Apple Facing Lawsuit After AirPods Allegedly Ruptured Eardrums with Amber Alert

Apple Facing Lawsuit After AirPods Allegedly Ruptured Eardrums with Amber Alert(macrumors.com)

41 points by ashergill 4 years ago | 26 comments

xmodem 4 years ago |

It seems crazy to me how often these alert systems are apparently used in the US, for apparently mundane stuff. I've seen it used once while I was in Australia - while we were travelling and there were bushfires nearby - and never here in Europe.

Mo3 4 years ago | |

It’s being used during massive storms and other serious emergencies in the Netherlands.

There was a big 100mph+ storm a few months ago and they sent out an alert telling everyone to stay inside as there were literally trees getting ripped out of the ground and hitting people.

That was the first time I ever saw my phone use this functionality, scared the crap out of me.

Amber alerts specifically I have indeed never seen, ever.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4 years ago | | |

I unfortunately had to turn them off because they aren’t properly geographically bound in Texas. I would get alerts to look for cars many hundreds of km away multiple times per week. Needs a better implementation here.

mdrzn 4 years ago | | |

Literally never received a single warning on my phone in Italy since smartphone exists.

millzlane 4 years ago | |

We had one the other day because of a girl kidnapped an hour's drive away. Fortunately the kidnapper was quickly apprehended and the girl found safe. I don't hardly see them ever. So, I'm not sure how often they are used.

What's crazy to me is how a device that claims to be 110DB at max volume could tear apart someones ear drum and damage their cochlea. I've been around many race cars on Dyno's literally right next to them at times with or without earplugs and I don't think this has ever happened to me. I'm curious of the medical science behind this.

jdashg 4 years ago | | |

Ears self-protect in the presence of consistent loud noises. Going from 30db to 110db is probably worse than 80->110.

Different frequencies also have different properties, as well. IIRC low frequencies are less painful and less hazardous than mid and higher frequencies.

EricE 4 years ago | | |

Airpods tend to seal - lots of pressure in a confined space. In your dyno example your ears are open to the environment. Not hard to imagine, really (and rather frightening!)

8fingerlouie 4 years ago |

Years ago when i made mobile phones, we had a similar bug.

It was when we started making speaker phones, meaning the previous headset speaker was no longer adequate. We of course put in a bigger speaker and lowered the volume when the phone was being used next to the ear.

One thing we didn't initially test however was receiving a text or another call when already on a call. Lets just say it was unpleasant to have the full alert/ring tone blasted into your ear at volumes designed to be heard several meters away :)

willhackett 4 years ago |

I’ve had an issue a few times with Apple Music playing high pitched screeching sounds where I’ve had to throw my headphones off. Seems to be when there’s a loss of connectivity. I know these things slip through the cracks sometimes, but I feel like anything that impacts health should be tested thoroughly.

viraptor 4 years ago | |

I'm annoyed at those bugs, because the companies should do better. Even if they slip through, the thing handling the speaker should have a safety cutoff when a certain RMS threshold is hit for over a second. It could even have an option for "I love skrilex and want my ears occasionally destroyed" that you have to tick yourself.

My first portable CD player had a hardware switch for a loudness limiter, so it's not exactly a new idea.

unfocused 4 years ago |

I have a bug in my Mazda 5 when my iPhone is connected to the Bluetooth. If I take a phone call, the volume is fine. But when the call is done, and either myself or the person hangs up, the audible "bee boop" sound is ridiculously loud and scares everyone in the car, no matter what the volume is set to.

It's like they need to really sort out and map every single "interrupt" sound that can occur e.g. hang up, amber alert, etc, and ensure that it maps to a correct volume setting that doesn't damage your hearing.

nullc 4 years ago |

I'd take a sizable bet that amber alerts cause far more loss of life -- with their blaring alerts from muted phones at all times -- than they arguably could save.

gs17 4 years ago | |

I've often wondered about that too. They woke me up at 3 or 4 AM with a noise that should be reserved for "you're going to die if you don't act RIGHT NOW" before I turned them off, and that has to be bad for everyone's health.

nullc 4 years ago | | |

Yep, disturbing sleep is known to cause mortality-- not at high rates but if you do it at massive scale it adds up. The alerts also startle people while driving or doing other dangerous and concentration requiring activities and cause them to interact with their phones.

aphroz 4 years ago |

There should be more than one case of ruptured eardrums if that affects all AirPods. It could be quite a dangerous thing to exploit for an attacker if the volume is not controlled at the hardware level.

UncleEntity 4 years ago | |

Makes me wonder if the ‘find my’ feature on these is equally loud.

The other day I woke up to an alert of some AirPods stalking me and a button to press to have them play the alert to find them. So, of course, I hit the button to annoy some unsuspecting truck stop employee but I’m guessing their shift was over as the AirPods were no longer in range.

Now I absolutely have to buy one of those AirTags so I can have my laptop set off every apple device that comes into range…

EricE 4 years ago | | |

Yes, Apple's tracking detection is hilariously bad at doing it's intended job. Just have a family, with each member having their own Apple ID and and Air Tag. There is no way to whitelist or share Air Tags so you get a constant cacophony of meaningless alerts. It's crazy - it feels like no one at Apple has friends or family members.

withinboredom 4 years ago |

You see this kind of stuff all the time. People never actually tested it.

I literally got an email today for a sale. It was something I’d wanted for awhile, but whatever, it wasn’t worth what they were asking. Anyway, I was on my mobile and tapped the link. It required me to login so I tapped my saved credentials. The login button stayed disabled and said my password was empty. Fantastic. As soon as I removed a character from my password, it would allow me to login, but now my phone didn’t prompt me to insert my saved password.

I just gave up. They lost a sale today, but it was clear nobody had ever tested logging in with saved credentials from a mobile device on this major site.

mdrzn 4 years ago | |

Is this a comment in the wrong thread?

aaaaaaaaata 4 years ago | | |

No.

Multibillion dollar companies ship broken, or temporarily broken, software and products all the time, presumably because they will still make gobs of sales due to momentum.

aejnsn 4 years ago |

I turn that horribly under-designed feature off. When the option is “wake-the-baby” loud or no alert, I choose the latter.

matt-attack 4 years ago | |

I too turn it off but mostly because I think the system is abused for cases that Id frankly rather not be involved with and not take sides. I have zero faith that the party that the police consider the “kidnapper” is actually the kidnapper. Not unlike how the sex offenders list is filled with people who did innocuous things like urinating in public or an 18year old having sex with her 17 year old boyfriend. It’s something but they’re no threat to me.

They don’t realize that they simply devalue these labels by using them in this way. Amber alerts are often just custody battles between both biological parents. While one party may be in the wrong, there’s no life being threatened and I have little faith that the government is on the same side I’d be on.

empressplay 4 years ago |

Up in Canada the companies using the emergency alert system send everything Presidential (eg missiles inbound), which means you can't turn them off and they are super-crazy loud. Last month in western Canada it was used for an amber alert, and most everyone thought 'this was it'...