Why Airpods Are An Environmental 'Tragedy' (vice.com) 267
Vice's "Future Relics" column asks what people 1,000 years from now will think when they keep discovering abandoned Airpods from 2019:
For roughly 18 months, AirPods play music, or podcasts, or make phone calls. Then the lithium-ion batteries will stop holding much of a charge, and the AirPods will slowly become unusable. They can't be repaired because they're glued together. They can't be thrown out, or else the lithium-ion battery may start a fire in the garbage compactor. They can't be easily recycled, because there's no safe way to separate the lithium-ion battery from the plastic shell. Instead, the AirPods sit in your drawer forever...
According to the headphones review team at Rtings.com, AirPods are "below-average" in terms of sound quality. According to people on every social media platform, AirPods are a display of wealth. But more than a pair of headphones, AirPods are an un-erasable product of culture and class. People in working or impoverished economic classes are responsible for the life-threatening, exhaustive, violent work of removing their parts from the ground and assembling them. Meanwhile, people in the global upper class design and purchase AirPods.
Even if you only own AirPods for a few years, the earth owns them forever. When you die, your bones will decompose in less than a century, but the plastic shell of AirPods won't decompose for at least a millennia. Thousands of years in the future, if human life or sentient beings exist on earth, maybe archaeologists will find AirPods in the forgotten corners of homes. They'll probably wonder why they were ever made, and why so many people bought them. But we can also ask ourselves those same questions right now.
Why did we make technology that will live for 18 months, die, and never rot?
According to the headphones review team at Rtings.com, AirPods are "below-average" in terms of sound quality. According to people on every social media platform, AirPods are a display of wealth. But more than a pair of headphones, AirPods are an un-erasable product of culture and class. People in working or impoverished economic classes are responsible for the life-threatening, exhaustive, violent work of removing their parts from the ground and assembling them. Meanwhile, people in the global upper class design and purchase AirPods.
Even if you only own AirPods for a few years, the earth owns them forever. When you die, your bones will decompose in less than a century, but the plastic shell of AirPods won't decompose for at least a millennia. Thousands of years in the future, if human life or sentient beings exist on earth, maybe archaeologists will find AirPods in the forgotten corners of homes. They'll probably wonder why they were ever made, and why so many people bought them. But we can also ask ourselves those same questions right now.
Why did we make technology that will live for 18 months, die, and never rot?
Does Apple's recycling program do Airpods (Score:5, Interesting)
Would be interesting to know what they do with them, and whether they are in fact able to deal with the issues raised here.
Re:Does Apple's recycling program do Airpods (Score:5, Informative)
Of course people can bring their old AirPods back to Apple so they can dispose/recycle them responsibly but this piece is quite visibly written by people who wouldn’t buy Apple goods (for philosophical reasons - closed garden = evil, etc) and thus refuse to consider that Apple is also there to dispose of their old devices.
I’ve disposed of old iPods by returning them to Apple stores. AirPods are no different.
Apple doesn't responsibly recycle (Score:4, Insightful)
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That would be hella cool.
Re: Does Apple's recycling program do Airpods (Score:4, Interesting)
For all kinds of mining, any improvement in ore refining technology is easiest to start using on the tailing piles of existing old mines. In my area, century-old copper mine tailings have been sources for gold, extracted with new techniques - in some cases, more than once.
Think of landflls as being the 'tailings' of human activity. We are going to see them being re-mined for lithium and other valuables of the future.
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This is so much nonsense. The caustic batteries will leak and eat through the rest of the airpod long before they can experience geologic time.
Re:Does Apple's recycling program do Airpods (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just environmentalist claptrap. Apple can repair AirPods, many other people can too (with the right tools). Yes, they're glued together, but so is a bunch of other stuff. A proper heating pad and tools can take them apart. Apple may be able to re-use and recycle the parts, you will be able to replace the batteries yourself once the market wants it.
The problem with recycling however is that it's just not worth it. Most of what we recycle or sort gets dumped with the general refuse anyway because it's not financially feasible even if it's properly sorted. Making new plastics is cheaper, more stable and thus more 'green' than recycling the plastics.
What we need is investment in technology to make recycling easier, cheaper and more robust. There are some solutions but nobody wants to take them because the environmentalists think everyone should simply stop using them, the leftist thinks the government should step in and fix it and the conservative thinks a private party should take on the risk but in the end nobody wants to own it.
I personally would advocate for a mix between government and private industry making available low-cost recycled plastic products for construction and insulation and trade oil and corn subsidies (the primary sources for both fuel and plastics) for recycling subsidies. Once the market has been penetrated with these products and the risk has been averted, slowly pull back the subsidies as scaling takes care of the cost. I'd love to have cheap blow-in insulation made from a mix of recycled paper and plastic pellets or get cheap perfectly straight 2x4's and 2x6's made from a dense recycled plastic and wood composition - those things are already available but typically at a premium.
The problem is it's not cost effective (Score:3)
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If you measure true cost, and don't alllow tech companies to externalize their pollution and waste, it's certainly worth it. It's not a problem with recycling, it's a problem with our economic system.
Re:Does Apple's recycling program do Airpods (Score:5, Insightful)
Make companies that produce the goods ultimately responsible for their disposal, including the packaging the goods came in...
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Hey, don't blame environmentalists for this claptrap! I'm an environmentalist, and it smells pretty fishy to me too!
Re:Does Apple's recycling program do Airpods (Score:4, Informative)
They recycle them. The airpods just have to be broken apart to get the battery and other guts out. You just have to break them a bit more carefully than just crushing them.
Every lithium ion battery is in a case of its own and *also* has to be recycled by a specialty recycler who does something a little more sophisticated than run them through a crusher.
LifeHacker had a story about airpods where they contacted Apple and asked what happens. The Vice "reporter" seems to have just made stuff up.
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The Vice "reporter" seems to have just made stuff up.
Vice is just making stuff up for their articles now? Wow, that's much more actual content than I've been previously seen them provide.
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[Citation needed]
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The article doesn't mention Apple's recycling program, not surprisingly since it's from 2013 and Apple's program was announced in 2018. It also doesn't mention that China has stopped taking most recycling, again because China stopped doing that after 2013.
LMGTFY is only a good answer if what you get from the Google search actually addresses the question; in this case it does not.
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I used to work for a large tech company that controls some of the major root DNS servers. They had bins marked "trash" and bins marked "recycle". I knew the housekeeping staff, and would chat with them when I went out onto the loading dock to grab a smoke. The reality was both bins got emptied into the dumpster. There was no recycling. It was all a sham. All waste went into the dumpster. It made me laugh when I saw earthy-crunchies carefully sorting and washing their luncheon debris before putting i
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And then you swallow it. Disgusting.
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Re: Does Apple's recycling program do Airpods (Score:3)
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Litterbug apple and its slimeball camp followers are some of the most disgusting creatures on the net.
Cant be repaired? (Score:5, Funny)
Cant be repaired because it's glued together? Summary must have been written by a Millennial.
Deliberately ignoring the iFixit article? (Score:1)
The reality distortion field is strong in you two morons.
You go and try to repair them, smartasses. iFixit gave them a repairability score for a reason!
If you believe (as opposed to think) you can do better, please do show us "fools". --.--
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ifixit gives scores based on how many spare parts and tools they can sell.
Can you link to your post where you described your method to replace the battery without completely destroying the case? Sounds like you have much more experience with such matters than iFixit.
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Why do you old people have some magical repair methodology that releases glue while leaving the surrounding plastic unharmed? If so the guys at iFixIt want to hear from you. They did after all give them the lowest score of any product ever after having to completely destroy the case because of said glue.
Re: Cant be repaired? (Score:4)
Yes. Slashdot is continually publishing stories about the irreparability of iPhones too, despite the extensive instructions everywhere else on the Internet.
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Most of everything ends up being thrown away. That's not because the battery is hard to replace, it's because the new shiny is too tempting to resist.
I had a couple of the old Nokia bricks, and an original RAZR. They all had replaceable batteries. The RAZR's was a bit too easily replaceable... it kept falling out. I think I had a spare battery for one of the Nokias, but the phones all got replaced around when the batteries wore out, because tech moved on.
Re: Bullshit class warfare sjw crap (Score:4, Funny)
Here's a step by step list of how to fix your AirPods yourself:
1: You can't.
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TFS made me want to run out and buy a pair of airpods. Never had the impulse until just then.
Sheesh (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, is Apple using some sort of special batteries that no other battery powered headphones use? Or plastics? or all that different than all of the other similar devices?
umm, no. Kinda like any wireless headphones. They all last around the same time. They use similar materials. And you don't gain much by using wired headphones.
Yeah - we're on a race to destroy the planet, and the very cause is Apple earpods.
Re:Sheesh (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhm... I have several pairs of headphones, and guess what? They don't need batteries to work.
Which has the fortunate side effect of making them more convenient to use: I never have to worry about whether they are charged, I never have to worry about them running out of charge in the middle of a run, they are less of an environmental disaster, and according to blind testing, they have better sound quality than the Apple headphones.
But on the flipside, the Airpods are much, much more expensive, so there is that conspicuous display of consumption that drives people to buy them.
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Uhm... I have several pairs of headphones, and guess what? They don't need batteries to work.
Which has the fortunate side effect of making them more convenient to use: I never have to worry about whether they are charged, I never have to worry about them running out of charge in the middle of a run, they are less of an environmental disaster, and according to blind testing, they have better sound quality than the Apple headphones.
But on the flipside, the Airpods are much, much more expensive, so there is that conspicuous display of consumption that drives people to buy them.
Way to completely not get the point, coward. The entire article is about how batteries are bad, and how plastics are bad. And how because Apple uses a product containing batteries and containing plastic, therefore Apple is responsible for an environmental disaster.
Now while you can strut about like a little cock-a-whoop, extolling how your wired headsets sound awesome on your Android, you are still listening to a smartphone with a wired headphone. Wow, what an audiophile we have in our presence!
That'
Re:Sheesh (Score:5, Insightful)
Their closest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Buds or whatever they are called, have batteries that are relatively easy to replace. Coin cells, in fact. They also sound better because they mould to your ear better and aren't made by the kings of crap but expensive headphones.
Complaining about this stuff is how it gets fixed. Remember the original iPod? The "iPod's Dirty Little Secret" site, with the recording of an Apple support agent saying that you should buy a new one after 18 months because the battery replacement is so expensive, is still up. Not long after that they started offering more reasonably priced battery replacement.
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Their closest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Buds or whatever they are called,
Galaxy Buds sounds like a name for a Dispensary in Northern Calfornia.
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Their closest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Buds or whatever they are called,
Galaxy Buds sounds like a name for a Dispensary in Northern Calfornia.
mmmmmmm, galaxy buds.......
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With the pace of legalization, you should trademark the name now so you can open your own pot shop when it's legalized in your state...
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Their closest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy Buds or whatever they are called, have batteries that are relatively easy to replace. Coin cells, in fact. They also sound better because they mould to your ear better and aren't made by the kings of crap but expensive headphones.
Complaining about this stuff is how it gets fixed. Remember the original iPod? The "iPod's Dirty Little Secret" site, with the recording of an Apple support agent saying that you should buy a new one after 18 months because the battery replacement is so expensive, is still up. Not long after that they started offering more reasonably priced battery replacement.
So what are all the Android and Windows and every other manufacturer that uses batteries or plastic going to do.
My point has absolutely nothing to do with environmentally conscious manufacture. It has to do with the article attempts to make it an Apple and Apple only problem.
Read the article, and then come back to tell me that it doesn't.
If the article were to note that batteries and plastics are an issue that should be loooked into, I'd say hell yeah. But this is blaming Apple. And denying that it
Re:Sheesh (Score:5, Insightful)
If I use glues that soften well above the temperature of the plastic deforming, then I cannot heat it open. If I use glues (like superglue) that's stronger than the plastic, then I cannot pry it open. Both methods of opening will destroy the plastics. If my system is so tightly packed that deforming/destroying the housing could destroy the components inside, then I run the very real, very probable risk that the parts you want to reuse - the PCBA, the transducers - will be destroyed during the process.
Those other headphones you have? My guess is there is a lot more "empty space" inside them, and they can probably be broken down/opened with minimal damage, and with essentially zero risk to the PCBA or battery therein. For example, tearing down a Beats Studio 2.0 [ifixit.com] - which is very similar to the construction of most over-ear headphones - is relatively simple and it is easy to access the battery.
Galaxy buds [ifixit.com] are snap together with minimal glue on the PCBAs, so that you can reuse the components therein.
Airpods [ifixit.com] require isopropyl soaks (which will destroy the microphones and speakers), and their PCBAs are effectively potted, meaning they WILL be damaged when you remove them.
Design affects the way they can be serviced; the Airpods were clearly not designed with any thought about service. They are truly disposable products. Competitors don't seem to have that same attitude, at least as far as teardowns and examinations go...
Re:Sheesh (Score:5, Informative)
Apple is both one of the worst and were the ones who really started all this nonsense with consumable parts being impossible to replace. Before the iPod few would have dared release a product limited to 18 months lifespan due to the consumables being non-replacable.
In fact if you AirPods do die in 18 months you probably have a legal right to a new battery for free in the EU. Minimum warranty on electronics is 2 years, and while the exact implementation varies from country to country, in the UK for example if the consumable parts can't be replaced by the user then they have to last a "reasonable length of time". Reasonable for electronics is usually considered by courts to be around 6 years.
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Apple is both one of the worst and were the ones who really started all this nonsense with consumable parts being impossible to replace. Before the iPod few would have dared release a product limited to 18 months lifespan due to the consumables being non-replacable.
No. Now perhaps if the alpha and omega of your knowledge is computing and only computing, or you summarily dismiss all other forms of electronics in order to make a tiny little Apple based point that's based on Blinder level hatred.
I've been in electronics a long time - since the early 70's professionally, and even longer educationally and by interest.
I've seen everything from epoxy potted devices from the 1960s, to modern professional electronics that if they break - there is no option, the Integrat
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I'm not talking about potting, I'm talking about making a device with a consumable part (the battery) that people fully understand will fail and need to be replaced, and making it damn near impossible for them to actually do so.
As for the definition of "reasonable", that is how the law works in the UK. The working is deliberately imprecise so that they don't have to try to build a complete list of every type of product, no actually every product to account for different price points etc, and keep it up to d
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I'm not talking about potting, I'm talking about making a device with a consumable part (the battery) that people fully understand will fail and need to be replaced, and making it damn near impossible for them to actually do so.
I'm talking about it - it's just that the whole thing becomes a replaceable product. You need to try working on a potted product. You don't fix or replace anything on them. Batteries, switches, wires nothing. Pretty close to the same with conformal coatings
As for the definition of "reasonable", that is how the law works in the UK. The working is deliberately imprecise so that they don't have to try to build a complete list of every type of product, no actually every product to account for different price points etc, and keep it up to date over the decades. Instead, courts decide, and for electronic devices costing a few hundred or more they tend to go with 6 years unless there is a good argument for more or less.
Well - that is about as vague as "reasonable" can get. Is a reasonable design a battery that clips in, is there a reasonable battery - do they need to be common, and is a more exotic battery unreasonable?
Okay, under a reasonable right to repair, is sold
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For consumer devices though? The only one that I know of was the Philips CDi, which had a CPU with a battery in the substrate. When it dies the RTC fails which stops the machine booting! But that may well have been a design flaw rather than deliberate.
Before Apple, who was selling expensive electronics to consumers where some critical, consumable part could not be replaced?
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For consumer devices though? The only one that I know of was the Philips CDi, which had a CPU with a battery in the substrate. When it dies the RTC fails which stops the machine booting! But that may well have been a design flaw rather than deliberate.
Before Apple, who was selling expensive electronics to consumers where some critical, consumable part could not be replaced?
The whole issue came about at the same time, with both Apple and other manufacturers.
While so many people try to turn this into another Apple Slashrant, why dont we cut to the chase, because you all are trying to get me to argue things that aren't my point.
Is the replaceable parts issue an Apple only problem? A Yes or no will suffice.
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Which other manufacturer introduced non-replaceable consumables to a major product in a way that made it acceptable to consumers, at the same time as Apple?
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I've answered your question, now answer mine. Is Apple the sole problem? If you don't answer, I'll take that as a yes,
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I get the feeling that Ol Olsoc is from the USA and AmiMojo from the UK. For the record, I'm from the UK also, and here the concept of "reasonable" in terms of warranty is perfectly well understood.
Now give me a definition of reasonable. If you understand it perfectly, you should be able to convey that perfectly to me.
I think Olsoc is getting confused and perhaps a little upset
My position was stated in my first post.
The article mentions only AirPods, and only Apple.
I have several other devices from non-Apple manufacturers that have the same issue. When the battery is dead, so is the device.
My point, long before we got into all these other side discussions was that if there is a problem, then it is not confined to Apple.
I have many devices that are n
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I love the exactitude of "Reasonable"
So do we. It means that we can be sensible in our application of the law, with the judge making a decision based on what might be reasonably expected rather than an arbitrary cut-off.
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Fixed. Like the people who whine about Apple using Foxconn for manufacturing (when they manufacture electronics for just about all of Apple's competitors), hard-to-replace-or-recycle products are hardly limited to just Apple. The point isn't arguable when people still bitch about worker suicides at the aforementioned Foxconn plants making Apple products - except those workers were actually making X-Boxes for Microsoft.
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But this is blaming Apple. And denying that it is specifically and only blaming Apple, merely puts one into the category of unreasoning fanboi. Read the article, and tell me where anyone else is mentioned.
Why mention anyone else when the competitors provide products that can be disassembled and have their batteries replaced with relative ease? Maybe you want to call iFixIt a bunch of fanbois then, they did after all give the Airpods the lowest score of any product they've ever given.
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But this is blaming Apple. And denying that it is specifically and only blaming Apple, merely puts one into the category of unreasoning fanboi. Read the article, and tell me where anyone else is mentioned.
Why mention anyone else when the competitors provide products that can be disassembled and have their batteries replaced with relative ease? Maybe you want to call iFixIt a bunch of fanbois then, they did after all give the Airpods the lowest score of any product they've ever given.
Not my point. Never my point. If you can come up with solid evidence that this is an Apple only problem and no one else, I'll listen.
I'm arguing that the story is simply biased against Apple.
One can make a plausible argument that electronic devices with batteries present disposal problems. I have several devices not made by Apple that lead me to believe that there is a problem .
But you can't make a plausible argument that it is an Apple only problem. And every post in reply simply validates the fac
Re:Sheesh (Score:4, Informative)
Does OP make a valid point? Yes. Does your answer contains any valid points - Yes. You are right, other products have the same problem. Does this make OPs point invalid? No. Does OP claim that this is an Apple-only problem? No. So what?
In a world where people read the headline and not much else, apparently you don't either - allow me to repost the headline from the very article:
AirPods Are a Tragedy Here's the link. https://www.vice.com/en_us/art... [vice.com]
Now go find anything in the article that mentaions anything else but Apple.
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umm, no. Kinda like any wireless headphones.
I had a wireless Sennheiser headphone that lasted 15 years.
It hat a replaceable battery pack. The battery pack lasted about 2 years with daily use. Even after they unfortunately discontinued that exact battery pack, I was able to replace the cells inside the ones I had with standard rechargeable cells from an electronics store.
Unfortunately, after that 15 years of pretty rugged use the headphone itself slowly started to fall apart.
And the Kicker: It costed about half of what those Airpods are costing...
Anyhow - it is interesting to see that if we only put Apple out of business, this problem would simply disappear, because it is Apple and no one else. Who would you choose to lose your shit over then? Because in truth, I can go down to the local best buy, and Apple is one of many wireless buds for sale. Or just DDG wireless earbuds. Dozens of them, Apple is one manufacturer of many. I guess it's good to manufacture them as long as you aren't Apple. Because as TFA points out - it is no one's fault but Apple
More tragedy than 1.5B smartphones made each year? (Score:5, Insightful)
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They're not just easier to recycle. Their batteries can be replaced without destroying them if you have the right tools. The Airpod is literally designed so that the shell has to be destroyed to get down to the battery.
Glued phones are tough to get into, but they're at least water resistant and repairable. And could even serve a second life by refurbishing and selling overseas to poorer markets.
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Understood, but the sheer number of smartphones mean they will have a much bigger impact on the environment, as many wont ever be recycled.
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There is actually a very large recycling effort for Apple phones in China. Nothing to do with Apple, in fact they try to stop it, but there is an entire industry that recycles iPhones. They offer a warranty and support too.
I ponted this out elsewhere on the thread (Score:2)
My bud worked at a tech shop that did a bit of iPhone & Laptop repair. They hired a guy that happened to be really good at it and there was plenty of work, but they couldn't make a living off it. The repair shops around my area are run by recent immigrants who I suspect are working long hours for effectively low pay (like the Don
Answered his own question (Score:5, Insightful)
Why did we make technology that will live for 18 months, die, and never rot?
Because:
AirPods are a display of wealth
Or more correctly, the owners of AirPods think they're displaying wealth when in fact what they're actually displaying is that they're suckers.
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And not only that, they look stupid.
https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
Bluetooth anything is typically annoying crap.
Why would anyone want to look stupid and constantly go through the hassle of re-pairing with their car, AirPods, and speakers?
I hardwire everything I can for quality and reliability. Yeah I am looking at you booth over there Bluetooth and WIFI.
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Or more correctly, the owners of AirPods think they're displaying wealth when in fact what they're actually displaying is that they're suckers.
Interesting you mention that, after thinking a bit, it is the impression I get when I see someone wearing them. Why? I think it's because everyone I've seen wearing them publicly comes across as slightly gullible to technology trends, and branding.
False (Score:4)
Plastic can be burned for fuel or assuming a few scientific advances thrown in a nuclear fusion reactor. There are many ways to recycle plastic and lithium if you have clean energy.
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or assuming a few scientific advances thrown in a nuclear fusion reactor
ROFL. "a few". Very good.
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ROFL. "a few". Very good.
No, we could do it tomorrow. It's just kind of pointless launching plastic waste into the sun.
Greed (Score:2)
In many cases it's cheaper to produce shit than something that can be recycled or/and repaired. Also, single-use items are a whole lot more profitable for the manufacturer.
Re:Greed (Score:5, Insightful)
While we're at it, the amount of unrecyclable/poorly recyclable plastic stuff that human beings produce is not just staggering it's [theguardian.com] mindboggling [slashdot.org]. Rivers and oceans are full of it: we're breathing and eating it and the rich are not exempt from this environmental catastrophe since they don't have a separate clean planet to grow food on.
Actually, I've been always astonished that the rich don't do anything to stop this environmental degradation madness, as if having billions in your pockets doesn't make you a single bit wiser or perceptive to the state of the planet we all share. Europe and several USA states have enacted laws to ban certain plastic things but that's just a drop in the ocean.
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Actually, I've been always astonished that the rich don't do anything to stop this environmental degradation madness,
What exactly do you want them to do?
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Courage (Score:3, Interesting)
Clearly Apple not only to remove the headphone jack on their phones but to make such an inferior product. Why is anyone surprised by Apple's business acumen that has constantly filled dumpsters around the world. Consider how many different chargers and dongles Apple makes you purchase just because they do not like USB ports or have changed their minds about what kind of port will be on their new devices.
Archeologists will have fun (Score:2)
Headphone Jack (Score:2)
Millennium (Score:4, Insightful)
Your bones won't decompose in "a centuries". You don't eat with "a forks". You don't drive "a cars". So how is it that the plastic decomposes in "a thousands of years"?
TFA's author needs "a dictionaries". If s/he means thousands of years, they need to drop the "a". If they mean 1000 years, they need to use the singular, not the plural.
What are we, savages? Next thing you know they'll be "writing" with pictographs instead of text.
Also cryptocurrency mining (Score:2)
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Well, except there are lots of nerds who are really really excited about cryptocurrency mining so they’re going to refuse to see the parallels.
Pollution of the acoustic environment (Score:2)
Airpods don't have a seal between the earbud and the ear canal. This makes them leak quite a bit of sound and also reduces the bass response.
I find it nerve-wrecking to ride in public transport with folks who maxed out the volume on their Airpods, probably to compensate the lack of bass.
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Over Production Over Consumerism (Score:2)
Landfill trash (Score:2)
I'd really have to see some figures showing that AirPods are a significant source of lithium in landfills compared to, e.g. old cell phones. People in the US at least throw tons of lithium batteries in the landfill trash every day. Whether or not this is a good idea in the long run remains to be seen. Underground "thermal events" - the landfill industries term for 'fires' - are in progress at several large landfills in the US but it is not clear that lithium plays a big part in those compared to all the o
Feeling Wasteful != Environmentally Unsound (Score:2)
Ok, so airpods don't get recycled. It's not like we are going to run out of room to store them somewhere. Nowhere in the post does it actually identify a particularly large environmental harm.
Just because it might emotionally feel wasteful that we purchase something that then never gets recycled or reused doesn't mean that it's particularly damaging to the planet. Lithium is quite an abundant mineral on earth and the plastic used hardly represents a significant amount of our fossil fuel usage (assuming
pretty low quality article (Score:2)
People should be more educated, not buy them (Score:2)
recycling (Score:2)
I can't throw them out? (Score:2)
Really? Wow, that's exactly what I do with (literally) throw-away components. Was I not supposed to do that? It never occurred to me someone would want to bother recycling something so tiny.
Seriously, some perspective, please. Even if every single AirPod wound up in a landfill, that is dwarfed by the old cars, appliances, motor oil, furniture, and other cruft I see there.
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Beware the Impending Toilet Crisis (Score:2, Funny)
Moneky see Monkey Want (Score:2)
It's not just AirPods (Score:2)
Samsung fixed this problem with their Note 7 didn't they?
Airpod batteries can be replaced (Score:2)
Airpod batteries can be replaced, either by Apple or by third parties, just like phone batteries. Cases being glued closed is pretty typical manufacturing these days, and just takes a heat gun to open - pretty much all phones are glued shut these days, for example, because it's more reliably water-tight and more compact than screws. There's no need to throw them out, unless you _really_ want to buy new headphones. Or you don't bother looking at Apple's web site which lists the repair https://support.apple.c [apple.com]
Why? It's simple (Score:2)
Different? (Score:2)
As someone who doesn't want wireless headphones, how is this different from my $10 headphones with cables which eventually break every 6 months?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Status symbol? Yeah, but the the status these people think. They may impress the dumb masses but those who know a thing or two about the tech and the other options look at them as fools.
I'm gonna put you up on something right here. The people with all the money don't give one tenth of one fuck what nerds think about them. Frankly, they don't give even one hundredth of one fuck about it. Stop imagining that the masses care what you think, they most certainly do not.
Re: A display of wealth? (Score:2)
The irony is that back in the day people who wore tech all the time were considered the nerds. Things have changed!
Re: (Score:3)
The irony is that back in the day people who wore tech all the time were considered the nerds. Things have changed!
Nah. The people who wore tech all the time for tech's sake were the nerds. People have been wearing/carrying watches as long as they've been affordable, that's tech too. And for literally centuries, clockworks were the peak of tech.
Re: (Score:2)
...don't give one tenth of one fuck what nerds think about them. Frankly, they don't give even one hundredth of one fuck about it.
Ahem. Let's use proper terminology, please. That's 100 and 10 milifucks.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple could brand a turd
Audi is actually testing this theory right now. Their first EV is called the "e-Tron", which is French for "turd". Naturally the name Audi Turd has caught on even in places that don't speak French.
It may sell to a certain group... But in general it's big, has class-leading inefficiency, and is generally quite stupid. But it's got 4 rings on the front.
Re: (Score:2)
Audi is actually testing this theory right now. Their first EV is called the "e-Tron", which is French for "turd".
Following in the, er, muddy footprints of the Toyota MR-Deux.
Re:A display of wealth? (Score:5, Insightful)
- - - - - How about "AirPods are a display of the power of the herd mentality over facts and logic" or "AirPods are the definitive case for brand loyalty trumping quality and value." Or, as I like to put it, "AirPods are a display of mass stupidity. - - - - -
How about you personally do not like Apple design and products, while other people do? That you have your own preferences, even passionate ones, is fine, but it does not follow that all who have different preferences are "sheep" or subject to "mass stupidity".
Re: (Score:2)
That's even funnier, humanity taking to the stars! :)
98% It won't happen, ever, and 2% if it ever does happen, it will really, really suck. Life on moon and the mars looks like it would really, really, really, suck.
Re: (Score:2)
my ten year old wired headphones haven't hurt the environment much.