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AirPods are wireless earbuds designed by Apple. They first debuted on September 07, 2016, alongside the iPhone 7, and were released on December 13, 2016.
| Basic Information | |
|---|---|
| Release Year | 2016-12-13 |
| Product Type | Wireless earbuds |
| In Production | Yes |
| Official Website | https://apple.com/airpods |
Consumer impact summary
AirPods are designed to be unrepairable even by Apple, leading to them ending up as e-waste after a few years of use. The replacement of the lithium-ion batteries used by the AirPods requires the destruction of the outer casing, adding to the waste problem. Up until September 22, 2023, Apple used their proprietary Lightning connector on the AirPods' charging case.
The lithium-ion batteries in AirPods can see significant degradation over time, with two-year-old sets lasting for less than half of the advertised five hours. Apple has a program to service batteries and purchase replacement individual AirPods and charging cases. The replacement of one or both AirPods or the charging case has a lower price with AppleCare+ than without. Apple offers battery servicing for free with AppleCare+ and for a fee without. However, this is just a replacement service, as AirPods cannot be repaired without destroying their outer case, resulting in a 0/10 repairability score.
Incidents
This is a list of all consumer protection incidents related to this product line. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the AirPods category.
Example incident one (date)
- Main article: link to the main articleShort summary of the incident (could be the same as the summary preceding the article).
Example incident two (date)
...
Incidents affecting all of the company's products can be found in the company article: Company article
Products
- AirPods (1st generation) (December 13, 2016[1])
- AirPods (2nd generation) (March 20, 2019[1])
- AirPods Pro (1st generation) (October 30, 2019[1])
- AirPods Max (December 15, 2020[1])
- AirPods (3rd generation) (October 26, 2021[1])
- AirPods Pro 2 (previously 2nd generation) (September 23, 2022[1])
- AirPods 4/ANC (September 20, 2024[1])