[HN Gopher] Real vs. fake AirPods with industrial CT
___________________________________________________________________
Real vs. fake AirPods with industrial CT
Author : eucalyptuseye
Score : 122 points
Date : 2023-11-07 16:06 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lumafield.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lumafield.com)
| latchkey wrote:
| My partner bought fake AirPods off ebay. We kind of had a feeling
| they'd be fake but felt it was worth the risk. We got a refund
| from the seller pretty quickly and they told us to keep them.
|
| The pods themselves looked exactly the same. The case was the
| real sign. It was clearly not the same as an original case. They
| actually worked, but they were essentially just generic bluetooth
| headphones.
|
| We ended up listing them on FB Marketplace. Clearly marked them
| as fake. Person came and picked them up and I said again that
| they were fake. Got the same amount we paid for them. I don't
| understand this world sometimes.
|
| The fake sellers must make enough off of people who don't realize
| that they are fake that they can just write off the few that do.
| tomdeboer wrote:
| Or buyer will try to resell as non-fake...
| latchkey wrote:
| I doubt it. Zero profit (since I charged the going rate) and
| a real waste of time/gas to drive to my house to pick up a
| single pair.
|
| The fake sellers must buy them by the crate for cheap to see
| any real profits.
| dspillett wrote:
| If you charged the going rate for pre-used, maybe the buyer
| is planning to put them in official looking packaging
| (likely really official packaging picked up elsewhere,
| perhaps from their own purchase of an official product) and
| sell them as new for a profit?
| latchkey wrote:
| Probably more likely:
|
| 1. Buy a new pair off Amazon.
|
| 2. Return the fake and get a refund from Amazon.
| dspillett wrote:
| That does seem a more reliable option. I need to update
| my thinking of I want to be a good scammer!
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Jokes on them... the Amazon ones will also be fake
| frou_dh wrote:
| Seems kinda like "kids eat free" at restaurants... fake-
| spotters eat free at eBay.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| But in this case they ended up with no product, the same
| starting money and a bunch of time/energy lost.
| poszlem wrote:
| They ended up with twice the amount of money and some time
| wasted.
| mathematicaster wrote:
| > We got a refund from the seller pretty quickly and they
| told us to keep them.
|
| So they made some? Spent time/energy for science of course
| ...
| Tade0 wrote:
| The way I read it they ended up with double the starting
| money, because they both got a refund and sold the
| headphones.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Ah yes, apologies for the miscalculation.
| everly wrote:
| Until this happens a few times and their algorithm flags you
| as an 'abuser' of the refund system (despite you doing
| nothing besides correctly calling out fraud) and you're
| banned or automatically ruled against in all disputes going
| forward.
| JCharante wrote:
| > but they were essentially just generic bluetooth headphones.
|
| I heard that there are fake airpods that will connect and
| behave just like a normal airpod to iphones, as if they have a
| fake H1 chip or something. Can anyone confirm?
| thomasqbrady wrote:
| Yes. I have a set that appear to my iPhone to be legit,
| including auto-connect/disconnect, noise-canceling modes and
| all, though the functionality isn't actually reliable. My
| iPhone doesn't seem to know any difference between my real
| AirPods Pro 2 and these fakes.
| ewzimm wrote:
| I got my first AirPods off eBay recently that I was
| expecting might be fake, but they arrived new in the
| package with all the usual Apple paperwork and pull tabs
| and registered normally, even the Apple warranty, and
| everything seems to work, except if I get a notification
| when I'm playing audio, it just goes silent until I pause
| and resume the audio. It seems like other people have the
| same issue. Is this a real issue with genuine AirPods Pro
| 2, or is this potentially an incredibly good fake?
| thebigman433 wrote:
| Feels like this could maybe be a pair from a fake/third
| shift or something?
|
| Seems like that level of functionality with (fake) Apple
| products is super rare.
| civilitty wrote:
| Might not even technically be "fake". Apple has ghost shift
| problems just like every other major manufacturer that
| contracts out semiconductors to China.
|
| I've heard that Apple drives such a hard bargain with some of
| their suppliers that selling ghost shift parts and the parts
| that fail QC to counterfeiters and repair shops is the only
| way they make any profit. The Apple contract pays for the
| factory and the bills but they make the real money on the
| side.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> We got a refund from the seller pretty quickly and they told
| us to keep them._
|
| A good will gesture to reduce the chance of you reporting them
| as selling fakes, and tarnishing their carefully manicured
| feedback scores, if they were in the business of doing this
| regularly.
| latchkey wrote:
| They asked for a positive review and we refused and
| threatened to contact Ebay, so yes... exactly that.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >Got the same amount we paid for them. I don't understand this
| world sometimes.
|
| Someone wants ear buds, they want to signal wealth so choose
| expensive brand, but they want knockoffs because they're
| actually poor[er].
|
| The main risk with knock-offs is they arrive broken, or just
| don't arrive, or... basically it's a scam of some sort.
|
| So, you took on the risk of buying, assessed the earphones as
| working, the earphones are now probably worth more as they've
| been QC-ed (by you), moreover the buyer can actually see them
| working and refuse them if they wish.
|
| Within the context the buyer seems relatively rational.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| >signal wealth
|
| >$100 product
|
| It really boggles my mind that this works on anyone. We all
| see the commercials for financing. We all see teenagers with
| no jobs having them.
|
| I'm a bit mind boggled that Apple was able to turn <$1000
| tech products into 'luxury' products. Maybe it makes more
| sense if you didn't get screwed by iTunes DRM and were more
| open minded during iphone Era.
| latchkey wrote:
| When I lived in Vietnam, getting the latest iPhone (or
| really any product), as soon as someone smuggled it into
| the country (usually from Australia or Singapore), was a
| national pastime for people there. That logo is everywhere.
| tuankiet65 wrote:
| I concur. My mom sometimes talked about how her friends /
| coworkers just got the latest iPhone and that made her
| want to get one herself. I guess part of it is just FOMO
| but there's also something about the brand that drove
| people to do "unusual" things (like you said, smuggling
| phones from other countries just to be the first)
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Where I grew up, $100 sneakers were a signal of wealth.
| Nothing new under the sun.
| xattt wrote:
| [delayed]
| Projectiboga wrote:
| The main risk is fire with the batteries.
| arghwhat wrote:
| The energy of such fire is directly correlated to the
| battery capacity - airpods would probably just get hot and
| smoke a bit. The case could do more, but still limited in
| comparison to, say, a phone.
|
| So I'd say the main risk of putting those things in your
| ears is suffering the horrible audio quality.
| heisenbit wrote:
| Same here. My wife washed the old airpods so she got me some
| new and "better" AirPod Pros. They looked perfect and since I
| did not really care about getting other ones I did not much
| research. In any case they looked genuine and worked for a
| while until their flakiness got on my nerves and I went to a
| slightly embarrassing Apple appointment where I was told there
| were scores of service requests for this particular serial
| number. She got her money back since at least in our country
| EBay the company is now the seller and could not run away and
| as it was bought with PayPal...
|
| What convinced me that they were originals - packaging looked
| genuine - paired out of the box without much hassle - showed up
| as air pods with serial number
|
| Lesson learned and bought the new ones and these were the
| differences:
|
| - print inside the lid was 20% larger in original
|
| - packaging of original was not shrink wrapped
|
| - slight off-colour white of the packaging
|
| - the lightning port of the fake was not feeling right
|
| - the button on the case did not click distinctly
|
| - the button on the case did not enter the special mode after
| 10 seconds like original
|
| - ANC of original light years ahead. More modes displayed on
| the menu.
|
| With hindsight the biggest give-away probably were the
|
| - shrink-wrap plastic around the package
|
| - lightning port feel
|
| - much, much lower microphone quality. But since I never
| checked that out myself as I don't use them much for talking
| and so complaints from others were not so frequent.
|
| - imperfect find-my performance but since I did not care about
| this feature much I suspected I mis-clicked somewhere and gave
| up.
|
| - transitions from case to ear to case with sometimes not
| registering that it was back in case (contact issues in the
| case?) not so reliable with impact on battery.
|
| - battery erratic behaviour
|
| I guess if I would have been in the market for them and then
| bought them I may have found out immediately but so I just
| started feeling Apple starts slipping on quality with new
| products more complex but worse. As I got them as a replacement
| and just wanted to get on with listening during my walks they
| were able to fool me. They are certainly good enough to fool
| casual buyers and they are certainly bad enough to hurt Apple's
| reputation for quality products.
| latchkey wrote:
| Oh right, yea... the sn# gives it away immediately, you can
| google it and see that it is fake.
|
| Another pro tip for buying used stuff online... request a
| photo of the sn#. Even a partial will get you a match in
| google.
| baz00 wrote:
| I'd be interested in some fake airpods if they lasted twice as
| long and sounded 80% as good. Literally I get perhaps a year out
| of a set of genuine bought at Apple Store airpods before the case
| gives up or one airpod goes muffled or craps out. After a year
| Apple don't want to know or care unless you have AppleCare.
|
| Decided I wasn't going to fish out for a fourth set, so I bought
| some Sony ones for PS20 with a wire between them. Seem to work ok
| and for that money, meh!
| latchkey wrote:
| It sounds like what you have found out is that not all Apple
| hardware is worth the hype.
|
| Personally, I have the beats fit pro. While still owned by
| apple and benefiting from the same chip integrations, these
| have held up just fine for me for a few years now of daily use.
| baz00 wrote:
| Yes I could write several pages of diatribe about my shitty
| Apple experiences recently.
| someotherperson wrote:
| You can get high quality fake AirPods that sound just as good.
| They pair with Apple products like the real thing and the
| batteries are solid. The problem they usually have is with the
| microphone. That's usually the case with a lot of this stuff.
| I've had super cheap (i.e $10) wireless off-brand headphones
| that sound even better than AirPods but the microphone is
| almost always poop.
| somehnguy wrote:
| AirPods or AirPods pro? My current set of AirPods Pro have long
| outlasted my original set of AirPods in terms of battery
| longevity. Both very heavily used.
|
| It seems the switch from pouch cell (in regular AirPods) to
| button (in Pro) made a huge difference.
| baz00 wrote:
| I killed two sets of plain Airpods. The Pros I bought crapped
| out after 14 months of ownership.
|
| They do get used heavily but no excuse at that price.
| ska wrote:
| FWIW I have a pair of pros that crapped out around the same
| time, 14ish months and the mics weren't working - apple
| replaced them free (but not the charger) and they've gone
| another year or so now without issue. Obviously YMMV.
| somehnguy wrote:
| My Pros are over 2 years old with an hour minimum per day
| use, usually a few hours. Still working flawlessly.
| kube-system wrote:
| Maybe I don't use mine as hard, but I've had 3 pair and never a
| single failure.
|
| What you can always do is upgrade when the new versions come
| out and sell your old ones before they die. They have a good
| resale value.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I'm on my second pair of Sony LinkBuds, and these are starting
| to go also.
|
| The warranty covered the second pair because they lasted less
| than a year. I'm not sure if it'll cover the third pair, but
| I'll probably buy another if not, because I really like the
| hear-through design, and no one else makes anything like it.
| acomjean wrote:
| Wired earbuds are back (Acording to some... and I've seen a few
| more lately out and about). I'm still using full over the ear
| headphones I bought 15 years ago. I had to get new pads but
| other than that they still sound great.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/are-airpods-out-why-cool-kids-a...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/wired-earbuds-are-so...
| baz00 wrote:
| I do use wired ones when I'm at the PC. I have some
| Sennheiser HD25's my ex wife bought me over 20 years ago.
| fyloraspit wrote:
| Great longevity as they tend to be for club / dj
| environments but I find they have way too much pressure on
| the ear to be comfortable as regular headphones for use at
| a computer.
| baz00 wrote:
| They do a "lite" version known as the "SP" ones which
| doesn't clamp your head. I've got those
| threeseed wrote:
| Those articles from 2 years ago.
|
| And in that time I can't think of a single manufacturer who
| has brought back 3.5mm headphone jacks.
|
| Meanwhile Qualcomm recently announced WiFi-Audio which brings
| lossless audio.
| autoexec wrote:
| A quick search shows that the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and the
| Sony Xperia 1 V both have headphone jacks. They've got
| expandable storage too! If I had to get a cell phone today,
| the Sony one is probably what I'd be looking at.
| delecti wrote:
| The Galaxy "A" series is their budget line, and so the
| A14 didn't bring back headphones; the A line never lost
| them to begin with. Because wireless headphones are a
| signal of wealth, headphone jacks are often still present
| on budget phones.
|
| Sony's models are too inconsistent for me to figure out
| what it's the successor to, so I can't say whether it's a
| good example of bringing back headphone jacks.
| autoexec wrote:
| The Sony phone at least is certainly not a "budget"
| model, it's their latest flagship and they want $1,400
| for it (too much really).
|
| Wireless headphones might be a feature that "signals"
| wealth, but we should be careful not to confuse that with
| quality or value. Features like headphone jacks and
| expandable storage get removed because they save/make
| money for the manufacturer, not because they offer better
| value to consumers.
|
| Many people like not having to deal with wires, but
| bluetooth (in addition to being used extensively to track
| you and reducing your security) is inferior in several
| ways when it comes to headphones (audio quality, latency,
| pairing issues, stuttering, disconnects, battery life,
| expense) but thanks in large part to the power of
| marketing, people can be made to feel good about being
| forced to pay more while getting less.
| isk517 wrote:
| I had to replace phone last January and I went with the
| Xperia 1 III. It is without a doubt a smartphone. Does
| everything all the other smartphone do plus has the
| headphone jack (that I more or less use daily) and has
| expandable storage (or additional SIM card, my choice).
| I'm comfortable in recommending the Xperia 1 V based on
| my experience with the III.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Wow that's crazy, what are you doing with them? I have my
| second pair (upgraded to pro) and I had them under water so
| many times. I even jumped into a pool once and did a few laps
| before noticing I have them in my pocket (without the case).
| They fall down every 2 days. Both going strong for 2 years or
| more.
| Lio wrote:
| They seem to be offering replacement batteries for PS49. That's
| either the Airpods or the charging case of all models.
|
| That's obviously more that wired earbuds but I'm OK with that
| to have noise cancelling headphones I can always keep in little
| pocket of my jeans wherever I go.
| plugin-baby wrote:
| > significant differences that have implications for performance
| and safety
|
| This seems to refer to charging safety, but the thing that makes
| me fork out for genuine headphones is ear safety - I _assume_
| Apple tries to protect from damaging sound levels and
| frequencies, and could be held to account in a way that
| counterfeiters could not.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > Apple tries to protect from damaging sound levels and
| frequencies, and could be held to account in a way that
| counterfeiters could not.
|
| I doubt Apple tries this too much, or that they could be held
| accountable. There is the volume alert thing, but that
| (partially) works with 3rd party headphones too (though it's
| likely much more inaccurate). Android phones too give a warning
| if you set the volume very high for headphones. I don't think
| using 3rd party ear/headphones really change much.
|
| That said, it is important to keep volumes "reasonable". Ear
| damage from high volumes is unfortunately very real.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| There's a headphones safety section in the sound settings on
| iPhones for reducing loud sounds and setting a maximum
| decibel limit.
| JCharante wrote:
| I often accidentally set my phone volume to max by holding
| the volume button for too long, so enabling this setting
| earlier this year has been really helpful. 10/10 would
| recommend everyone to set this.
| astrange wrote:
| Some amount of volume limits are required by EU regulation I
| think.
| lazycouchpotato wrote:
| There was this incident in the news last year.
|
| > Apple Facing Lawsuit After AirPods Allegedly Ruptured Child's
| Eardrums With Amber Alert
|
| https://www.macrumors.com/2022/05/17/apple-airpods-pro-amber...
| fortran77 wrote:
| Well, I don't want a lithium battery exploding, leaking, or
| catching fire in my ear, either.
| stinos wrote:
| This is really cool and kinda makes me want to put various things
| I have under such scanner.
|
| However several statements like
|
| _provide optimal power efficiently_
|
| along with other assumptions made this a bit awkward to read.
| What does it mean to provide 'optimal' power except making it
| sound like a commercial? Maybe it's just me, after all I was
| expecting a very technical article (as have been on HN
| previously, also from CT scans IIRC).
| kube-system wrote:
| These critiques come up in every thread about a Lumafield post.
| But these articles are really sales pitches for the CT scanner
| and not a rigorous analysis of the item they put in it.
| INGSOCIALITE wrote:
| There has been an influx of social media "ads" for these CT
| scanners - probably the worst (and obviously paid) example is
| Adam Savage's YouTube channel where they just throw random
| things into a CT scanner under the guise of "how does this
| thing we're scanning function from the inside out" - but it
| just ends up being an advertisement for "check out the
| features of the scanner and the settings you can change" with
| literally no investigation into the object being scanned
| wetmore wrote:
| I think they mean the space efficiency is optimal, since the
| battery is using all of the space available (as opposed to the
| counterfeit AirPod batteries which are a rectangular battery
| that leaves unused space in the round housing).
| keithxm23 wrote:
| This is the second time inside a month I've seen Lumafield
| portray Apple products engineering prowess. First time being when
| they compared the USB-C cable (unfairly because they compared
| against the wrong type of third party USB-C). Is this just
| happenstance or is there a connection between the two companies?
| dewey wrote:
| The more likely explanation is that they saw that their content
| marketing piece worked really well, so they did another one.
| keithxm23 wrote:
| That's fair. And it's probably more interesting to showcase
| Apple products because they do produce relatively better
| engineered products in general that would look great with
| this kind of imaging technology.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| It would be even more interesting for me if they'd compare
| these things against "real" competitors, i.e. in the same price
| range or the same quality, and not just "here is the XXX$ apple
| product vs this XX$ counterfeit". Otherwise these scans are
| really cool
| willtheperson wrote:
| I would like to see comparisons for things in the same price
| category too. Especially for something like usb-c cables
| where it's hard to know if you are just paying for a brand or
| actual quality.
|
| _Most_ of the time when you buy Apple you are buying a
| better engineered product and maybe these scans are just
| proving that it 's actually hard to match their quality for
| the price.
| filleokus wrote:
| I really enjoy these scans that have been popping up lately, so
| cool to see inside of things! Are there any intellectually
| property issues related to publishing these?
|
| I've had a piece of (probably false) information stuck in my mind
| about how industrial design can be IP protected in some way,
| making it problematic to publish x-rays without licensing. Which
| I've thought of as another silly example of IP gone mad.
|
| But apparently there is nothing to this, or has something changed
| in that space?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I would not think so. It's really no different from doing a
| destructive tear-down of something you bought and making a
| video about it.
| EwanToo wrote:
| I have a similar probably false memory of schematics having
| copyrighted writing embedded in them so the layout can't be
| reproduced without a breach of copyright.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street
| syntaxing wrote:
| That updated viewer is a absolutely awesome, I like how you can
| go through the part layer by layer.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Medical images are much like this - if you have any interest,
| it's quite easy to get a DICOM viewer and get a few patient
| scans.
|
| I recommend Horos and Osirix, though I'm a Mac user. And MRI of
| course, not CT!
| figomore wrote:
| I recommend InVesalius (multi platform).
| lostlogin wrote:
| Thanks for this, I'll explore.
|
| Saying available for 'Apple Mac OS X platforms' isn't
| encouraging _but_ auto segmentation and 3D printer support,
| and screenshots look good.
|
| There badly needs to be a cross section platform viewer
| that gets full support on each platform. I'm using
| InteleViewer currently and it's borderline abandonware on
| its native platform (Windows) and it's creaking badly on
| the Mac. Having copy and paste being the Windows default
| keys (when in the Mac) is like a middle finger to the user
| every time you use it.
| fest wrote:
| You can also convert the DICOM images to 3D model and print
| it.
|
| I did it with MRI scan of my head (isolated the brain
| specifically) and kept it on my desk at work, ready to be
| handed to whoever came by wanting to pick my brain.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| What is the moral calculus of counterfeiters? Fake power adapters
| can kill.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Poverty and desperation can often drive people to bend their
| moral compass quite a bit.
| askonomm wrote:
| I tend to believe that a moral compass is a made-up social
| invention. Children don't have it. We have to teach them
| these made up rules, how you should feel when you do
| something against those rules, etc. We ingrain it deep into
| you much like how religion is ingrained deep into young
| people, so that by the time you are an adult that's all you
| know, and it seems to work well, most people never even
| second guess these things.
| mportela wrote:
| As most things in life, it is more complicated than that.
| While the environment plays a major role in people's moral
| codes, there seems to be at least some innate development
| happening too. I'm not a trained psychologist but I've seen
| scientific evidence on some of these behaviors already
| showing up in babies as young as a few weeks old,
| suggesting some of the things we consider to be culturally
| nurtured can actually be part of the species as a whole.
| Netflix has an easy-to-digest docu-series called Babies and
| episode S0204 talks about that, if you're interested.
|
| [1] https://www.netflix.com/title/80117833
| JCharante wrote:
| How many people knowledgeable to mass produce fake chargers
| are in poverty? My assumption is that it's greed.
| autoexec wrote:
| Wasn't it just two years ago that apple was caught using
| slaves? And that was after years of their factories and
| suppliers abusing children and keeping workers in inhumane
| living and working conditions. I think we can pretty much
| guarantee that a massive number of people who are
| intimately familiar with making apple products, including
| chargers, are living in poverty. Some people at Foxconn
| were even caught selling genuine apple parts that failed QA
| to be used in making counterfeit apple products.
| JCharante wrote:
| It would be cool if they could put a chip inside the chargers
| and have the charger communicate over USB C whether it's
| authentic or not. Of course you could still use third party
| chargers that would lack this chip, but for people who like
| first party chargers or buying chargers from reputable brands
| (that would probably license this from Apple) it would be nice.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Anything that can be communicated by an authentic charger
| could also be communicated by a counterfeit charger. You may
| have raised the cost of the scam (e.g. by requiring another
| chip), or delayed the start of a scam (e.g. until the
| inevitable leak of hardward signing keys), but at the end of
| the day you're trying to validate a device through a
| communication channel controlled by that very same device.
|
| It's the same problem as with the satirical "evil bit"
| proposal for IPv4 [0]: Someone who is scamming you has
| already shown no compunction against lying to you through
| social means, and will lie to you through technical means as
| well.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit
| permo-w wrote:
| they did this with PS3 controllers and it just made it an
| inconvenience to charge your remote that any counterfeiters
| could bypass anyway
|
| like great so I can't charge from the wall unless I buy a
| sony-branded charger at a huge markup?
| diimdeep wrote:
| This AirPods scan is so unbelievably cool, there is cross section
| view aligned along speaker battery and circuit board (click Slice
| Place A on the left)
| https://app.lumafield.com/project/b618e6f7-9a17-42bc-a2b4-a2...
| rob74 wrote:
| > _The counterfeit AirPods even resort to using internal weights
| with no other function than to mimic the heft of the genuine
| product_
|
| That's ironic, as being lighter would actually be an advantage
| (makes them less likely to fall out on sudden movements).
| dewey wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true, I'd assume gravity is doing _some_
| kind of job in keeping them inside by pulling down. I think
| losing them would be a lot easier if they were very light.
| tbihl wrote:
| In the sudden movement scenario, gravity is overcome by rapid
| acceleration in the upward direction. In the no-dropped-item
| scenario, friction within your pocket (presumably) comes to
| the rescue to make up the difference between gravity and
| upward acceleration so that the item doesn't make a
| successful escape.
|
| The friction in a pocket should be a function of tension (how
| tight your pants are, especially around the item) and not, as
| often is the case, proportional to the mass of the item. So
| this particular method of losing the item should be less
| common with something lighter.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| For B2B, a business would never pay for extra weight.
|
| For B2C, monkey likes pink sparkles. Wow! I want.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| On the real vs. fake Apple product front: I get a lot of my
| electronic bric-a-brac from garage sales. The little iPhone cube
| chargers are so cute and practical, but: Is it a real one, or a
| dangerously cost-reduced fake? By comparison, less cute chargers
| from other major brands, that aren't a target for counterfeiting,
| are therefore more trustworthy. This is another "why we can't
| have nice things" kind of problem.
| civilitty wrote:
| Now all you have to do is bring your $3,000/mo CT scanner
| along!
| projektfu wrote:
| Or a magnifying glass. I bought a used iPhone and it included
| a little cube charger labeled "Designed by Abble"
| kajic wrote:
| I just learned from this article that AirPods can be charged by
| the Apple Watch charger. Wow, I had no idea.
| JCharante wrote:
| That's the airpods pro 2 case, which also features speakers at
| the bottom (for help with locating). Airpods Pro 1 didn't have
| this feature, but they did have wireless charging.
| nunez wrote:
| the driver in the fake earbuds is basically like a wired earbud,
| which is crazy. i was expecting more sophistication there. no
| wonder they sound like crap!
| adamm255 wrote:
| I got some AirPods Pro 2 knock offs from Temu for PS16.
|
| Paired exactly like AirPods, was super shocked. Work great with
| an Apple TV. They don't have multi connect though. But are
| actually more comfortable than the real deal. I find the
| originals hurt after about 45 mins.
| permo-w wrote:
| how is the sound?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Curiously absent from OPs story, so we already know the
| answer.
| astrange wrote:
| If it's AirPods Pro, you probably have the wrong size tips on
| if they hurt. There's also some third party tips; I use them
| because they sound a little different but they're also
| different sizes.
| tstrimple wrote:
| And if the counterfeits are good enough, they will be
| compatible with the existing ecosystem of 3rd party tips.
| Foam tips were a huge upgrade to my AirPod Pro 2 experience.
| permo-w wrote:
| the tone of this article makes me question who paid for all this
| astrange wrote:
| They paid for it, they're selling CT scanners. (Leasing?)
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Lastly, the contrast in overall build quality is dramatic
| between the genuine AirPods and their counterfeit counterparts.
|
| That's undoubtedly true, but my anecdotal experience was that a
| pair of $250(?) AirPods Pro broke after a couple of months, and
| the $40 Chinese knockoff pair is still going after almost a year.
| I'm sure that, on average, the Apple ones last longer, but it's
| so hard for me to shell out another $250 on something that broke
| so quickly just because it's from a company with a headquarters
| that looks like a Lifesaver. And at about 1/5th the price, it's a
| pretty easy decision to replace the ersatz airpods if (when) they
| should break. Unless Apple comes out with something new and
| exciting, I'll stick with the fakes.
| dave84 wrote:
| I'm on my third pair of AirPods Pro, two warranty replacements
| and about to try for a third.
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