The boy from San Antonio, Texas, was watching Netflix on his AirPods at low volume in 2020 when he received an Amber Alert for a missing child. That was accompanied by such a high volume that the boy’s eardrum ruptured, his parents say the lawsuit filed this week in California. The cochlea in the boy’s ear was also damaged, the indictment says.
The boy suffered from dizziness, nausea and tinnitus after the incident. He will have to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life, the parents say.
The Apple earplugs would not automatically reduce or limit the volume of notifications or alerts to a safe level, according to the indictment. Luxshare, the Chinese company that produces the AirPods for Apple, has also been sued in the case.
Compensation
The family is seeking compensation not only for the physical injury and suffering, but also for the emotional trauma and future medical costs. It also seeks “punitive” damages in amounts to “deter Apple and other tech companies from committing this type of misconduct in the future.”
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More complaints from AirPods users
According to the boy’s parents, Apple failed to warn AirPods users to limit the volume of the notifications to prevent hearing damage, when the company should have been aware of the problem.
Hundreds of people have complained about similar incidents through Apple’s support site in recent years, examples of which are included in the complaint. One user wrote: “Please fix this. I literally threw my AirPods across the room when I got a loud warning while listening to quiet music. Not cool.” Apple has not responded to the matter.
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