Anybody hoping Apple’s newest MacBook Air would possibly inherit the iPhone’s latest repair-friendly tweaks is in for disappointment, iFixit’s teardown crew has discovered.
Launched earlier this month, the M4 MacBook Air introduced not one of the repairability enhancements iFixit hoped to see in a brand new era of Apple laptops.
“We’re unhappy to report that the M4 MacBook Air did not get any actual repairability upgrades, and most of the welcome enhancements to the iPhone restore expertise have not made their technique to the MacBook but,” iFixit director of sustainability Elizabeth Chamberlain said within the teardown report. “It is largely enterprise as regular: a mixture of good intentions and irritating limitations that continues to fall wanting what customers deserve in a premium laptop computer.”
By “good intentions,” Chamberlain largely meant the discharge of the M4 MacBook Air’s full service manual on launch day, together with entry to select parts by way of Apple’s Self Service Restore store. Past that, there’s not a lot in the way in which of excellent information for iUsers hoping their new gadget can be straightforward to take care of.
Positive, there are simply accessed and changed MagSafe and USB-C ports that are not glued to the logic board, which iFixit describes as “almost best-in-class,” and the battery is not all that inaccessible – however that is about it.
The one shiny spot in M4 MacBook Air repairability: Simply swapped ports – click on to enlarge (Pic: iFixit)
The battery nonetheless makes use of the identical adhesive strips, which iFixit calls “simpler stated than completed” to take away. The brand new electrically releasing adhesive used within the iPhone 16 sequence is nowhere to be discovered. Accessing the show for alternative can be “a posh, multi-step course of buried deeper within the gadget than ought to be obligatory,” whereas the keyboard and TouchID/energy button are described as a “true repairability nightmare.”
To make issues much more difficult, Apple’s pledge to eliminate parts pairing on iPhones – permitting reused real parts – nonetheless would not apply to MacBooks, as iFixit’s teardown exhibits.
iFixit swapped logic boards between two an identical M4 MacBook Airs and located software program locks kicked in, leaving components of the machine nonfunctional. The System Configuration utility flagged an error, disabling True Tone within the show.
“Our solely path to remedying that error was to undergo the Self Service Restore Retailer workforce, which in fact, we hadn’t used to purchase the half,” iFixit famous. Briefly, swapping components out of a damaged M4 MacBook Air is simply as impractical because it was with earlier fashions.
“These software program blocks manifest no matter whether or not you are utilizing third-party parts or OEM components from salvaged units,” Chamberlain wrote. “MacBook refurbishers have requested repeatedly for a path to calibrating salvaged screens.”
With all that in thoughts, iFixit gave the M4 MacBook Air a middle-of-the-road repairability rating of 5 out of 10.
“Whereas it provides higher repairability than an iPad (although that is a low bar to clear), it nonetheless falls wanting what we would take into account genuinely repairable {hardware},” Chamberlain stated.
As with a lot of Apple’s recent nods towards repairability, iFixit discovered the truth falls quick -particularly pissed off by lingering software program locks that hobble third-party and salvaged components.
“Till Apple actually focuses exhausting on the System Configuration software program expertise, we can’t see true repairability for any MacBook of their lineup,” Chamberlain concluded.
Briefly: if fixability is a key think about your subsequent laptop computer, you would possibly wish to skip this one – even at Apple’s newly trimmed $999 beginning value. ®
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