A few years back when I was looking at it, compared to the Base AirPods (2 maybe?), the Huawei FreeBuds 4i had about twice the in ear battery life, ANC / transparency, perfectly okay sound quality and comparable / better splash resistance. And all that for like half the price or less. I don't know what the options look like today. Airpods do have the auto switching thingy, but most people only have iPhones here, so that shouldn't matter.
If using airpods is selfgrowth im very happy to stay small
The mass market are shills for Apple products.
Don't get me wrong - I love my MacBook; but I don't buy it because Apple - I just happen to love MacOS and the hardware.
But I hate their phones and headphones.
In my co-working center, probably 75% of people with over-ear headphones have AirPod Max. I did my own research and decided no way in hell I wanted those, nor would suggest for my partner (Who loves Apple). Both of us happy with Sony MX headsets. I laugh internally whenever I see the other people because I'm sure they bought it just on brand recognition alone.
I had a pair of Sony WH-1000XM3. The earpads collapsed quite badly after about a year of constant use at work, and the inside of the (very shallow!) ear cups starting pressing on my ears, which ended up being painful to wear for more than a few hours.
I contacted Sony, expecting to be able to buy replacement earpads like basically every major headphone manufacturer on earth supplies (yes, even Apple and Bose), and they informed me that earpads are not user serviceable and that I would have to send the headphones into their service centre for a paid for repair. The repair would have ended up costing more than a new pair of the same headphones from Amazon. I'm not replacing my headphones annually, it's ridiculous (both from a cost and a waste PoV).
I looked online and found replacement pads available from third parties, and tried a set of Dekoni pads, which noticeably changed the sound signature of the headphones and caused ANC problems.
So I started looking for a replacement, discounted Sony's line completely, and ended up buying AirPods Max from Amazon when they were decently discounted in a Prime sale, and... they're fine. ANC is competent, sound quality is reasonable, unlike the WH-1000XM3 when I want to move them between Apple devices I don't have to do the re-pairing mess or stop bluetooth from autoconnecting on my other devices, earcups are lovely and deep, and the pads are user replaceable.
They're honestly not a bad product, they're just a bit too expensive without a discount.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2011/12/27/2663489/apple-fined-1-2m-in-italy-for-misleading-warranty-claimsAlso, something like a washing machine has more than 2 years warranty because you can expect such device to work longer than 2 years.
Also, you have the right for updates to keep the device working (if you bought it after April 27th 2022) [2].
The government has very good official documentation available on your rights but it is complex [3].
[1] https://www.consumentenbond.nl/juridisch-advies/garantie-rep...
[2] https://www.consumentenbond.nl/juridisch-advies/garantie-rep...
[3] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/bescherming-van-con...
> I brought it back to Apple after lots of phone calls and troubleshooting and Apple has now told me that something must have gotten messed up with the software. I am able to buy a new pair of AirPods if I would like to, or I can spend $250 for them to diagnose the issue (the price of a new set of AirPods).
I am sure/I hope that with some more patience and visits to an apple store you will be able to resolve that.
(written by someone who quit the Apple garden when the batterygate happened)
How come over the last idk 40 years since portable electronics with headphones have been around, I never had any such calamity that my headphones got confused with someone else's? Oh right, they weren't $200 for no reason for one thing so who tf cared if it ever did happen, and there were 6000 different companies and models and styles instead of everyone in the world having the exact same thing.
Seems like you should do that before complaining on Twitter. Mistakes happen, it's about how they handle them that matters.
This is a good point, the author wrote:
> I arrived at the @Apple store with 1 working AirPod case and 1 working headphone. I spent $95 for a replacement AirPod and left the store with the case and both AirPods not working.
All we know is that he went to the Apple store. It is not clear whether or not he described his issue while he was getting a replacement AirPod from that store.
Earbuds and Bluetooth suck. Never let Apple off the hook for deleting the headphone jack.
We need more information.
What do you mean “their software didn’t work”? Was this special tooling used by Apple support, or did you remove the AirPods from your account manually?
Did you escalate the situation? Call the support line?
If you remove the replacement AirPod, does the original one still work? If not, why not?
Can you get a refund on your botched replacement?
I personally have a real issue with buying a top spec product that's faulty and being offered "refurbished" replacement, why not just replace it with a new device? I have no idea how long the screen on the refurb model has been in use, for example.
Anyweay it to a "genius" bar , they had no idea , they didn't even have a test number I could call to verify the problem, so I clumsily had to call family and ask them if they could hear me.
The best they could offer me so far is that I travel 3.5 hours, very costly trip via rail to pick up my second hand replacement device, they refuse to ship it to my location. It's absolutely ridiculous.
I've had quite a few issues with their devices lately, really starting to turn me off their stuff.
Disclaimer: I do use Linux a lot and I'm open to other vendors, not just a blind fanboy, though I do over all like their products and use them frequently.
Talk about shit QA. No excuse.