With the updated lineup of MacBook Pros powered by M4 series chips, Apple has once again proven that it is the performance leader in this market area. But an iFixit breakdown showed that not much has changed on the inside. This means that the usual problems with being able to fix it are still there.
Apple workers seem to have redesigned the logic board, making the heatsink bigger and moving a few parts around. This time, they started with the new parts. On the new laptop, it’s easy to change the ports, and the battery can also be fixed.
But if you want to fix things yourself, Apple won’t make it easy. This bad stretch-release glue that lets you get to the battery pack is here to stay, and the main board is also hard to take off.
About six of the stretch release tabs are close to the trackpad, and eight are on the sides. The iFixit teardown video is very clear when it says that the process of removing the logic board is “incredibly complex and tedious.”
It’s interesting that it looks like Apple has quietly made some changes to make its products easier to fix. Macrumors says that an internal letter from Apple says that Apple will sell speakers as separate repair parts for the 14-inch and 16-inch M4-driven MacBook Pro laptops.
So far, Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers have had to change the whole top case to fit a new speaker. This was a very pricey process. It’s likely that Apple will soon add these separate speaker pieces to its self-service repair dashboard.
Even though it’s not easy to replace a broken speaker, people who want to fix their MacBook Pro themselves won’t have to spend a lot of money doing it. Given Apple’s past attitude on repairability, we’d say that’s a win.
