My theory, from the post: "All of this is likely tied to a relatively new feature called Loud Sound Reduction that only works if AirPods are in an active “Noise Control” mode. So Apple perhaps recently decided that everyone needed this feature enabled, and that’s why they made all these annoying changes to Noise Control? I can only speculate."

And yes, as JamesonNetworks suggested, the cynical side of me thinks Apple execs knew that this would negatively impact a subset of users' batteries and were at least OK with that (despite environmental/shortened-product-lifecycle implications)

> Apple execs knew that this would negatively impact a subset of users' batteries and were at least OK with that

Seems like every 6 months or so they come out with an update almost specifically designed to do that for their phones and other products, so that's not even surprising.

It's not removed, it's just moved behind a specific toggle. I suspect its one of two things:

1) It's part of parental controls. You can disable in the parental controls the ability to turn off "loud noise reduction", it's possible that since setting to the off mode also disables this, that the toggle exists so that the off mode can be removed from the mode list as well with this restriction in place. I can't validate this because that parental control does not appear to be something you can enforce on your own device when you're the "parent"

2) The medical certifications for the hearing aid functionality require that the device can not be accidentally placed in a state where using the device as "intended" can cause further hearing damage. By placing the mode which disables hearing protection functionality under a separate explicit toggle with notes about what that does, it satisfies the requirement while still allowing the use of the mode.

Off hand guess: reduce apparent battery life in order to nudge people to upgrading, thinking their batteries are going

that's exactly what the connect implied. as with apple having done that at least twice in the open.

Which instances would this be?

Total speculation, but I’m guessing Apple is afraid of liability for hearing damage caused by AirPod use. Someone can argue that the aggregate damage from the hearing loss is worth billions of dollars and do a class action suit or something.

At this point, Apple clearly has a bunch hearing loss experts working there, and they’ve introduced features like Reduce Loud Sounds, the hearing test, and hearing aid mode. Apple can show that they are doing everything possible to prevent their products from causing hearing damage and even taken steps to help users who already suffer from hearing loss. Burying the option to disable Reduce Loud Sounds helps Apple’s case, because it makes it harder for users who suffer from hearing damage to argue that they disabled it accidentally, and perhaps Apple even has evidence that this measure reduces harm to users.

So, there’s a tradeoff between the feeling of frustration some users will have at Apple’s apparent paternalism, and the permanent harm that users are being protected from (and Apple’s liability).

> Why is the option to use the AirPods in “normal” mode being removed?

I'd challenge the idea that off/passive really is the "normal" mode, from the ordinary user's POV or Apple's POV. The headphones just don't sound good in this configuration, with neither the background nor the audio sounding clear. They aren't engineered to give good sound isolation OR good background pass-through without active support, and until this post, I didn't even realize that the active modes use more battery life.

The messaging to users is also unclear. Without understanding how ANC works, what does "off" actually mean? It's not turning off the audio playback, and it's not turning off the background noise. It IS however turning off the (newly-advertised) active features like Loud Sound Reduction, which users would expect to be working whenever they are wearing the headphones (or at minimum, whenever music is playing).

In typical Apple style, it makes perfect sense for "off" to be treated as an advanced feature; the problem is that they already shipped it a long time ago, and then removed it without any explanation.

>which users would expect to be working whenever they are wearing the headphones (or at minimum, whenever music is playing).

Why would that be the case?

One would assume because it's part of the reason for buying the AirPods in the first place. "Off" mode literally turns off all the ANC/Passthrough and other functionality and turns your AirPods into a basic set of in ear headphones. If people aren't expecting to use them with those features turned on, they are vastly overpaying for an experience they can get with any number of other cheaper non-anc headphones.

I suppose there are probably some people who buy AirPods for the better device to device bluetooth integration but otherwise don't use ANC, but I suspect they don't even approach a significant fraction of Air Pod owners.

>but I suspect they don't even approach a significant fraction of Air Pod owners.

A significant portion of Air Pod owners buy them solely because they are the apple brand of ear buds and don't think about it beyond that. A basic set of ear buds is mostly what people are buying and the other features are nice to have things and not the selling point. People in tech suppose that people shop based upon specific features and technology, but that's rarely true. Mostly it's people with an Apple device needing ear buds and the Apple brand of ear buds is AirPods, that's literally the amount of thought most of them are putting into it.

Could be that anything that puts more cycles on the battery means a replacement will come sooner.