After removing the headphone jack from the iPhone, Apple is all about wireless audio solutions. For your day-to-day listening, Apple offers the AirPods, but for workouts there's the $200 Powerbeats3 Wireless (and Powerbeats2 before that), advertised as being sweat and water resistant with up to 12 hours of battery life.
The problem is, Powerbeats owners are finding the earphones aren't sweat resistant and don't achieve that claimed 12 hour battery life. Now a group of seven customers are taking legal action against Apple and district judge Richard Seeborg has given the case a green light with a few caveats.
As the BBC reports, Apple wants the claims dismissed, but Judge Seeborg believes there is a case regarding the battery life not being as good as Apple claimed. As for the lack of sweat resistance, amendments are required because the customers hadn't "explicitly specified" that they had sweated while wearing the earphones.
As will no doubt be argued in court, the Powerbeats owners believe the battery life and contact with sweat are linked. One of the customers received five replacement sets of Powerbeats2 earphones, all of which ended up failing to charge and then losing the ability to power on. He had the same problem when attempting to use Powerbeats3. He was even told by an Apple service representative that sweat damage was the likely cause.
Even without this lawsuit, Apple has a Powerbeats problem. The Powerbeats3 enjoy a rating of just 1.5 stars on Apple's online store, with reviewers stating they aren't sweat proof, have very poor battery life, the microphone doesn't work well, and they suffer from poor build quality.
Based on that, I suspect this lawsuit may be a tough one for Apple to win. At the same time, Powerbeats4 will need to be something exceptional if Apple decides to make them at all.