Apple does warn people about potential issues. See the section “For those sensitive to certain materials”
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204665
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211158
I understand a warning doesn’t pop up when you pair the device with your phone, but it’s not that different than a candy bar manufacturer writing “manufactured in a facility that also processes nuts” in tiny, tiny font on their wrapper.
You’re absolutely right in thinking that we were blindsided by this issue, and that Apple should have been more careful in choosing materials. But they did the tests, evidenced in the links above, and made the decision that it was worth it to still put out the product, the same as that candy bar manufacturer puts its product on a grocery store shelf.
I truly appreciate the seriousness of this issue, I suffered like all of you and took the time to experiment and contact Apple support. But when it’s asserted that the people in this thread will tell others about the issue and it will affect Apple’s sales...that’s like saying people who are allergic to peanut butter will get people not allergic to peanut butter to affect Skippy’s bottom line.
I mean...look at the length to which the people in this thread have gone in effort to continue to use a product that’s actively injuring them, instead of just stopping use. Spending money on new tips, coverings, swapping out the product, spending time experimenting on themselves. People who’ve given up because of the reaction walk away still saying, “Wow, that was such a great product despite the issue I had! This is a real bummer.” How would someone who’s unaffected by the APPs justify not experiencing some of the best ANC in earbud form based on a friend or stranger telling them they had a problem?
Even if this forum represented a small drop of those actually affected, there are maybe 100 unique users posting here multiple times over the course of what’s now 101 pages. Even if we here represented 100 out of 100,000 people affected, that’s still less that than 1% of all of the APPs sold.
Look at a true, widespread issue of Apple’s. The battery issue that happened three years ago was chaos, because it was something that a vast minority of users were experiencing. The logic board failures on the iPhone 8, the keyboards on the MacBook Pros were especially insane. That was affecting something like 20% of users! That’s the point when Apple’s hands are forced, and yeah it affects their bottom line. They replaced keyboards over and over again for free, and ultimately remodeled their entire portable computer line...after four years of the issue ongoing.
Again, I’m not saying to “deal with it.” I’m saying, our bodies have shown us something that they don’t respond well to, to put it mildly. It is amazingly unlucky and messed up, but most of us are lucky to have gotten away without permanent damage. Apple is not going to stop selling their highest selling product unless the issue is proven to be widespread, which is just not the case. We have evidence of what a widespread acknowledged-by-Apple incident looks like, and this is not it. We also have evidence of what a small-scale, acknowledged-by-Apple incident looks like (Apple Watch), and our APP situation appears to be even smaller than that.
Please stop using the APP if you’re having a bad reaction to it. Absolutely tell others about your issue. I just really would not expect those people to stop enjoying the product when they’re not experiencing an issue themselves, or hearing widespread reports of it causing issues.
