Are we just unlucky?

When my Apple AirPods Pro started playing up, I blamed Microsoft Teams. (An online search suggested compatibility problems.) Then I was told I sounded like a different person on a call. And I got a painful feedback noise when I used them.

Undaunted, I bought a pair of AirPods for my son for his birthday. But he soon reported that he couldn’t hear anything in one of the pods when listening to music or videos.

We took his pods into an Apple store in Orlando, Florida, when on holiday last August, and were delighted when Apple replaced them – although, as they were barely a month old, I expected no less. Yet within two months the new ones were playing up in the same way. I got them replaced at another Apple store – this time in Newcastle Upon Tyne – but the same fault emerged, again in under two months. This time I demanded a refund rather than a third replacement. Giving Apple one last chance, I bought a set of new AirPods Pro for Owen, telling him if it happened again we’d go for a more reliable rival product. Apple also replaced my faulty three year old AirPods Pro at the same time.

Were we unlucky? It seems not. Friends in Switzerland tell me they’ve had three sets of AirPods replaced and have now switched to Shokz headphones, which I also recommend. (They’re brilliant for cycling, as you can hear approaching traffic as well as your music.)

AirPods are ubiquitous, but you’d think it in Apple’s interest to solve the inherent problem that we have experienced rather than keep replacing faulty ones.