It takes quite a bit of effort to get a 0 out of 10 repairability score from iFixit, but in-ears like Apple’s AirPods are well on course for a clean streak there, with the AirPod Pro 3 making an abysmal showing in their vitriolic teardown video alongside their summary article. The conclusion is that while they are really well-engineered devices with a good feature set, the moment the battery wears out it is effectively e-waste. The inability to open them without causing at least some level of cosmetic damage is bad, and that’s before trying to glue the device back together. Never mind effecting any repairs beyond this.
Worse is that this glued-together nightmare continues with the charging case. Although you’d expect to be able to disassemble this case for a battery swap, it too is glued shut to the point where a non-destructive entry is basically impossible. As iFixit rightfully points out, there are plenty of examples of how to do it better, like the Fairbuds in-ears. We have seen other in-ears in the past that can have some maintenance performed without having to resort to violence, which makes Apple’s decisions here seem to be on purpose.
Although in the comments to the video there seem to be plenty of happy AirPod users for whom the expected 2-3 year lifespan is no objection, it’s clear that the AirPods are still getting zero love from the iFixit folk.
I consider earbuds to be a consumable item and therefore the pricerange i choose from reflects that.
they came a long way, from a desktop computer, held together with just two non essential screws, everything clicking together, one piece holding the onther piece in place, to this monstrosity. it all started when jobs came back with the first generation imacs. horrible to replace a hard drive.
Hi, the iMac hardware wasn’t that new even at the time.
The Power Macintosh 5200, Macintosh TV or Power Mac G3 AIO looked roughly similar.
The translucent design of the iMac G3 was new and pretty, of course.
But other things had used translucent plastic at the time, too.
The transparent GameBoy of 1995, the N64 in different colors, the popular GameBoy Color variant in translucent purple..
Some Tamagotchis, PDAs and educational toys were in clear plastic, too.
There were transparent computer mice in late 1980s, even.
Is there any way to make these earphones actually repair friendly? All of them that I’ve opened to fix (usually a battery replacement, can’t ever put them back together) have been held together by snap fit plastic enclosures. I honestly don’t know much about enclosures but I would imagine these would be too small to have screw holes in the body
Well watches have a few dozen screws in them, so it should be possible, but probably not as cost effective as glue..
Especially to get the IP rating, a press fit could be tight but then I would guess that creep would be a problem.
Although snap fits work well for a long time? Anyone with better insight to correct me?)
I’m not against gluing elements, I think with the right tool it can be a good solution and reparable.
I’m thinking of the back of the phone glued, sure, it’s less convenient than just a snap fit, but if I can just put it on my 3d printer bed and heat the back so that it simply opens without damaging anything, I’m okay with it.
I just skimmed through the Ifixit video, but he seems to try to open the plastic earbuds with a metal cutter and then complains that it made scratches.
Yeah, who would have guessed?
Maybe a plastic lever (like you can find in cheap repair kit for phones) wouldn’t have damaged anything?
I didn’t looked further electronic wise etc.. But sometimes having the right tooling (and it doesn’t have to be costly) is all you need to have the thing to be confortably reparable.
Not whilst keeping the tiny form factor. The fairpods ones are noticeably larger; some might like that aesthetic but I can’t say I do. And that’s assuming they work as well; having tried a cheaper alternative, AirPods do know what they’re doing when it comes to making it work.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume every device should have a battery that’s replaceable by an untrained consumer. And BT versions seem to change faster than the batteries wear out (albeit I’m not a heavy user), so I’m not convinced they’ll outlast the software/firmware/radio-version updates.
And we know what batteries they’d replace them with too – the super cheap off-brand ones which catch fire.
Anyone angling for this I’m going to suspect is an EMT doctor hoping for more work!
BUT – they absolutely should take them back for recycling. As should every manufacturer.
“I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume every device should have a battery that’s replaceable by an untrained consumer.”
As far as I know, there are in-ear hearing aids with consumer replaceable batteries. Can any tricks be gleaned from that industry?
I have the impression that hearing aids are usually an order of magnitude more expensive than comparable earbuds.
It’s hard to optimize on all axes at once.
Not without changing the form factor radically. The closest thing is Fairphone’s Fairbuds, which is a great effort but not quite as slick as Airpods.
Have you ever had a batter explode in your ear?
Can’t imagine why Apple would do things this way…
Oh god, that’s an absolutely terrifying thought that has, somehow, up until now completely escaped my brain.
I, for one, have not and personally, I would like to think that I would do everything I can to prevent that reality from ever occuring. :-/
i recently took apart an ipod nano (blast from the past) to properly dispose of its battery. It’s basically a squashed aluminum tube, with the insides slid into it. It has 4 tiny screws at the corners, which secure the end-caps on. So i was pretty impressed by the design! But, it’s aluminum and spent years getting banged around and each of the 4 corners was rounded/bent enough that there was no way to get anything out without destroying it. Maybe a more careful guy could have straightened out the corners.
A mixed message — it is possible to do a good job on impressively tiny devices, but even so it isn’t a guarantee it will actually be repairable after regular use
Could people please thing about the bottom line for Apple before they criticize their design decision. Apple needs to maximize their revenue for shareholders. Why should they make it easier to fix/maintain their stuff when that’ll just lead to people buying fewer overpriced hardware from them? They’re not a charity and their customers think they don’t have a choice. Apple is in the business of making money from their customers.
The Power Macs of the 2000s were still very repair-friendly.
Just think of the iconic Power Mac G3 Blue/White here.
The same applies to the Mac Pro series before the cheese grater.
These products were easy to service, without needing tools.
Apple used thumb screws for easy access, even.
So longvstory short: Before the iPod and iPad, when Apple was still a computer company,
the situation was exactly the opposite of what it is today.
So it’s not a question of whether it’s possible or not. It’s a shift in philosophy or corporate policy.
Apple has become more of a fashion company than an IT company.
A change which makes the Macintosh line and Mac users do suffer. IMHO.
It’s the same as German car companies.
When the majority of the market is buying a status symbol, it’s just expected that the company will ‘respond to market forces’ by making better status symbols.
With the German car companies, that kind of ended when the Chinese stopped buying German cars in meaningful numbers.
IIRC that had peaked at 40% of benzes sales.
Don’t know what they’re doing now.
Even my RICH German second cousin says ‘Never again will I buy a S-class’.
I think he should, an old 450SL, those were good cars.
V8s!
Worth fixing.
The cheaper relatives have also said ‘Never another VW product.’
The company that shreds it’s old devices rather than supply spares makes a device that’s impossible to repair. Colour me surprised.
Crying foul on the repairability of something like this is more discrediting than crediting. A phone, sure..
I mean, there are components that are bigger than these ear-pods and no one bats an eye about repairing a relais or caps. So at what point do we accept that these are in fact non repairable items? The form factor is the main feature, so its not really feasible to have every component to be swapped out – at least until someone does it.