny thing is ... price stays the same. Apple reduces the contents, officially due to environmental issues but internally to maximise profit.

How do you know Apple isn’t finally making the profit margin they were targeting in the first place?

Actually the price has gone down. I don’t know if you noticed but there’s this thing called inflation and lately it’s going crazy.

And we haven’t seen anything yet. Hate to tell you folks, wait another 9 months. ?

is it actually increasing though?
one would hope that actually their manufacturing and build costs should decrease over time.

if it's not decreasing over time then they are doing something wrong.

Everything is going up. Governments are printing money. People aren’t working. Inventories are all out of whack. Manufactureers around the world are sitting on millions if not billions of dollars of WIP inventory. A $50k truck can’t be sold because it’s missing a $400 computer. The supplier of the tires still needs to be paid for supplying their material. Guess who’s paying interest on that money?

or so some people would like you to believe.

Apple (and every other major tech company) continue to use cheap labour working in poor conditions.
I'd argue that there hasn't been a year in past 22 years where the "economy" hasn't been blamed for prices.

The reality, in my opinion, is that prices could easily fall if the business wanted them to, but they don't want them to.
Keeping prices the same but reducing what you get for the price means better profits whilst using the excuse that the economy is the reason.

the size of a Mars bar has continued to get smaller for nearly 30 years, yet the price has never fallen.

You answered your own question. The Mars bar either stays the same size or it increases in price. Apparently Mars corp chose the former over the latter. People are all for “a living wage” until they realize how that changes their buying power. ?

 

[russell_314]

Hey, some one’s family member in France made some good money from that law. ?


Because you don’t have them.


How do you know Apple isn’t finally making the profit margin they were targeting in the first place?


And we haven’t seen anything yet. Hate to tell you folks, wait another 9 months. ?


Everything is going up. Governments are printing money. People aren’t working. Inventories are all out of whack. Manufactureers around the world are sitting on millions if not billions of dollars of WIP inventory. A $50k truck can’t be sold because it’s missing a $400 computer. The supplier of the tires still needs to be paid for supplying their material. Guess who’s paying interest on that money?


You answered your own question. The Mars bar either stays the same size or it increases in price. Apparently Mars corp chose the former over the latter. People are all for “a living wage” until they realize how that changes their buying power. ?

I’m trying to be optimistic but I think you’re right

 

[bookofxero]

Race to the bottom. Should have seen the look on the employee’s face at Apple store when I recently booked a genius appointment for some EarPods that weren’t working. You could tell they thought I was scum, despite me having an iPhone 13 and Apple Watch 7

I’d still be prepared to bet that 90% of consumers if not more would be happy with EarPods, I feel they are good enough quality and I’m really into music. Certainly not worth spending hundreds of pounds more, talk about diminishing returns. As for AirPods, they are considerably more expensive, need to be charged and very easy to lose so that’s 3 huge disadvantages

As for not including them for environmental reasons (green tyranny), that’s nonsense. It’s simply to boost their profits

You wasted everyone's time, including your own, by booking an appointment for something that cannot be serviced in store. It has been a long time since I was on the floor of an Apple Store, but if you had just talked to a Specialist on the floor, they probably would have done a swap for you right there and scrapped the bad ones. Hell, we had tons on unused EarPods and charger bricks as "surprise and delight" items, so they wouldn't even need to do a retail swap if they had any of those.
Now, if you did that and they wouldn't do the swap or told you to make an appointment, that would be a different story.

 

[hans1972]

I shouldn't have to buy a charger to begin with.

Its just another high margin accessory Apple wants to sell me instead of provide with the purchase.

Its like selling a pair of shoes but don't include laces... you surely have shoe laces, don't you? just use those? Oh and by the way we also sell shoe laces at premium margins.

Oh great news, you won't have to buy another set of shoe laces next time.....

It's more like a belt. You don't need one belt per pair of pants.

The purpose of this isn't to benefit customers, but to decrease the carbon footprint of Apple and Apple's supply chain.

 

[ignatius345]

I shouldn't have to buy a charger to begin with.

Its just another high margin accessory Apple wants to sell me instead of provide with the purchase.

Its like selling a pair of shoes but don't include laces... you surely have shoe laces, don't you? just use those? Oh and by the way we also sell shoe laces at premium margins.

Oh great news, you won't have to buy another set of shoe laces next time.....

So, assuming you've never owned a single thing that charges over USB and don't have a single other USB charger from any other smartphone or device you've ever owned -- you could buy a charger literally once (and not from apple because theirs are ****** and overpriced to begin with) and then keep using that. Like the rest of us have done. I recommend just hitting up Amazon for an Anker one when they're on sale.

Because the alternative is that everyone gets a mediocre charger packed in their box whether they need it or not. Millions of unneeded chargers that go straight into drawers. And for what? The occasional first-time smartphone buyer?

I bet 95% of the people whinging about this also have chargers all over the place -- and just feel aggrieved they aren't getting a free one every time.

 

[travelsheep]

Just 6 months for Apple to find a silent backdoor to change the law in France.. I think the French parliament held up pretty good in this case, considering what companies were able to do with governments all over the world recently.

 

[furou]

Apple: “Let them have dongles”.