AirPods succeed by not selling you a new pair

My AirPods Pro (2nd gen) are just about 3 years old, still going strong, used daily for anywhere from 30-minutes to a few hours. I recently rented a U-Haul cargo van and had to drive it empty for a few hours. It would've been deafening without the AirPods. The noise cancellation works great for something like that.

My AirPods Pro first gen are nearly 6 years old, same use up till I gave them to my wife. She uses them less, but they are still going strong as well.

I just wish the tips fit my ears better. I'v resorted to having to make custom tips by placing memory foam under the large silicone tips. It's the only way I can get a decent seal. I've tried a few different third-party tips (including Comply) and none work for me.

I don't agree at all. I love the product but I have to buy a new pair of airpods every few years very consistently. It's either battery capacity loss, or crackling audio issues, or both to the point of not being usable. The Apple Genius always comes up with a story like "well it's out of warranty and the cost of repair is about the same as just buying new ones so you make the call dear customer."

Since they released, I've owned two pairs of AirPods, three pairs of AirPod Pros, and now I use AirPods Max.

The original AirPods were great. My first pair lasted years and I replaced them due to the batteries no longer lasting a full day for conference calls and such. I passed them down to my kids and replaced them.

The AirPods Pro had some teething issues but are clearly the better product IMO. My first pair had the "crackling" issue, so Apple replaced them under warranty. My second pair was great and lasted years. I left them home when I was on a work trip, so I picked up another set and passed the older ones down again. The third set developed the "crackling" issue after about six months.

Apple replaced them no questions asked, but managed to sell me on the Max while I was at the store. I was hesitant, but yielded after they revealed that they had a pair that had been returned open but apparently unused. They seemed perfect to me, and they offered to replace the ear pads "just in case".

At $350 for the returned pair, it still felt like too much to spend on headphones - but I was willing to give it a shot. I asked if I could hang out in the store for a while and try them. No problem. About fifteen minutes later another employee approached me that seemed more "manager-like" and told me that since I had brought in a pair of AirPods Pro for warranty replacement, she could issue me a $50 credit as a loyalty perk if I wanted to buy the Max.

All told, between the open-box discount, the offered credit, and a few random bucks I had in Apple Cash (which I never use and am not even sure how they got there), I walked out with them for ~$250.

Both my daughters now have AirPod Pros and I have the Max. My wife is the only holdout in the family, with her Galaxy Buds.

Wait, y'all can still use your 3 year old AirPods? On mines, the battery went nuts in ~18 months, and I don't even use them that much.

For me it's 3.5mm over ears. I'm not an audiophile, but it bothers me went when the sound cuts out half a second because of Bluetooth issues.

In my experience, the battery degrades fast enough to not require any nudging people to upgrade feature-wise.

When Apple discontinued the first generation of AirPods, the final firmware release had a bug that was never fixed. It caused the left AirPod to disconnect after one or two minutes. Hundreds of thousands of loyal customers were affected [0], including me. You couldn't even buy a second hand left AirPod because of a firmware version mismatch.

I still love Apple products, but under Tim Cook, it feels like they care more about margins than customers.

[0] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250494933?sortBy=rank

Moved from Airpods to Galaxy Buds Pro and haven't looked back. Much better sound quality and not as finnicky. Also easier to find decent prices via sales or refurbished

I've actually had this particular product fail on me twice, and coincidentally, I was just talking to a friend today whose AirPods are degrading after only 1.5 years. That's the same timeframe when both my regular AirPods and AirPods Pro started failing.

I might have just been unlucky, but I'd be happy to hear some positive experiences because as a product (especially the Pro), it really is brilliant.

I disagree with author here. I wish I didn’t, because that would mean that customers are much more aware than they really are. In reality I doubt that adding those features to existing models had any impact on sales at all. If Apple had data that people would buy headphones for those features, they would 100% made them exclusive. AirPods are just the best in its class, that’s why people are buying them.

Apple does not have a good track record of making devices that are built to last. It has repeatedly opposed right-to-repair legislation, and has been exposed as secretly throttling the CPU of phones as the battery decays, without making that known to users. If it really is Apple's vision to sell AirPods as a lasting product, it stands in stark contrast to its overall history.

Sony has done the same with its ear buds as well. So I'm inclined to think it's not "they just make a good product" and more "they've positioned themselves as the premium electronics brand".