AirPods Pro Gen 2 came out a year ago next week, so this is the time to assess if you need to do any warranty claims. That right air pod that doesn’t reliably charge? You should probably report it before next Saturday.

So that’s what I did.† And Dear Readers, I hate to break it to you here on jordonwadlington.com, but: Apple is– as I don’t believe has been heretofore reported– indeed a giant publicly-traded corporation whose primary goal is to make money for its shareholders.

That’s OK! It would not be good business to always keep me happy– I buy way too many Apple products and have high standards! Asking a giant corporation to not primarily value its bottom line is like asking a dog to meow: a few may be pretty good at faking it, but that’s still a bark. It’s a dog! It can’t meow. If it meowed, it would be a cat!

There was a time in Apple’s history where I felt like I held a deep emotional bond with the company, but that time passed long ago. There was also a time where the manager would have swapped out those AirPods on the spot.‡ But forming deep emotional bonds with corporations is not a fulfilling relationship (FYI) and Apple succumbing to pressure to add a bit more hassle on the customer was inevitable. Apple is still the absolute best in making it right– I do not doubt at all that these AirPods will eventually be replaced– but they’re just making me waste more time than I used to have to waste.

I still have a lingering fondness for Apple– similar to seeing a picture of a long-ago ex– but I now buy their products because they’re the best and not because I have a bond with them.

fuck it it’s fine

† The details are (mostly) uninteresting, but here they are: right air pod would suddenly stop charging and it appears (to me) to be a problem with the charging pin closest to the interior of the case. I can stick a Q-Tip down there to loosen it up and it starts charging again for a week or so. Completely demonstrable at a genius bar appointment and repeatable. But at the Apple Store only the left air pod failed the diagnostic, so they wouldn’t replace the case or the right air pod without sending it off. I asked the manager if they could just replace the whole thing, but they couldn’t/wouldn’t. I made my case (basically that these were either going to be replaced by the repair depot or they wouldn’t and I’d be back in a few weeks when the problem happened again– either way I lose). But I very much got the sense that if these were going to get replaced, they were going to need to go to the repair depot even if it meant me walking out with a brand new pair of Air Pods Gen 2 that would be returned when my other ones got back (which it did in an action that I don’t believe will be carbon neutral).

‡ Remind me to tell y’all about the time where a manager swapped out a last gen iMac for a current gen iMac because they didn’t have the last gen in stock!