AirPods

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AirPods

File:AirPods logo.png

Basic Information
Release Year	2016-12-13
Product Type
In Production
Official Website	https://apple.com/airpods

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.

Consumer impact summary

AirPods are designed in a way that makes them unrepairable, leading to customers having to buy a new pair after a few years of use. Apple can replace them, but won't repair them or help you do it yourself. According to an expert from iFixit:

If you want to take this apart, non-destructively, to replace the batteries, as far as I know, that's impossible.

The rechargeable batteries in AirPods can see fast-tracked degradation at a certain number of battery cycles, with two-year-old sets lasting for less than half of the advertised five hours.^{[citation needed]}

Up until September 22, 2023, Apple used their proprietary Lightning connector on the AirPods' charging case.

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.^{[citation needed]}

Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of products part of the product line.

Touch on relevant topics like:

• User Freedom
• User Privacy
• Business Model
• Market Control

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User Freedom

Airpods are not designed to be free as they are only feature-rich with other products in the apple ecosystem. With non-apple products they have limited functionality as basic wireless headphones due to the artificial restrictions that Apple has put in place. However there have been projects attempting to allow the more sophisticated usage of airpods with non-apple products such as librepods.

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.

Replace the placeholder text in the sections below with the incidents that affect this product line and a short summary. Also replace the link so it point to the right company article.

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Example incident one (date)

Main article: link to the main article

Short summary of the incident (could be the same as the summary preceding the article).

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Example incident two (date)

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Incidents affecting all of the company's products can be found in the company article: Company article

Products

• AirPods (1st generation) (December 13, 2016)
• AirPods (2nd generation) (March 20, 2019)
• AirPods Pro (1st generation) (October 30, 2019)
• AirPods Max (December 15, 2020)
• AirPods (3rd generation) (October 26, 2021)
• AirPods Pro 2 (previously 2nd generation) (September 23, 2022)
• AirPods 4/ANC (September 20, 2024)

See also

• Apple
• Sony's WF-1000XM4 earbuds