The brand new 13-inch M4 iPad Professional is basically, actually skinny. That’s inevitably going to make sure elements of repairing the system much more troublesome, which iFixit confirmed in a teardown revealed this weekend. But it surely does shine in a single space — relating to changing the battery, Apple made some significantly useful adjustments.
“For the primary time in an iPad Professional, we’re capable of take away the battery instantly after eradicating the display,” Teardown Tech Shahram Mokhtari wrote in a weblog put up. Mokhtari notes that “instantly is relative,” as there are nonetheless some screws and brackets to take away earlier than the battery could be taken out, and the video documenting the method exhibits it takes a bit of labor to get to the pull tabs beneath the batteries, however the brand new setup nonetheless shaves hours off the method in comparison with earlier fashions.
“The truth that you’ll be able to take away the battery with out having to take away each main element inside this system remains to be an enormous win for repairability,” Mokhtari says within the video. “It’s an enormous enchancment over the earlier era.” All the things else, however, goes to be fairly difficult to restore with out inflicting harm. “From the daughterboard to the audio system and coax cables, we discovered an entire bunch of stuff that’s glued down as a result of there simply isn’t sufficient area for screws.”
And, the teardown exhibits the brand new Apple Pencil Professional is a repairability nightmare. Mokhtari — who bought minimize by the Pencil whereas making an attempt to get to its insides — referred to as it “a disposable piece of crap as soon as the battery dies.”
