Mac Pro proves Apple can make repairable products when it wants to

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A 2019 Mac Pro after an iFixit tear down
The 2019 Mac Pro is remarkably easy to disassemble.
Photo: iFixit

Although Apple often draws criticism for making products that are difficult to repair, that’s not true of the 2019 Mac Pro.

After its tear-down, repair company iFixit gave this workstation high marks for repairability.


The 2019 Mac Pro is Apple’s powerful new computer for professional video and audio producers. It sports a 28-core Intel Xeon processor, and there’s room for up to 1.5 TB of RAM.  And inside rest eight PCI expansion slots, a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB-A ports and an audio jack.

iFixit: “Mac Pro is a Fixmas miracle”

iFixit disassembled the Mac Pro and gushed that it’s “beautiful, amazingly well put together, and a masterclass in repairability.”

This didn’t happen by accident — Apple deliberately made this computer easy to work on. The company produced its own series of how-to videos with instructions to swap and upgrade almost every component. Plus, diagrams printed on the inside of the RAM covers show what goes where.

Many basic upgrades can be performed with no tools, or only standard ones, according to iFixit. Plus, the most of the major Mac Pro components are modular and use industry-standard sockets and interfaces.

But everything isn’t totally rosy. Apple insists that repairs for all its products be done by trained technicians, arguing that they are the only ones skilled enough. And it enforces this restriction by selling replacement parts only to authorized companies and individuals.

This limitation is why iFixit gave the 2019 Mac Pro a 9 out of 10 Repairability Score. But that’s vastly better than the scores earned by some other Apple products — the 16-inch MacBook Pro received a 1 on this test, for example.

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