Parents sue Apple after son suffers hearing damage while wearing Air Pods during Amber Alert
Pump down the volume.
Texas parents filed a lawsuit against Apple after their son allegedly suffered hearing damage after an Amber Alert notification played through his Air Pod wireless headphones.
According to the suit, which was filed Monday, the then-12-year-old boy’s ear drum was torn in the 2020 incident. The boy, now 14 and identified in the suit as B.G., was watching Netflix on his iPhone and wearing a pair of AirPods Pro on “low volume” when the Amber Alert occurred.
Amber Alert notifications are played louder in order to get more attention and this one allegedly “tore apart B.G.’s ear drum, damaged his cochlea, and caused significant injuries to B.G.’s hearing.” The boy will allegedly need to wear a hearing aid for the rest of his life and has experienced other symptoms, like dizziness, vertigo, tinnitus and nausea.
“The AirPods do not automatically reduce, control, limit, or increment notification or alert volumes to a safe level that causes them to emit,” according to the suit.
The suit alleges that Apple knew about the problem and was negligent in offering no solutions. However, depending on what country an iPhone user is in, Amber Alerts and other emergency notifications can be turned off completely by changing the phone’s settings.
Among the other pieces of evidence the suit presents? Online comments.
“Please fix this. I literally threw my AirPod across the room when I got a shrill text alert while listening to peaceful music. Not cool,” one reads.
The suit was filed by San Antonio couple Carlos Gordoa and Ariani Reyes.
