good bose bad bose

This is a tale of Bose earphones. Half good, half bad.
Said earphones are the ones below:


Great sound; good fit. Etc.
The rubber bit that goes in your ear is detachable - so you can choose your size - a bit like my Sony ones:


The Sony ones popped off fairly often and annoyingly I had to go and buy replacements every couple of months. Turns out the Bose ones are even looser - and pop off almost every day. Very annoying. (Glued them in the end)

Here's the Good Bose part.
I emailed Sony to request some spares, since their design fault was costing me money. I was told if I could send my receipt of the original earphones AND of the replacements I could get a refund. Needless to say, I didn't.
Bose, on the other hand obviously heard a lot of complaints and without even so much as mentioning it, posted a spare set to its customers. To be clear: this happened to someone I know in the States and I am assuming she wasn't targeted specifically. She had never complained. Either way, I thought that was great. A silent gesture that spoke volumes.

Here's the Bad Bose bit.
The Bose earphones have a chunky rectangular piece of plastic where the jack goes into your "digital music player of your choice". Why? Presumably, partly to be different and mostly to stick a large logo on it.
The downside? In your pocket or back, this black box wiggles against the side of the jack input and over time damages both earphones and iPod to the point of needing professional repair. I'm demonstrated this with the use of crude Photoshop shapes:


It's a shame. The brand did so much right but in the end faltered because it put its logo before its customers.

All this leads me to say to you: These earphones are great, but don't buy them.