teardowns

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on teardowns:

Vision Pro teardown gives a look inside Apple’s $3,499 headset

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Vision Pro teardown
Vision Pro gets the teardown treatment.
Photo: iFixit

An Apple Vision Pro teardown shows the complicated combination of screens, cameras and other high-end components inside the $3,499 headset. The hardware required just to produce the creepy (and much-maligned) EyeSight feature is somewhat staggering.

Like other Apple products, getting inside the Vision Pro is not easy. You will need a heat gun, a prying tool, multiple screwdrivers and lots of patience.

HomePod 2 teardown reveals it’s far easier to repair than the original

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HomePod 2 teardown reveals it's far easier to repair than the original
Disassembling a HomePod 2 requires a screwdriver, not a saw.
Screenshot: iFixit/Creative Electron

A teardown video from iFixit shows that getting into the recently launched HomePod 2 is dramatically easier than opening up its predecessor. That’s going to make repairing the new smart speaker far simpler.

The video is an interesting deep dive for anyone who just wants a glimpse inside the latest HomePod.

On the inside, Apple Studio Display looks more sophisticated than expected

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On the inside, Apple Studio Display looks more sophisticated than iMac
One of these is an iMac and the other is the Apple Studio Display. Which is which?
Photo: iFixit

iFixit showed people the interior of the new Apple Studio Display next to a partially disassembled iMac and asked them to pick which is which. You can play along at home by looking at the image above.

Most people got it wrong. Apple’s latest external monitor (on the left) is packed with features, and that’s reflected in its surprisingly complex internal design.

iFixit put the device through a full teardown and found that many of the most important components of the new external monitor showed up in previous Apple devices.

AirPods 3 teardown can’t explain boost in battery life

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AirPods 3 teardown can’t explain boost in battery life
Each AirPods 3 battery offers less capacity than the ones in AirPods Pro.
Photo: 52audio

Apple’s recently released AirPods 3 have a longer battery life than either AirPods 2 or AirPods Pro. But a teardown of the new truly wireless headphones finds batteries that can’t fully explain the extra time between charges.

Watch a video of the teardown showing why along with some other internal details of AirPods 3.

Apple Watch Series 7 teardown reveals bigger batteries, new display tech

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Apple Watch Series 7 teardown
Very familiar but with some big differences.
Photo: iFixit

Apple Watch Series 7 just got its customary teardown by iFixit, revealing some small but significant changes to its internals — including slightly larger batteries — and a somewhat surprising repairability score.

It looks like Apple’s newest wearable now uses more advanced display technology, which could explain why it faced such a lengthy delay.

iPhone 13 series increases battery sizes by up to 18%

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iPhone 13 series increases battery sizes by up to 18%
Pull the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 batteries out to find their exact storage capacities.
Photo: iFixit

Apple beefed up the batteries in all four models in the new iPhone 13 series. There are significant increases in capacity in all of them, especially the iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Teardowns of the iPhone 13 models are starting to appear, including ones from iFixit, revealing these battery sizes.

2021 iPad Pro teardown finds larger battery, so many tiny LEDs

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2021 iPad Pro teardown explores the mini-LED display.
A 2021 iPad Pro teardown compares the mini-LED backlights to a grain of rice.
Screenshot: iFixit

Not everyone has the nerve to crack open their 2021 iPad Pro, but an iFixit teardown reveals the interesting bits inside.

It’s not just for fun — taking the tablet apart is necessary to find out the exact battery capacity because Apple doesn’t share that detail.

Plus, iFixit took a magnifying glass to the mini-LED display in the 12.9-inch version.

iFixit shows how to add a hole to AirTag

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Drill an AirTag hole at your own risk.
If you’re willing to risk ruining an AirTag, you can drill a hole in it.
Photo: iFixit

There’s no direct way to attach Apple’s just-released AirTag to a set of keys because the item tracker doesn’t include a hole. But iFixit x-rayed the device and found three places a brave user could drill a hole.

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro teardown reveals smaller battery

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An iPhone 12 teardown wouldn’t be complete without a cool X-ray.
Dive deep into the iPhone 12 standard and Pro with an X-ray.
Photo: Creative Electron

Open up the standard iPhone 12 and and you’d be hard pressed to find a difference between it and the iPhone 12 Pro. An iFixit teardown shows these handsets so similar internally that they can share many parts.

But the news isn’t all good. Another tidbit revealed by cracking open Apple’s latest is that that have smaller batteries than their predecessors.

Teardown shows new features packed into slimmer Apple Watch Series 6

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Apple Watch Series 6 teardown
An Apple Watch Series 6 teardown gets down to the tiniest screw and clip.
Photo: iFixIt

Apple Watch Series 6 adds a sensor for blood-oxygen levels, but that doesn’t make it thicker. A teardown of this new wearable shows how Apple actually managed to make it a bit slimmer than its predecessors.

Plus, it turns out the device is relatively repairable. More so than an iPhone.

Teardown shows 16-inch MacBook Pro is full of Magic Keyboard goodness

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16-inch MacBook teardown by iFixit
Explore the inside of the new 16-inch MacBook with a teardown by iFixit.
Photo: iFixit

Disassembling the new 16-inch MacBook Pro finds plenty to like. There’s a keyboard that’s almost certainly more reliable, a revamped thermal system and a bigger battery.

On the other side of the coin, repair company iFixit did a teardown and gives this laptop a low, low rating for repairability.

Teardown: This Is What It Looks Like Inside The iPhone 5 [Gallery]

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IMG_5005-1024x682

iPhone-Garage.de has the first teardown pictures of the iPhone 5, if you want to see Apple’s latest engineering and design miracle at work. Their site is being absolutely hammered now, and it keeps on going down, so we’ve put some of the best images in a gallery below the fold so you can see for yourself. iFixIt will doubtlessly have a more nuanced take, but for right now, all I can say is…man, what a tightly packed phone.

iFixIt Tears Down The New iPod Nano, Declares It A Shuffle With A Screen

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With their usual amalgam of surgical precision, egghead obsessiveness and rock star attitude, the boys at iFixIt have sliced into the last of Apple’s new iPods: the touchscreen iPod nano. And, like we thought, it’s really more of a Shuffle with a screen than a nano with multitouch.

It’s the claims of multitouch that really sticks in the iFixIt boys’ craws: they claim, rightly, that multitouch is officially determined by being able to detect and resolve a minimum of three touch points, where as the nano only employs two… and even then, only for rotating the display, “although how anyone is supposed to comfortably fit more than one finger on the display is a mystery.”

Other interesting facts: the battery is twice the capacity of the Shuffle’s to power the screen, and the display has the most dense packing of pixels this side of the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 or iPod Touch. Additionally, the glass on the touch isn’t quite flush with the case, but sticks out 0.3mm due to the size of the headphone jack. It’s a pretty interesting commentary on how tiny and compact the innards of the new nano are when the headphone jack is one of the thickest components… and perhaps how anal Apple is about device thinness when they’d rather the glass protrude from their device minutely than minutely expand the body.

You can find iFixIt’s full teardown here.