A reminder for anyone pre-ordering the new AirPods 5 announced this week: Apple does not include a USB-C cable or a charger in the box with either of the two models available.
If you purchase the cheaper of the two AirPods 5 models, you are limited to wired charging and will need to supply your own USB-C cable. Alternatively, you can opt for the AirPods 5 with a wireless charging case and use your own USB-C cable, Apple Watch charging puck, MagSafe charger, or Qi charger.
Totally with you on this.
Apple’s environmental virtue signaling is hard to take seriously when it sells effectively disposable earbuds with tiny sealed batteries that become e-waste after a few years, yet somehow including a USB-C cable is the problem. The cable probably costs Apple next to nothing, but save even $1 on tens of millions of units and suddenly the real motivation becomes obvious: margins, not the planet
Yeah, that's why we framed it as a Reminder. It's not news, but it's also something that could easily be overlooked, so hopefully we helped a few people.
Definitely was not expecting anything else. Was the same with AirPods 4.
Include everything needed to use the product.
I wish they would at least include power and data cables with iPhones, iPads and Macs. The big issue to me is the cables suck if I can’t use it for both power and data anyways. So I really don’t mind this, but the idea of removing everything doesn’t really sit well with buyers.
At some point, Apple has to stop thinking like bean counters and consider the whole package of the product and realize what the customer is paying for versus what it costs them to add that little thing in the box. Sort of like nickel and dime your customers at your own expense in the long run and they will find a better option.
Apple also overprices these things in their store and will try to sell buyers one if they can, which makes it worse because a cheaper alternative is probably a better cable that does both data and charging - eventually everyone catches on, and when they catch on they realize the company really didn’t have their backs only their shareholders backs.
