Apple announced a trio of major new hearing health features for the AirPods Pro 2 in September, including clinical-grade hearing aid functionality, a hearing test, and more robust hearing protection. All three will roll out next week with the release of iOS 18.1, and they could mark a watershed moment for hearing health awareness. Apple is about to instantly turn the world’s most popular earbuds into an over-the-counter hearing aid.
↫ Chris Welch at The Verge
Rightfully so, most of us here have a lot of issues with the major technology companies and the way they do business, but every now and then, even they accidentally stumble into doing something good for the world. AirPods are already a success story, and gaining access to hearing aid-level features at their price point is an absolute game changer for a lot of people with hearing issues – and for a lot of people who don’t even yet know they have hearing issues in the first place.
If you have people in your life with hearing issues, or whom you suspect may have hearing issues, gifting them AirPods this Christmas season may just be a perfect gift. Yes, I too think hearing aids should be a thing nobody has to pay for and which should just be part of your country’s universal healthcare coverage – assuming you have such a thing – but this is not a bad option as a replacement.
Unfortunately these are always buds style. Bud style headphones never fit well and always fall out of my ears. IEMs with flange tips are the only thing that stay in my ears the way I want. Wish someone would develop these extra tech toys for that style. I’m sure it won’t happen.
Etymotic electronic earplugs?
I think the model used in scandinavia is better where you can get real hearing aids that is calibred and custom fitted to suit your hearing impariment through the single payer health system.
How about countries without Scandinavian health system?
Perhaps they should consider the model, at least for hearing aids. It is a cheap sollution to get the hearing impaired to be more productive and have a higher quality of life. On that particular issue it is a net boon to the economy. Maybe the system as a whole is not as great, but for hearing aids i think it makes sense. I would probably argue the same line when one consider prostetic dentures based on the same merits as well as other prostetics like limbs. The initial cost absolutely provides a lot more value over time than one might think, both in terms of economics and quality of life, which in turn lesses the need for more health care.
It’s kind of astonishing to me how normalised attacking the US is in Europe. They’ve released a great technological aid for people with disabilities, and Europeans just can’t help themselves with the casual disdain for how American society is organised. Nothing like that exists in reverse, and that’s certainly not because Europe is without problems.
Despite what argumentative fifteen year olds argue about on Reddit, the healthcare model in most of Europe (outside the UK and the Nordics) is practically identical to that of the United States. Health cover is paid by a person’s employer, unless a person is self-employed (in which case they must pay their own insurance in Europe, and in America they have the choice to), or unemployed/economically-deprived (in which case they are eligible for government benefits).
Scaled to income, European health insurance is not significantly cheaper than US healthcare, except that Europe maintains a general pretense that its paid-for mandatory health insurance is somehow ‘free and public’. Europe also imposes a cruel system of financial and administrative penalties (sometimes even criminal penalties) on people without insurance, which disproportionately harms vulnerable people, the homeless, and itinerant minorities such as the Roma.
American healthcare is more expensive in absolute terms, yes, but America is *significantly* richer than Europe (in terms of GDP per capita, the biggest European economy, Germany, would rank as the 49th poorest US state, behind Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas, etc. Almost every other European country would be dead last, some by a huge margin.). America offers comprehensive free healthcare to people in need (through programs like Medicaid and Medicare). It also offers a generally much higher level of quality of care than much of Europe, and things that are nearly impossible in large parts of Europe (like ‘finding a doctor’ and ‘getting an appointment’) are trivial in the US. I’ve not generally heard too many people with real, personal, first-hand experience of both systems actually find the European approach to be preferable. But then the average American doesn’t tend to end every missive with broadsides at friends and allies, that seems to be a peculiarly European affliction.
And before you attack me for being American, know that I’m not, I’m European. I just happen to have the experience of different healthcare systems around the world, and find the condescending attitude of most Europeans to American healthcare arrogant and ignorant.
AirPods as hearing aids is a fantastic piece of medical technology. Thanks, America!
Cal,
God I hope not. Here in the US many families are one medical disaster from going bankrupt. Most don’t have to look far to find relatives or friends who are partially but not adequately covered by employers. A relative who had childbirth complications at a hospital and came home with $10k medical bills. My spouse took the ambulance to the closest ER WITH GODDAMN INSURANCE but because the hospital providers were out of network they charged an additional $7k on top of the amount the insurance did cover. The in network hospital would have been completely covered but the ambulance doesn’t go there so if ever there’s another emergency we have to seriously contemplate not taking the ambulance for financial reasons. On top of $125/mo to buy into the employer sponsored insurance program, our family pays almost two grand in deductibles yearly. Some US residence find it more viable to cross the boarder and pay for procedures out of pocket given the chance rather than rely on US insurance & providers. I am clueless about what healthcare is like in the EU, but Fuck the US health insurance system. Seriously this isn’t the answer. YMMV.