M4 MacBook Pro Shows Apple Is Still Glued To The Idea Of Unfixable Laptops

Despite improved repairability scores for Apple's latest iPhone and Mac Mini, the iFixit team says it was left underwhelmed after tearing into the new M4 MacBook Pro.

The reassuringly expensive brand is hardly alone in building hardware deemed hard to mend, and in the pursurt of slimmer and lighter devices, the company's engineers have - at times - been a little too liberal with the glue and difficult-to-find screws.

Yet Apple has recently taken strides to undo its bad reputation for repairability and upgradeability and things seemed to be changing.

The iPhone 16, for example, received plaudits for featuring adhesive that debonded when an electrical current was passed through it – useful for switching out the battery. Similarly, the recent M4 Mac Mini featured storage and a CMOS battery that could be changed without a soldering iron or logic board replacement.

Hopes were therefore high for Apple's M4 MacBook Pro – before being dashed. Sure, MacRumors spotted a reference to repair parts for speakers, but replacing the battery on an M4 MacBook Pro appears to be just as tricky a repair as on the previous generation. Storage is also unhelpfully soldered to the logic board.

M3 and M4 MacBook Pro internals compared (pic: iFixit)

Although many of the ports are modular, it is most likely the battery that users will seek to replace to extend their device's life. Getting to it required the removal of multiple screws by the iFixit team, the trackpad, and stretch-release adhesive tabs (after first disconnecting the battery from the laptop). It is no more onerous than the previous model, but a shame considering the strides taken by Apple with other devices.

"Logic board removal in the MacBook is a bit of a 'process,' which is a gentle way of saying it's incredibly complex and tedious," iFixit said.

Most of that process can be accomplished with a set of screwdrivers, yet it is not a task for the faint-hearted. Some of the ports – the card reader and HDMI, according to iFixit – are also soldered to the logic board, so replacement would require some impressive soldering skills.

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However, Apple's decision to stick with soldered storage is frustrating and speaks more of the company's reluctance to redesign the MacBook Pro than any technological limitation. With hardware replacement cycles lengthening, having to ditch an entire laptop rather than swap out the storage is, at best, irritating. As far as Apple's enterprise ambitions are concerned, it is, at worst, a reason for administrators to use alternatives.

The iFixit team has yet to give the M4 MacBook Pro a repairability score at the time of writing. However, since the hardware is very similar to the previous generation, the score will likely be broadly the same: 4 out of 10.

An iFixit spokesperson told El Reg: "Parts pairing and calibration issues remain a major obstacle. Batteries and ports are relatively repair-friendly, but swapping displays or logic boards is a minefield of software locks.

"Apple has told us that they want to make progress on removing those obstacles, but we haven't seen it in practice yet." ®