Apple: Premium e-Waste and Normalizing Disposability

Let’s be frank. If I hadn’t put “Apple” in the post title, would you have clicked on it?

The reason this article is going to focus on Apple, they are the highest profile company pushing these kinds of manufacturing decisions. If you’re a fan of Apple hardware, I’m sure there will be an inclination towards defending your brand.

“Other companies are doing things like this too.”

Other companies should be criticized too.

Though, we should acknowledge that many of these companies wouldn’t be following this path without Apple. AirPods show how profitable it is to make expensive headphones as disposable as possible. Apple stands to take the lion share of the profits with this tactic. It’s my belief we should start with the largest companies, and THEN work down to smaller players copying Apple.

We should “punch up” with our criticisms. Apple is currently the king of this e-waste hill. We’ll start with them.

I’m an Audio Snob

I playfully use the term “audio snob” instead of “audiophile” to describe my headphone addiction. I’m not looking to sit in a perfectly acoustically tuned home theater with a single pair of crazy expensive headphones on a super expensive amp, plugged into a turntable, all at a price tag worth several times more than my boring old Nissan sedan.

I like collecting different options, that have different strengths and weaknesses. Those options are generally pricey compared to the general population buying headphones, but they’re not outlandishly expensive. It’s really not difficult finding great options for $200 or less.

• I like practical and time-tested solutions, especially for nice studio monitors.
• I’m thrilled by this new generation of low cost in ear monitors.
• I prefer spending a little bit more on headphones that can be serviced and repaired easily.

Audio Kit Should Last

The tough thing about good audio gear, manufacturers won’t get a ton of turnover purchases. Once someone invests in a decent pair of cans, with care and maintenance, those headphones should last for a really long time.

I purchased my first pair of Sennheiser HD25’s in 2008. I used them in studios, on location shoots, and they’re still a comparison point today in my headphone reviews today. I was NOT kind to these headphones, especially on the location shoots, but they proved to be rugged and dependable monitors. Almost twelve years later, they look rough, but they’re still completely function. The only “repair” was new ear pads about four years ago.

I completely expect these cans should last me at least another ten years with care, if I can find more replacement ear pads. Heck, I might “splurge” on a new cable too.

Talking about “professional” audio, I think a lot of consumers are intimidated by the perceived premium price tags. I spent roughly $200 on my HD25’s over ten years ago. There’s no battery in them to fail. The tech won’t fall behind for Bluetooth or fancy new codecs. They’re tanks.

What consumer electronics can you buy for $200 today, and expect them to perform for twenty years? Audio USED to be one of those dependable investments.

Bluetooth is Different

Ok.

If we want the “convenience” of wireless, it’s not entirely fair to compare studio-grade cabled audio to consumer-focused wireless audio.

We’re excited about the true wireless earbud trend today. No cables of any kind while worn. A magic driver plugs into each ear. It kinda looks like Star Trek.

The issue with this design? Tiny earbuds require tiny individual batteries.

The original AirPods were rated for around four hours of listening per charge, and after two years of regular use, those tiny batteries are delivering far less play time. Heavy AirPods users are finding significant degradation, and the only solution is to replace them. AirPods can NOT be repaired.

The AirPods 2 and AirPods Pro aren’t much improved. The Pro received another “0” score from iFixit, and they perform the same with a similar play-per-charge rating of around five hours per charge.

Starting at $160, topping out at $250, we’re in the same ballpark as professional audio gear, but the expected life-cycle under regular use might only be about three years. Worse, there could be an issue with uneven battery wearing. If you use one AirPod more than the other, it’s likely you’ll need to replace one part before the whole system wears to a similar level.

If you paid the additional $29 for AppleCare, your replacement cost will only be $29 per part. If you’re out of warranty, then an AirPod will cost $69 and an AirPod Pro will cost $89.

If you’re nearing three years of use on AirPods Pro, as those batteries are starting to fail (and you’re out of your AppleCare), it’s going to be far more cost effective to buy a new set of wireless ear buds than to replace what you’ve been using.

Apple believes $250 every 2-3 years is an appropriate cost for decent audio.

WhattaBout-ism…

I wanted to compare AirPods against a similar, but older solution.

My Plantronics BackBeat GO were my first pair of stereo Bluetooth earbuds. Released in 2012, I bought them in early 2013 on sale for $70. The original retail price was $89.99.

It’s a cabled neckband solution. Just a wire connecting the drivers to one single battery. They were originally rated for 4.5 hours of playback (similar to AirPods), and they still support features like activating a voice assistant and on-earbud volume control. No fancy case, they charged over Micro USB on the rear of the right driver.

For almost two years, these were my daily driver earbuds. My primary solution for listening to podcasts and music, taking phone calls. I recharged every day, and often topped off in the middle of the day.

Somewhere near the end of 2015, I lost them. I shoved them in an old camera bag, and completely forgot where I put them. At that same time, I was reviewing more consumer gadgets, and I was cycling through more headphone and speaker reviews.

I recently found them while cleaning up in the Gadget Lab.

From the end of 2015 to almost the end of 2019, they sat completely discharged in a backpack. Letting a little battery completely drain is never good. There’s no way to replace the little battery in this neckband that I know of. Surprisingly, the BackBeat GO 2 battery CAN be replaced, but I haven’t found a guide for the original BackBeats. They LOOK similar, so I might try to crack them open in the near future.

Let’s stress test!

This is a worst-case situation for a wireless product: two years of daily use, and then four years of neglect.

The BackBeats wouldn’t turn on at all when I found them. I plugged them in, and it took about two hours for the charge indicator to display a full charge. I paired them to my LG V50, and I played music in one continuous stream until they died.

They ran for two hours and twenty-four minutes.

The low-battery warning kicked on at 10%, and was almost perfectly accurate. They ran for almost 20 minutes on that last 10% before finally cutting off the Bluetooth connection.

I’m shocked they held on that long. I wouldn’t want to rely on them today as my daily driver earbuds, but this is much better than I was expecting. Almost two and a half hours of consistent stereo playback, from a pair of six-year-old earbuds, which in 2013 cost less than half of what a pair of AirPod Pros sell for today.

I don’t think we should assume AirPods will fare as well if treated in a similar fashion.

Conditioning Consumers to Pay More

This is the insidious side of a product like AirPods.

Apple built a reputation for making some of the most polished products available. Over years of this manufacturing advantage, many consumers simply trust that the experience of staying in the Apple ecosystem will be better than if they stray.

Rather than evaluating, it’s just “safer” to believe Apple has the “It Just Works©®™” solution.

However, when it comes to audio, Apple’s solution is significantly more expensive over time, and offers dubious conveniences over competing solutions. Most of the AirPod “convenience” is simply replacing what Apple broke when they removed the headphone jack from the iPhone.

A proprietary chip in the AirPods makes it easier to move from phone to laptop to tablet, but the 3.5mm jack was a universal solution to plug your ears into any audio source.

We Should Fix This

As I stated at the top of this article, we should absolutely be critical of any company engaged in similar manufacturing. However, if we really want to change this industry, I believe “Top Down” criticism will be more effective than “Bottom Up”.

Seeing a repair guide on the Backbeat GO2 from 2013, iFixit’s repair guide for the Galaxy Buds, and a similar guide from Creative for the Outlier Air, give me a little hope that we can refine this true wireless trend. There’s simply no reason that wireless options need to be completely glued shut.

If we’re going to spend premium cash on audio gear, we should get more than three years of use out of those products under heavy use.

If we’re really going to “vote with our wallets”, we also need to acknowledge competing options like neckbands. I’ve already made a cheeky video declaring neckbands superior.

Continuing that conversation, we should be discussing these options with family and friends. Apple’s marketing budget rivals the GDP of small nation states. They have a much larger megaphone to drive what’s “in vogue”. If we give up on the conversation, then the sales trend of non-repairable true wireless ear buds will make competing options far less attractive to manufacturers.

“Consumers will spend MORE upfront for LOWER audio quality, AND they need to replace these earbuds MORE often!?!?! SIGN US UP!!!”

That’s not the audio future I want.

Respect your ears. Respect your wallet. Respect the planet.

We can do better.