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Comment by neuronic | Hacker News Reader

No it doesn't. Apple has shipped an insane amount of AirPods and even if a minuscule amount is affected by the hardware issues, thousands of people will still experience them.

The same goes for Apple support: you won't read online complaints from people who got their laptop immediately replaced or who were sent a new keyboard without question.

You will read the bad experiences where potential factors such as own fault or shitty behavior are not mentioned, further skewing the picture.

Apple can have very shitty service - no doubt - but what really is the overall experience of support when Apple ships many millions of hardware devices every year?

You insinuate that people are too stupid or too Stockholmy to apply consequences after continuous bad experiences and also that Apple just doesn't give a shit about customers which is absurd.

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You are literally the example of what he's saying.

Any kind of headphones that are $150 and over are expected to work PERFECTLY. It's a fucking high end product, there is no company in the world that would survive having it returned 4 or 5 times without being blasted all over the internet. Except for apple and its mind controlled apologists...

You understand that there is nothing available at any price that works perfectly, for everyone, all the time?

That's a nice straw man you've built there. This is a mass produced faulty product, not a fringe case where some guy got unlucky and ended up with a subpar purchase.

> This is a mass produced faulty product

...and Apple is replacing them for free.

They replace it for free until they don't.

See top comment on this thread:

> Wow. I've had this same problem for months. I spent over an hour on the phone with Support just trying to describe the problem, until they came to the conclusion that there was absolutely no way to send me new ones or to have me send them my broken ones...because I live in Puerto Rico. The week prior, Apple had sent me a new cable for my phone in 2 days flat, yet when I had a problem, there was nothing they could do about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23826526

Or this one:

> A couple days later I started to notice the right airpod is rattling. I've used up my warranty now so would have to buy a new pair if I want this fixed.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23830886

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edit: instantly double downvonted without any replies for demonstrating anecdotes that shine a bad light on Apple. Stockholm Syndrome exhibit A. This is why people take any Apple user input with a grain of salt. They tend to try to shrug problems under the carpet as if these facts would cause them physical pain.

So you've identified 2 problem cases of the ~ 90 million Airpod Pros sold. You get my point, it's not very representative.

You're complaining about straw men while simultaneously arguing that Apple customers have Stockholm syndrome when only a small fraction of them have issues. Right.

Not your analogy, but it's a terrible one. If 10 customers buy a product, and 1 has an issue, and that 1 chooses to repeatedly buy and also have repeated issues, that 1 person may have Stockholm syndrome (I mean it's still a childish argument, but sure, why not?). I fail to see why the other 9 would. I'm personally in the 9. I've had phones replaced easy peasy. I've had them replace a keyboard without a receipt. I could have found the thing in an alley for all they know.

Are there problems with the AirPod Pros? Yeah, probably. I don't have them, but I've had my share of issues with their other products. "Keyboard gate", etc.

As for the price tags, their products clearly have enough of an design or feature edge somewhere that people are willing to pay. Some people either don't have that money, or aren't willing to pay. That's it. Otherwise, we'd all be driving cheap econoboxes, because they all get the driving task down pretty well.

“straw man” isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free-card for any argument. You’re the one who put “perfectly” in all caps.

The reality is sometimes products break or have other flaws, regardless of how much they cost (I don’t think $150 is that high-end for headphones either). Nobody wants that to happen, but when it does, it’s good to know the manufacturer will do something about it.

Also, it’s not clear right now how widespread this issue is. This might be a fringe issue or it might not. I don’t know that and neither do you. (I do know my APP don’t have this issue. I use them heavily and not gently, so I know not everyone gets this issue easily.)

> It's a fucking high end product

They're not, they're disposable earbuds. Even if they work perfectly they need replacing every 2 years for battery capacity.

Not saying I agree with it, but this is what they are and people are more than happy to pay for it.

That's not true for a lot of products. Take car, or bicycles, for example.

The high end ones are always breaking down and are extremely expensive to repair.

Same with anything cutting edge. It's new tech, it's not durable tech.

> own fault or shitty behavior are not mentioned

Sure, always blame the victim.

I have had nothing but bad experience with Apple with MBPs battery swelling twice in few years, bad pixel on screen, dead SSD (again twice in few years). And I had to pay ridiculous money for it the second time. Surely it wasn't Apple's fault, right!

>You insinuate that people are too stupid

Absolutely not.

I don't insinuate anything, I'm as straightforward as it can be: There's a very specific type of relationship between Apple, their users and their non-users that's very interesting from the point of view of behavioral economics, psychology and cultural studies. I'm not sure every side is at win there, to put it mildly.

I'd also like to read any studies on this topic, if they exist.

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