AirPods Pro teardown confirms that they’re just as disposable as ever


iFixit has completed its traditional teardown of Apple’s latest AirPods and, just as Apple promised, it’s bad news for repairs. The organization awarded the noise-canceling buds a big fat zero repairability score, noting that their “non-modular, glued-together design and lack of replacement parts makes repair both impractical and uneconomical.” That’s the same score as both versions of the original AirPods.
This means that once the battery in your $249 AirPods Pro degrades and eventually dies, there’s no chance of repairing them yourself. Instead, you’ll have to send them back to Apple for recycling, or take part in the “battery service” program at a cost of $49-per-earbud out of warranty.
The teardown does reveal a couple of interesting details about the design of the earbuds. First is the fact that they’re a whole third heavier than the original AirPods, thanks to new features like active noise-cancellation, and an inward-facing microphone. The teardown also notes that the one user-replaceable part of the earbuds, the silicone ear-tip, uses a custom design that makes them incompatible with third-party models. That said, the popularity of the AirPods all but guarantees other companies will be making third-party tips soon.
Most intriguing is the discovery of a watch-style battery inside each earbud. iFixit notes that it’s a similar battery to what it found in Samsung’s Galaxy Buds which could be replaced. However, the same is not true of the AirPods Pro, whose battery is tethered by a soldered cable
It’s no surprise that the AirPods Pro are a disposable product, designed to be as small and lightweight as possible. And compared to the amount of waste generated by the consumer electronics industry, the environmental impact of each AirPod Pro is likely to be low. But as Apple boasts about the amount of renewable energy its buildings use, and the amount of recycled materials it uses in its products, it’s a shame to see one of its biggest product successes in recent years remain so disposable.
Update October 31st, 6:45AM ET: Updated with details of Apple’s “battery service” program.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Linktree’s free workaround lets you add multiple links to your Instagram bio

Image
Instagram only gives you one opportunity to link to outside resources inside its photo sharing platform. This might not be a problem for a majority of the users, but for those wanting a little more customization and even more options, it leaves much to be desired. Enter  Linktree , a free tool for Instagram designed to improve traffic to your outside link, be it a blog, portfolio, or store. How it works is fairly straightforward. After connecting Linktree to your Instagram profile, you’ll receive a single link to place in your Instagram bio. Once that link in place, you can customize what it’s linked to within your browser, be it a single website, or a collection of sites you’re looking to direct followers to Say you’re a photographer who’s using Instagram as a marketing tool for your wedding photography. Using Linktree, you can direct Instagram followers to your blog, your portfolio site, and even your other social media accounts. Until now, you would’ve been stuck c...
Read more

EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE PIXEL 4, THE MOST-LEAKED PHONE EVER

Image
Google’s  Pixel 3 might have been the  most-leaked phone in history . Long before its unveiling, we knew practically everything about it from unboxing videos, photo comparisons, even a full review of the device. Surely, for the Pixel 4, Google would clamp down on leaks to leave some surprises for its debut on  October 15th , right? Let’s just say, if that was the plan, it didn’t exactly work out. We’ve now seen the Pixel 4 XL from every angle and in three different colors. At least seven different sources have touched this phone, many of them confirming the same specs. We not only know which cameras it’ll have, but also what they may be capable of, including air gestures (go figure). That doesn’t even count information Google has already shared  on purpose. So if you want to know almost everything about the Pixel 4 nearly a month before it’s announced, buckle up. We’ve sifted through all of the rumors and information we can find to compile everything we know —...
Read more

Stable Android 10 starts hitting the Galaxy Note10 and Note10+ (Update: Canada)

Image
UPDATE  1 : 2019/12/16 4:35AM PST Previous rollouts UPDATE  2 : 2020/01/06 2:15AM PST Canada Two weeks after the  Galaxy S10 line received its stable One UI 2.0 build , it’s time for the Galaxy Note10 and Note10+ to get the latest Android flavor. According to a report by  SamMobile , the two late-2019 Samsung flagships are receiving the Android 10 update in Germany, although the rollout is limited to a small group of beta testers. This stable release follows a  five-round beta testing  that concluded just a couple of days ago. Samsung is rolling out the stable build only to its beta testers in Germany to possibly look out for any major bug. Besides SamMobile, the confirmation also comes from  some Redditors  who got the update in Germany just a few hours back. The same Reddit users also mention that Google Pay remains broken even after installing this final Android 10 firmware, although it wasn’t immediately clear how widespread t...
Read more