Tiny, with not a single wire, in a case like a jewellery box. The world gasped, bought them — and only then found out the main thing: inside the AirPods sits a battery you can't get to.
More precisely, you can get to it, but afterwards the earbud turns into a pile of plastic and glue. Over ten years four generations have come and gone, and the rule has stayed the same: the battery dies — bring fifteen to twenty thousand for a new pair. The earbuds last a couple of years. After that — the bin. It sounds mad, but that is exactly how it was.
And now iFixit have opened up the fifth generation. And taken the battery out intact. Not with a dessert spoon through a crack in the casing, but as a normal component that can be replaced. This news came out a few days ago and hasn't spread yet: most AirPods 5 owners genuinely don't know that their earbuds are no longer disposable.
For Apple this is, to put it mildly, a change of course. For years the company acted as if the AirPods were a consumable, like a printer cartridge. The repairability of the latest generations and pressure from regulators did their work: the engineers had to admit that people have the right not to throw away working hardware.
And now a simple thought. If the earbuds drain quickly, crackle at volume, or one lasts noticeably less than the other — the battery is to blame. Before, there was only one answer: new ones. Now — a battery replacement. Those who already have AirPods 5 will head to the shop out of habit. In their place we would at least drop into a repair shop — it might come out a good deal cheaper.