The Apple headphones you bought may be fake
Today's hot search is indeed a bit scary. #The Apple headphones you bought may be fake#.
The old fox looked at the Apple earphones in his hand, this can't be real or fake, right?
From 18 to 24 January, more than 80 police officers from the Suining City Public Security Bureau went to Guangdong and Guangxi provinces and arrested 22 criminal suspects.
9 fake dens, 3 production lines, and 8 sales dens were destroyed for the production of counterfeit Apple Bluetooth ear mechanisms.
More than 69,000 counterfeit Bluetooth headsets, more than 45,000 semi-finished products, 4 sets of counterfeiting tools, more than 50,000 sets of packaging materials, and more than 10,000 sets of parts were seized, and the amount involved was as high as 167 million yuan.
Come and see if your Apple headphones are real?
As soon as this news came out, it immediately sparked heated discussions among netizens, who were worried about whether what they bought was fake.
Image source: Fast Technology
Some netizens said: I bought it from the official channel at the original price, it should always be genuine.
In fact, otherwise, in case of returning goods for fakes, the whole "stealing beams and changing pillars", ordinary people really can't tell the difference.
Apple is improving, and so are high-imitation fakes. It can be said that it is very, very difficult to distinguish the original from the fake in terms of appearance.
If someone gets you a 100% "genuine" packaging box for you, this confusion will be directly full.
The appearance can confuse people, and there should be nowhere to hide if you take an X-ray of the headphones.
Last November, Jon Bruner, head of marketing at computer hardware manufacturer Lumafield, used a CT scanner to compare a scan of the genuine AirPods Pro with two pairs of counterfeits.
As you can see in the image above, the real AirPods Pro (2nd generation) are on the left, and the counterfeits are on the middle and right.
The 3 main differences between real and fake headphones when exposed to X-rays are the battery, circuitry, and texture.
Fake AirPods are cobbled together from off-the-shelf components, with fewer microphones and control circuitry, and plenty of empty spaces in the wiring inside to provide better sound quality.
而正品 AirPods 内部的接线就复杂很多。 此外，正品 AirPods 还配备微型纽扣电池，不仅能保持 AirPods 高效运行，还确保耳塞足够小，佩戴舒适。
Counterfeit AirPods use lithium-ion pouch batteries, which are not only simple in structure, but also potentially less safe.
CT scans are a great way to verify that they're genuine, but is there a slightly easier way to identify them?
The old fox directly tried the verification method of the great god of Zhihu, and the fox friends can also test it by themselves.
Method 1: Connect your phone and tablet with the same Apple ID
By connecting phones and tablets with the same Apple ID, connect your phone with your headphones to iCloud to play audio, then play another audio on your tablet. Tap the icon to see if you can seamlessly connect to your tablet's audio playback. Authentic products should be achievable, while fakes are not.
In addition, "Airpods connected xx device" will appear on the top of the device when switching seamlessly, and the fake one will not appear.
Method 2: Ignore iCloud devices in Bluetooth settings
Select AirPods in Bluetooth settings, tap Forget this headphone, and you'll be prompted to ignore this iCloud for all logged devices. Tap Yes, and all devices connected with that Apple ID will be ignored. Only the original product can do this, and the fake cannot do it.
Method three: Siri calls away from your phone
Connect the headphones to your phone via iCloud, and move your phone away from the headphones for about 10 meters after wearing. Call Siri softly, and Siri should respond if it's genuine. And the fake did not react at all. Two people are required to work together to verify that the phone and headphones are placed in two different rooms.
Method 4: Serial number verification
Find the serial number of the earbuds in the Bluetooth settings and check whether it matches the serial number of the actual code. The genuine product should be consistent, if it is inconsistent, it may be a fake.
Method 5: Check the version number
Find the version number of your AirPods in the Bluetooth settings, and the genuine one should show up as the latest second-generation firmware version number (e.g. 4E71). Fakes may not be able to reach this latest firmware number.
Method 6: Apple Support App
Open Apple Support - click on "Products" in the upper left corner, here we can see all the devices that have been paired with our Apple ID. If you've connected your AirPods, but Apple Support doesn't show the AirPods model you're connected to, then you can basically conclude that your AirPods are fake.
Method 7: Pair with the real product for verification
If you have real AirPods around, you can try plugging them into the real charging compartment with the earbuds that need to be verified to rematch the connection. If it doesn't work properly, it may be a fake.
If you feel that the above methods are still a bit cumbersome, Lao Hu suggests going directly to the direct store to identify the authenticity.
Why are fake Apple headphones "endless"?
It seems to be no secret that there are many businesses selling high-imitation AirPods headphones on the Internet. There has been explosive news that "the sales of copycat AirPods have surpassed the original".
But what Lao Fox really didn't expect was when the fake Apple headphones were already so large-scale?
If you want to talk about the reason for the proliferation of fakes, it must be "profitable".
Unlike smartphones or smartwatches, AirPods do not require a complex operating system, which makes it an easier target for counterfeiters. And what's even more enticing is that the profits from AirPods counterfeiting can be higher.
Two years ago, U.S. Customs cast a wide net to address the proliferation of fake wireless headphones, seizing 360,000 pairs of AirPods worth about $13 million in nine months.
美国海关缉获的一批假 AirPods
Going back to the consumer's side, a small pair of wireless headphones, even if it is as high as thousands of yuan, can be said to be staggeringly expensive, but AirPods have never lacked buyers.
AirPods are too expensive, and some consumers are willing to grit their teeth and buy it, but there are also some people who think about "or the whole high imitation will be ordered".
The worst thing may be that some novice users who have bought high-imitation AirPods at a low price and pretend to be real AirPods have always thought that what they have in their hands is "real".
Although it is true that high-imitation fakes are cheap, Lao Hu has to remind that counterfeit electronic products may cause dangers such as short circuits and fires. Besides, these copycat manufacturers will run away after selling, and if there is a problem, there is really nowhere to find it, and the gains may outweigh the losses when the time comes.
In addition, if you want to buy genuine products, you can buy them directly through official channels, and some of the products that can be bought for a few hundred yuan are actually copycats, fake and shoddy products.
If you can't afford to buy such an expensive Apple earphone, our domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi, as well as the products of audio manufacturers such as Edifier and 1MORE, whether it is the appearance design or the product performance experience, are getting smaller and smaller with the Apple earphones, and the key is that the cost performance is much higher!
Resources:
Cover News, Fruit Fans' Home, Zhihu, I Love Audio Network, Internet Pictures
Edit: Don't eat maltose