97 ms·

New MacBook Pro has first ‘DIY-friendly’ battery replacement design since 2012

718 points by tailspin2019 5y ago

jonnycomputer 5y ago
It seems to me, making batteries difficult to service and replace is very consumer-unfriendly--not to mention shitty to the environment. So this is definitely step in right direction. Not exactly so easy as pulling it out from the bottom like back in the day of bricks, but hey.
pipeline_peak 5y ago
I’d call that technician friendly, certainly not Do it (Yourself). What happened to outer compartments you could pop open without having to tear apart your $1500 laptop with a pair of tweezers?
webmobdev 5y ago
Thank you, frame.work - https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/ - this is what happens when there is real competition and innovation in the market.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  I sincerely doubt framework was even a factor in the decision making of whether or not MacBook batteries should be follow iPhones already existing design.
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    100%. It was probably due to some EU lawsuit or other, and rather than make 2 designs (US / EU), they just changed the design to make everyone happy. It's weird that US companies basically need to be sued by the EU for stuff to be consumer friendly..
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    > I sincerely doubt framework was even a factor in the decision making ... Oh, you may be surprised at how closely Apple watches and reacts to PR and its competitors - it's one of the things they do right and are really good at. Some examples: 1. After Apple's very successful launch of the iPhone, they got a huge shock in Europe when Jolla, a small, new startup of ex-Nokia employees launched a phone with a new mobile OS that outsold the iPhone. When Apple realised that Jolla's marketing emphasised "user privacy", Apple strategically temporarily shelved its plan to collect user data (for which it was getting bad PR) and even pretended to abandon their advertising platform. And that worked out very well for them because luckily for them Jolla was mismanaged, and failed. 2. Frame.work has received highly positive reviews from both the media and users / patrons all of whom have acknowledged and appreciated the creativity and innovative use of existing technology to create a highly repairable laptop. While it may not have outsold any Mac device yet, the PR buzz it has generated has focused public spotlight back on right-to-repair and created new awareness and appreciation for repairable electronics. Invariably, comparison has been made with Apple's popular yet deliberately hard-to-repair devices and you can bet that it has made Apple quite uncomfortable. (With regulators breathing down their neck about right-to-repair, the last thing Apple needs is an innovative competitor that tauts repairability as a feature). 3. When Apple released a Mac Mini with soldered RAM and SSD, the criticism and poor sales forced them to backtrack and release the next Mac Mini with replaceable RAM. (Again, a temporary strategic withdrawal). 4. The current and new Apple iPhones size and design are inspired by Sony mobiles phones, one of the few companies in the world that still has their own design division and produces amazing phones with great hardware. 5. The whole "thin device" craze at Apple was inspired by a Motorola phone. (And ofcourse, it remains popular as it aids their "planned obsolescence" goal for their devices). I am not completely disparaging Apple - reacting to PR and their competitors is something giants sometimes ignore at their peril. But Apple doesn't, and they cleverly calibrate their strategy to maintain their competitive lead. (I'd even say the article linked to is just a fluff piece trying to convey the impression that the new Apple laptop is suddenly a more easy to repair device because the battery is no longer glued like before but uses stretchable adhesive :). I recently repaired an iPhone SE and the battery adhesive broke as I was pulling it carefully and after that it was a real pain to remove it without damaging anything - easy to repair, my ass.)
    - 5y ago
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  I’ve never heard of this. Only one of my casual tech blog reading or coding friends have. I don’t think Apple would do something because of such a small competitor. The Wikipedia entry for it only has an introduction section.
  - benbristow 5y ago
    It's gotten a bit more media attention recently as Linus (of Tech Tips/YouTube fame, not Linux/Git fame) has made a rather large investment in them and has been talking about them a lot on his platforms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxbc1IN9Gg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxbc1IN9Gg
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      It said his investment is $200K-ish. His YouTube stuff seems insanely popular, so he invested a couple weeks of profit at most?
      - benbristow 5y ago
        I have no idea of his financials but that does sound like more than a few weeks of profit. Remember he has a lot of staff to pay, the huge office/studio space and bills for that and running stuff like the LTT Store which will have expenses also. And then supporting his family on top of that.
        monocasa 5y ago
        I imagine the LTT Store is a net positive with fantastic margins.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  They’re a competitor by definition, but not by any practical consideration. Despite seeming like a great company and product they probably sell fewer machines and have less mindshare than the $19 Apple cleaning cloth. Since all laptops previously had and some still have replaceable batteries, including Apple, I’m also curious how Framework gets credit for this innovation?
  - desiarnezjr 5y ago
    By bucking the trend and good PR really. Framework is interesting, but in reality reminds me of when Thinkpads were still tank-like workhorses that were quasi self-servicable over decade a ago. For the most part, you could swap components out, which is Framework's whole schtick. The ship has sailed on replaceable RAM and storage IMO, because most of us want the performance increases that losing upgradability brings. It's a trade-off but one that's worth it in the long run.
    - kasabali 5y ago
      > The ship has sailed on replaceable RAM and storage IMO, because most of us want the performance increases that losing upgradability brings. It's a trade-off but one that's worth it in the long run. That's what Apple marketing and clueless fanboys want you to believe. M1 is fast because it is fast. Not because it has RAM in package or soldered SSD. Socketed RAM and SSDs would be just as fast.
- benbristow 5y ago
  Hi, Linus! :P
- pzo 5y ago
  I wouldn't call it as easily repairable as frame.work - frame.work doesn't use those glue white strips instead they just have few screws and you can remove such battery without struggle. I once changed battery in my old iphone SE and it's a real pain if such white strips break - and they are sooo thin that it's really easy to break. Once it breaks you have to use heat gun and fishing line as improvised saw to cut battery from the case. BTW My old macbook 15'' pro 2012 unibody had only screws and easily removable battery
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    Same here - I had to use a hair dryer and dental floss to "saw" through the adhesive strip once it broke off ... damn near took me around 30 - 40 minutes! (And some HP laptops don't even need screws but provide sliding buttons to easily "unlock" and remove / change the battery).
supernes 5y ago
They should check if the camera stops working when you replace it.
zrm 5y ago
Credit where credit is due. Let this be a trend.
- spicybright 5y ago
  Hear hear. It's frankly amazing how this model did a 180 in these aspects.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    Yeah it's like they took the list of everyone's complaints - touchbar, ports, magsafe, battery and fixed them all. Very un-Apple-like. There's only really minor complaints left, like the unreplaceable RAM and disks, and lack of touchscreen.
    - blhack 5y ago
      >lack of touchscreen. Please god no.
      - randomluck040 5y ago
        Touchscreens are my personal nemesis, too. I have literally no scenario where I’d like to lift my hand from the keyboard or touchpad to put my finger on my screen to click something. Maybe it’s a thing with other use cases though. I think the new Microsoft Studio Laptop does it in a reasonable way since you can fold it and use a pen and all. Still not for me but with foldable devices I get it at least.
        spicybright 5y ago
        I actually go against the grain here and say I like touchscreens. Being able to draw on screenshots with my finger (I that a lot for work) is really nice. At least it has the killer feature of having the ability to be completely ignored, unlike other "trendy" features on new laptops :) Also, I can never find a good use case for the folding tablet modes. Maybe it's because I'm not an artist, and don't my computer much for pure media consumption, but almost everything on the computer is designed around having a keyboard. I find it silly to type on a software keyboard 5x slower than the keyboard already attached to the device.
scohesc 5y ago
So they say it can actually be replaced. Nice! Hopefully they don't pull an iPhone and individually serialize batteries that authenticate with other chips on the phone - if they don't match you get an annoying warning and supposedly underclocked CPU causing performance issues even if it's a brand new battery.
- kfprt 5y ago
  With the iPhoneification of their product line I'm sure that's exactly what's going to happen.
speedyapoc 5y ago
Very nice to see! I use my machine in closed clamshell around 90% of the time which means the battery is usually in pretty terrible shape after a couple years of use. Will be happy to see battery replacement times hopefully go down on these new machines as waiting 5-7 days isn't fun to deal with.
- asdff 5y ago
  I really don't understand why macbooks are set up to still draw off the battery when under AC power. You can only get a mac to run off ac power only if you start it up with the battery physically removed iirc. I had a macbook where I was spinning fans for most of the day and I got it down to 85% battery capacity within a year since it keeps straining the battery even when its just sitting on my desk running off a 90W power adapter at 100% charge. Its like, whats the point of paying for these workhorse laptops if you are going to be blowing through batteries once you actually start to utilize the power you are paying egregiously for? Might as well get a powerful mac mini and connect to it with ssh from a much cheaper laptop.
  - hbn 5y ago
    > I had a macbook where I was spinning fans for most of the day and I got it down to 85% battery capacity within a year since it keeps straining the battery even when its just sitting on my desk running off a 90W power adapter at 100% charge They released a feature in Big Sur where it learns if you always keep your laptop plugged in, and during those times (which may be all the time, like in my case) it'll hover the battery between 70-80% to preserve battery health, and won't charge up to 100% until you tell it to manually (click the battery icon -> "Charge to full now")
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >I use my machine in closed clamshell around 90% of the time which means the battery is usually in pretty terrible shape after a couple years of use. For those of us who usually use our MacBooks attached to the wall, deep discharging (AKA "calibration"; <https://www.newertech.com/batteries/power-calibration-guide/ https://www.newertech.com/batteries/power-calibration-guide/>) on a regular basis is a substitute, but is annoying to do. I similarly went through batteries every couple of years. I now use FruitJuice (on the App Store) as the menu bar battery indicator. If it finds that the computer hasn't been used on battery long enough, about once a month the app guides me through running a maintenance cycle to run it down to 20%. I presume that following FruitJuice's advice is why my latest third-party battery is still at 103% health after more than a year.
major505 5y ago
Well, this is great. Because, while I don`t like to admit they launch a lot of trends that other manufactures tend to follow. Hope they go the same way.
drclau 5y ago
AFAIK, replacing the battery on the previous generation meant replacing the top part of the body, to which the battery was glued. That included replacing the keyboard and the touchpad (not 100% sure if the old keyboard and touchpad could have been kept; maybe they were replaced just because of the damage done to them by the expanding batteries). At the same time, the previous generation had battery problems and keyboard problems (as pointed out in sub-comments), which meant many were replaced for free even out of warranty (as it happened to me due to faulty battery). I suspect someone at Apple realized how much would have been saved if only the battery was not glued to the case. Edit: mentioned the keyboard problem, which would result in replacing the battery too it seems.
- selykg 5y ago
  This is also how I got two new batteries replacements when I had to send my MBP in for keyboard replacement due to the stupid thing breaking (repeatedly). Each time the system showed 0 cycles on the battery and I basically got a nice reset. Loved that part of it at least.
  - egypturnash 5y ago
    hahaha, my 2016 MBP chews through batteries - I'm on my fourth, I think - and every time I get a new battery it comes with a new keyboard, so I haven't had any of the keyboard problems some are plagued with.
- nicbou 5y ago
  At some point they ran out of that part, so they gave people refurbs. They didn't have the fr-CA keyboard in Germany, so I got upgraded from a 2012 mid-specced MacBook to a 2017 top-specced one for the price of a battery change. Then I got two more battery swaps when my keyboard failed.
- martinko 5y ago
  I suspect that they see the right to repair movement and are trying to preempt it, at least to an extent.
roflchoppa 5y ago
It’s the right thing to do from a service prospective, the last design had it built into the top case. I’m sure they hit supply issues with all the keyboard failures on the old model. Are the speakers in the old model removable? If not more topcase constraints ha.
- gregoriol 5y ago
  At least you got a new/clean keyboard everytime your battery did need service
alphabettsy 5y ago
I’m sure this is more to save $$ for Apple, but either way it’s a win. It’s nice to feel like someone is actually listening with this new redesign.
zerof1l 5y ago
I don't get what is the news here and why this is in top. You could always replace the battery. It's just that it is not easy. Now to replace it, you need to remove a trackpad. Ridiculous. You still can't purchase a replacement battery from Apple to replace it yourself. The only option is to purchase it from a place like iFixit once your warranty is out, or pay ridiculous price at Apple.
- teilo 5y ago
  This is incorrect. We are an Apple self-service shop (meaning we are authorized by Apple to do our own repairs, order OEM parts, etc.). In the 2019 models, battery replacement required a new top shell.
  - drcongo 5y ago
    I'm impressed that you dignified that post with an answer.
  - Wingman4l7 5y ago
    No it doesn't, you're (understandably) just not willing to do the large amount of labor required to rip out the battery: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2019+Battery+Replacement/124182 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- eli 5y ago
  FTA: "this new MacBook Pro has, at the very least, the first reasonably DIY-friendly battery replacement procedure since 2012."
  - MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
    I'm not sure what is supposed to be an improvement? I replaced a MBP 2015 battery myself, and this did not require removing the touchpad.
dont__panic 5y ago
In a world where Apple is pushing on-device CSAM scanning and serial number locking cameras to motherboards, it's nice to see that some of their products still respect users' rights. Now if only we could get an iPhone Pro with this kind of respect for right to repair.
- sneak 5y ago
  You can't wipe the drives on these machines fully and make them functional again without an internet connection back to Apple. Even the Monterey installer doesn't work offline at present, even the full 12GB one, or even a usb one made with createinstallmedia --downloadassets. You must transmit your serial number to the mothership.
  - marcan_42 5y ago
    On the flip side, these machines are unbrickable, which pretty much no PC is. If you wipe a PC "fully" (BIOS and all) it's dead. That's why you need to call the mothership to fully DFU reinstall one of these Macs - it literally goes and downloads things like factory calibration info from their database. You can in principle do offline OS installs on these Macs in reduced security mode. I did it once with Big Sur. If that doesn't work with Monterey, that's a bug that should be reported and fixed. Full security mode requires phoning home, as part of their security model (this is so they can stop allowing installs of old, vulnerable OSes, which could be used as an attack vector on someone else's machine). You need to make sure you install from 1TR if you want to do a reduced security install; again, this is part of their security model, to ensure you've asserted physical presence.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      > again, this is part of their security model, to ensure you've asserted physical presence. And again, it's totally optional, because "reduced" and "permissive" security mode exist. (Yes, you said that, but I feel it should be re-iterated because it's important! The user is in control here!)
deleted 5y ago
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exoque 5y ago
That's not at all what I think of when I hear the words 'replaceable battery'. Too bad.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Yeah there's still a long way to go to get back to where we used to be.
  - sbuk 5y ago
    What is the use case? Modern batteries hold their charge for a long time. In a review I saw today, the reviewer - a professional photographer and filmmaker no less - said that he managed to shoot edit and export a video on a single charge[0]. The need to swap out batteries with these device has all but disappeared, save for permanent replacement. [0]https://youtu.be/I10WMJV96ns?t=643 https://youtu.be/I10WMJV96ns?t=643
    - Nition 5y ago
      Just noting an alternative use case: When I used to take my laptop (a Dell XPS M1530, later a Dell Studio XPS 13) on my walk between home and university, I'd take it without the battery in as that made it much lighter. There were power points where I was going anyway.
    - lamontcg 5y ago
      The use case is the ability to easily replace/upgrade the batteries, RAM and drives by the end consumer without requiring any specialized tools or procedures barring removing some screws. This is what we used to have with laptops 10+ years ago. Swapping batteries due to charge issues was never particularly important to the majority of consumers and is a red herring.
      - sbuk 5y ago
        The benefits provided by SoCs outweigh the benefits of user upgradeable RAM for me. > Swapping batteries due to charge issues was never particularly important to the majority of consumers and is a red herring. Why?
tobyjsullivan 5y ago
A lot of comments seem focused on the incentives to apple and what's motivating the change. All fair questions. To me, though, it feels like just a radically different approach this year. 2016 macbook felt like leadership got in a room and said "okay, let's make a list of all the sexy things we can think of that would make the macbook unique". This netted things like thin-beyond-practicality, touchbar, removing all the ports, etc. 2021 macbook feels like leadership got in a room and said "okay, let's make a list of all the top things everybody is complaining about most." And they just fixed everything (well, most things) on that list one-by-one.
- brightball 5y ago
  Is the hard disk / SSD / NVMe still soldered to the board?
  - DrBenCarson 5y ago
    To summarize: the MBP no longer has a “hard disk”. It has flash memory that is coupled with the SoC. This is to make the memory bottleneck tolerable (considering the cpu and ram move 400GB/s)
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    I replaced one of the (honestly I don't know what to call them... gumstick sized ssd?) in a MacBook that had it as a separate component and it was a bad idea. It required an adapter board, some large proportion of available products on the market weren't compatible, and even with one that was there was still occasional strange behavior. Soldering in was the least of the problems.
    - peterburkimsher 5y ago
      "blade style drive" -> M.2 I also replaced the SSD in my 15" MacBook Pro 2014, and currently use a 4 TB M.2 drive. When a replacement battery fried my logic board, I didn't lose my data. It didn't take multiple hours to re-clone from backup; I just used a screwdriver to move the SSD over to my spare laptop (13" Pro 2015). A computer for me is primarily a data storage and retrieval device. Data loss is an existential risk to it. Data security doesn't bother me as much as it does other people; once the hardware is accessible, all bets are off anyway. I do get some strange behaviour with the new SSD (periodic weekly crash/reboot) but still accept that in order to have the larger capacity (4 TB is much more than the 512 GB when the laptop was new).
throwaway744678 5y ago
That comment about the new "Apple Polishing Cloth" is hilarious. 20$ for a piece of cloth... Glad the battery is easier to replace, though (speaking from experience!)
- olliej 5y ago
  But it's an artisanal cloth made of unicorn fur!
  - jjoonathan 5y ago
    The lint must be picked one-by-one off the unicorns with extra small tweezers that can only be held by child laborers!
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Not just any child laborers, mind you: your $20 are getting your the finest Uighur and political prisoner labor money can buy!
- mpalczewski 5y ago
  The cleaning cloth was sold out immediately. $20 is a ton for a cleaning cloth, but a small price to pay for consumers of apple products. Here is the alternative (personal experience) 1. You search on amazon 2. Get presented with 1000 products 3. Read some reviews, wonder if this is the best product for your iPhone, will it work on the laptop 4. decide you don't really need a cleaning cloth The apple solution, solves your problem for a price. I haven't bought the apple cloth, but have and am considering it.
  - crossroadsguy 5y ago
    It’s not really that much effort, is it? You just buy a cleaning cloth? No? Unless of course all the while one was disturbed at the very thought of not having this revolutionary invention of Apple A Cloth That Just Cleans™ at home.
  - 5y ago
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
Whoah! That's fantastic news for the customers and the environment! I was thinking of skipping this model, but now I'm sure I'll buy it.
- fsflover 5y ago
  It's still not repairable...
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    Well, I'm realistic, I don't believe Apple stops being greedy anytime soon. But the battery issue is a huge step forward. I mean, of all components, that's the one I know will break first because of the laws of physics (and chemistry). So having it irreplaceable is particularly cruel. It's like saying "buy this expensive machine and watch it die." I really hate throwing hardware away, I try to make use of everything I own and repurpose it if necessary, but the battery literally destroys everything, I have this bulge that damages the touchpad and keyboard and Apple says they will fix it for a ton of money. I could have done it a long time ago if I could, thanks.
rbanffy 5y ago
I feel that, on the ports and touchbar side, this was a step backwards. The SD slot is a good thing, but the replacement of one USB-C with a (vintage) HDMI port and the addition of a proprietary power connector is a leap backwards in time. The Touchbar was my daughter's favorite - an Emoji keyboard. It also did a lot more - bringing up manpages in the terminal, having app-specific buttons (no need to hunt down the Zoom window to mute). People wanted an ESC key and they got it eventually. I couldn't care less about function keys. I get it was very expensive for the little if offered, but, still, it's still useful. More useful than F1 to F12 ever were. Magsafe is nice from a safety standpoint (I have a kid and work from the couch sometimes), but with all-day battery life, what is the use of it? On my desk, the Mac is plugged into power, two external monitors, ethernet, keyboard and trackpad with a single cable, as God intended it to be. That's 3 free USB-C connectors for anything else (such as the external storage) and there is one power brick that lives in my backpack along a pair of US/EU adapters for when I need to travel. With USB-C power, it was nice to have the Dell and the Mac sharing power bricks when needed (if I said that 10 years ago, I would laugh myself out of the room) I like the replaceable battery, but I miss the touchbar and actively dislike the reintroduction of Magsafe.
- JoshGlazebrook 5y ago
  Vintage in what sense? HDMI is literally one of, if not the most common types of display ports on TVs, Monitors, game consoles, etc. I think most people would choose a straight HDMI to HDMI connection over trying to find the right USB-C/lighting/whatever cable to fit their needs (which is very hard to actually do). The HDMI port has stayed the same for a long time, yet new HDMI specs come out every few years expanding the capabilities.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - notyourwork 5y ago
    What's wrong with a USB-C to HDMI cable if you need that connectivity?
human 5y ago
I have been due to replace my battery on my 2019 MBP (I know, yeah…). The problem is not the price (which is steep) but the fact that I have to leave « my girlfriend » at the shop for 3-4 days. This new design is a game-changer.
- asdff 5y ago
  Any apple repair they are going to make you wait. They don't do much of anything in the store anymore these days, they just scan with their software and send away. No clue why they don't image a loaner laptop for you in the meantime. They much such a big hubbo about pros using their hardware then they don't offer services that pros require for their hardware, like no downtime since they can't just tell the client that their rig is out of commission for four days.
  - r00fus 5y ago
    This would be great - they could image your machine & imprint onto the replacement with activation/etc even having you authenticate AppleID as needed. Is disk-imaging like CarbonCopyCloner possible on newer machines?
    - asdff 5y ago
      Apple definitely has the software to do this. When you buy a new laptop from them they can do this for you to migrate your old mac. No reason why they couldn't do it for a loaner.
aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
2022 iphone will have a 3.5mm jack. Mark my words ;)
- acomjean 5y ago
  I'm not positive, but by removing the headphone jack, they sell more AirPods and force bluetooth on which enables the airtag and find my network to be more way more functional.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  Do people still use wired headphones on the go? It’s been a while since I’ve seen any. You can get decent Bluetooth wireless headphones for ~$20 now. I remember spending $10 every few months when I was using wired headphones back in the day. Every few months because the wired inevitably broke or frayed (don’t forget you have to put them somewhere when you’re not using them). It was hell with jackets and layers in the winter. I always got the orange version of this: https://refreshcartridges.co.uk/productimages/a_121995.jpg https://refreshcartridges.co.uk/productimages/a_121995.jpg In any case where I care enough to listen wired, I also care enough to get a separate DAC. The cheap Bluetooth is competitive with the cheap wired these days and last longer. Example: https://www.amazon.com/TOZO-T6-Bluetooth-Headphones-Waterproof/dp/B07RGZ5NKS/ https://www.amazon.com/TOZO-T6-Bluetooth-Headphones-Waterpro... Id rather use that space for extra battery capacity.
  - lowbloodsugar 5y ago
    Both my teenagers do. And yeah, I have a monthly subscription for headphone cables.
  - arprocter 5y ago
    Yes - no need to charge them, less likely to get lost, no figuring out if my device speaks random codec v1 or 2 MMCX connectors mean you can replace the cable, not that I've ever broken a Shure one (they use Kevlar)
  - humanistbot 5y ago
    I hate having to remember to recharge yet another device. My wired earbuds never run out of battery.
notyourwork 5y ago
It seems I fall in the minority but I've become quite fond of the touchbar. Its a dynamic user input, if my phone rings I can touch answer on my touchbar to pick it up, if I want to seek or scroll on a spotify song I can do that with a touch and slide. I don't see the dislike for it.
- sgt 5y ago
  That's the only thing I use the touch bar for (I have a 2018 MBP); to hit the red button after a FaceTime call.
- elboru 5y ago
  Touch feedback is important for a lot of us. Specially when I’m concentrated while debugging something, I don’t want to have to look at my keyboard. But I see value for other use cases, maybe having both the touchbar plus the F keys would have worked fine?
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  IIRC the dislike was mostly driven by the touchbar substituting for physical F keys. If they somehow managed to have both, I suspect people would be happy.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    They would have been happy and probably continued to never use the touch bar. I find it pretty cool and interesting to look at but I have basically never used it because everything it does can be done via the mouse which I am already using for other task so I never felt it was useful to switch to pressing the touch bar.
- mostlysimilar 5y ago
  I already have a dynamic interface to control: the one on the display. Having the "keyboard" change throws off my intuition on where to place my fingers and how to interact. Looking down at the touchbar each time to assess what the current interface is adds a tiny amount of additional overhead to my interactions that I dislike. It's not _terrible_, but it's not my preference. I also really dislike the lack of tactile feedback.
asdff 5y ago
Replaceable battery, after removing the trackpad to access the final set of cells. Not the easiest projecdure and still is going to result in users doing what they do today, handing the machine off to a technician rather than be able to change the batteries on their device themselves. What a fall from grace from the first unibody macbook, where you could remove the battery with no tools and five seconds of your time since they engineered a door with a latch. I guess we celebrate what small affordances we can get these days.
- krrrh 5y ago
  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. You can stop grinding that axe bud, it’s never gonna swing again.
  - asdff 5y ago
    If it wasn't for people with axes to grind this new macbook would have a touchbar, butterfly keyboard, and only thunderbolt ports.
    - jamil7 5y ago
      Thunderbolt “port” you mean.
    - krrrh 5y ago
      Those are changes that the majority of users wanted, but very few want a return to clunky pop-out batteries, even fewer in an era of 20-hour battery life.
rwaksmunski 5y ago
For me the 2021 MacBook Pro is a single USB-A port away from perfect. I want to use my old but good printer/scanner/mouse/thumb drive/external hard drive/yubikey without dongles.
- nazgulnarsil 5y ago
  A lot of dongle talk seems weird to me. A to C adapters are cheap. Buy a bunch and leave them on the things you regularly use. No dongle to track.
  - kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
    It's still way more convenient to have the USB-A port built-in, even if you have myriad USB-C dongles. I'm trialing switching away from an XPS13DE (Develoepr Edition) to some "cheap"-ish 600 dollar laptop from HP just because I literally cannot stand the fact that the XPS doesn't have USB-A ports. I notice the difference (my cheap laptop is so much nicer) since it's so much more convenient since a lot of things are still USB-A these days (eg. my Arduino uses a printer cable which is USB-A, my flash drives are USB-A, my HDMI capture dongle is USB-A, my cheap webcam is USB-A, et cetera). Even if I have myriad dongles, if I'm travelling away from home, I don't have to remember to bring those dongles with me anymore.
  - dalyons 5y ago
    totally agree. A sucks, C is a way better port. leave the $2 adapters on your old a cables if you have to. total non issue.
tantalor 5y ago
> we notice ... battery pull tabs Is the picture supposed to show these new tabs? I don't see anything. Can I get a red arrow?
- fakename 5y ago
  It's the thing being stretched between the fingers. Like a command strip.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Really sucks to see how awesome the new MBP is. It's too bad the CSAM scandal had to happen; never buying another Apple product again because of that shit.
- ajvs 5y ago
  And heaer I thought I was the only person who just can't get enthused about their new MacBooks, knowing that CSAM could just get added at any point in the future without my consent.
  - krrrh 5y ago
    The scanning wasn’t to be done by the OS, but by the Photos app uploader, and only if you had iCloud Photo Library turned on. Lots of apps already do telemetry and photo scanning that goes beyond this, as well as nearly every major cloud provider (though Apple seemingly doesn’t scan iCloud photo libraries without a warrant unlike Google and Facebook). Like a lot of apps, you don’t need to use Photos.app. They didn’t sneak it in without explaining how it worked.
    - beezischillin 5y ago
      They also said they're open to opening it up to 3rd parties in the future.
    - neop1x 5y ago
      That's why there are self-hosted solutions like NextCloud or home NAS devices.
  - Toutouxc 5y ago
    > knowing that CSAM could just get added at any point CSAM is an abbreviation for "child sexual abuse material", so no, that won't (hopefully) get added without your consent.
busymom0 5y ago
> We removed the trackpad and, lo and behold, there are cut-outs to access the pull tabs that hold the middle battery cells in place. That's not exactly what I was expecting based on the headline. Still seems pretty complicated.
riffic 5y ago
Is this Apple? Well, maybe I'll consider one of these over a Framework. I'll lean strongly towards the Framework machine but at least Apple is reconsidering some of their design choices over the last decade.
- tantony 5y ago
  I recently bought a Framework as a replacement for my 2012 MBP. I ordered it a few weeks before the new M1 announcements because I liked their philosophy. And the hardware is, in fact, great! But the Linux desktop experience has been ... frustrating to say the least. And I say this as someone who has used linux in the terminal at my job every day for 5+ years now. It's ridiculous that the software experience still cannot match my 9 year old laptop running macOS Sierra on a 2.5GHz Core i5 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM! I am running PopOS 21.04. There's inconsistent keyboard shortcuts, lack of touchpad precision, glitchy touchpad gestures, inconsistent fingerprint auth and more. Just on Day 2, I somehow ended up with a machine that somehow took 30+ seconds to go from login to desktop and 3-4 second lag when typing with 100% CPU usage when running any GUI app. The only way to fix it was to completely reinstall the OS -- I have no idea what caused this. I have now found some usable options for implementing my preferred touchpad gestures ("fusuma") and system-wide keyboard shortcuts ("kinto.sh") though there are still many quirks that are irritating. I like Framework's approach, so I supported them by buying the device. I promised myself I will keep daily driving it for at least a month to give it a chance. If it keeps getting on my nerves, I will sell it and buy one the of the new 14" MBPs. Life's too short to spend hours upon hours fiddling with configuration files and reinstalling operating systems to get basic functionality working.
  - yepthatsreality 5y ago
    Personally I find Gnome environments pretty ugly. I switched to KDE on my Framework and it’s almost night and day that I’m leaving my desktop Gnome install behind for KDE as well.
    - tantony 5y ago
      What distro are you running?
throwawaymanbot 5y ago
replaceable battery and permanent surveillance ?
1970-01-01 5y ago
Important question: Are the batteries serialized or will any 3rd party battery just work?
martini333 5y ago
The actual content: https://www.ifixit.com/News/54122/macbook-pro-2021-teardown https://www.ifixit.com/News/54122/macbook-pro-2021-teardown
- sulam 5y ago
  Thanks for the direct link, it'd be good if the post linked here vs a reheated version of the same content.
  - gilgoomesh 5y ago
    It's been updated to this link, now.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jangid 5y ago
They are late though. Last year I have switched to Debian because of very few DIY repair options in MacBooks. And I discovered OS superiority as well. Everything in Debian (Gnome) is so fast - opening PDF files, Files (finder), Terminal, EMacs. Debian running on i5 is much faster then macOS running on i7.
- dsauerbrun 5y ago
  is it faster than osx running on m1 though?
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I don't imagine it would make much of a difference, unless there's some kind of M1 upgrade kit for older Macbooks I never heard of.
chrischen 5y ago
The SSD also has to be replaceable (without a full logic board swap) or the machine also has a constrained usable lifetime.
destitude 5y ago
I still remember when you didn't even have to open up the "MBP" and could replace the battery directly from the bottom. Even had green led indicator to show how much charge it had directly on the battery case.
- hwbehrens 5y ago
  Wow, I totally forgot about that period. I recall that I used to plug in my laptop when I arrived at my desk, then remove the battery to ensure that it was running exclusively on wall power in an effort to improve battery health. I never did have to replace that battery...
- latortuga 5y ago
  Was this MBP era or iBook/PowerBook era? I seem to recall this being the case on the old Titanium Powerbooks in the early 00s. Remember the glowing light near the laptop latch that would slowly swell to tell you that your laptop was asleep?
  - lostgame 5y ago
    There was a MacBook Pro era - even a couple Unibody revisions - that kept the easy user replaceable battery intact. The Unibody had this lovely latch mechanism that also allowed you to easily replace your hard drive and/or RAM. God, I miss those days. :(
    - r00fus 5y ago
      Yup my beautiful 2008 "ALU" MBP had this. Was very sleek.
  - NoPicklez 5y ago
    MBP era, I owned the first of the Aluminium unibody Macbook's which were released around 2008 which had a removable body with a tab.
  - r-w 5y ago
    I have never seen "swell" used that way. I thought you were saying your battery was making the entire casing swell.
dang 5y ago
Url changed from https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/27/new-macbook-pro-battery-replacement/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/27/new-macbook-pro-battery-repla..., which points to this.
- tailspin2019 5y ago
  Thanks, I considered posting the iFixit link but the title of that article being “Teardown Teaser: Is the 2021 MacBook Pro Repairable?” didn’t really convey what I thought would be specifically of interest to HN (ie the battery angle which the original article chose to focus on). Didn’t want to editorialise the iFixit link with 9to5mac’s title but we ended up there anyway :)
  - dang 5y ago
    Yes, it's a mixed bag no matter how one slices it. (mixed metaphor too, apparently)
znpy 5y ago
I wonder if this is the effect of Jony Ive being gone.
mrfusion 5y ago
Does framebook have an easily replaceable battery?
- banana_giraffe 5y ago
  Depends on your definition of "easy" https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/85 https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/85 It's past my personal definition, but just barely, since it involves dealing with a ribbon cable and an apparently fragile connection for the battery itself. It's not too bad, but not something I want to try and walk someone through if they're not used to this sort of thing.
- mshroyer 5y ago
  Yes, the Framework laptop's battery is more easily replaceable than the new MBP's, from what I can tell without yet having seen iFixit's full teardown of the latter—there's no need to remove the trackpad or deal with adhesives on the Framework, in contrast to the new MBP. (I'm still thrilled to see this improvement to serviceability on the new MBP, even if previous generations set a low bar.)
tobias2014 5y ago
The article says "reasonably DIY-friendly". I think this is an important distinction. Just because the battery has pull tabs doesn't mean that it's easy to get to that point.
usui 5y ago
Ease of being able to replace the battery has never been the reason stopping me from upgrading from a 2015 MacBook Pro. Anyone with the the intent of replacing a battery today will be able to make it after buying some readily available tools. What I need is the ability to swap out my SSD in the laptop, either for data retrieval, backing up, or upgrades. Unfortunately good removeable storage seems to be a thing of the past. I say "good" because I don't want to boot the newest MBP off a slow SD card. I could depend on Migration Assistant or Time Machine, but I don't trust anything other than a good raw "cat" or "dd" of a drive
londons_explore 5y ago
What is the component between the CPU and the fan on each side? It appears to be non-rectangular silicon... Or perhaps some power MOSFETs under a cover?
londons_explore 5y ago
Are they pads for extra DRAM on the bottom left of the PCB? Will we see hobbysts with a heat gun adding ram to these things? BGA soldering with tweezers and a heat gun doesn't look too tricky on those because the pad spacing is easily within what you could manage with tweezers. The actual pin layout isn't a standard I recognize - so I assume apple has ordered custom made ram chips ..
- rswail 5y ago
  The RAM is "unified" and on the same chip as the CPU and GPU.
- garaetjjte 5y ago
  That's probably far too distant for LPDDR. I guess these pads are for NAND flash, and RAM is right next to processor under the heatsink.
aunty_helen 5y ago
Stockholm syndrome doesn’t look like Stockholm syndrome. Everyone cheering apple on for making the laptop they should have made in 2016. Wow! No Touch Bar it’s so much better. Semi replaceable batteries! How great. The funny thing is, if they had dropped the ports on this generation instead of the last, less people would have cared.
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  Yeah but they also chose to bring all those much loved things back to coincide with their mac apple silicon. Sly but I wouldn't be surprised if they held it back for M1 to make the appeal of the devices bigger.
jrochkind1 5y ago
Damn it really is the return of the Titanium Powerbook G4, what?
diebeforei485 5y ago
Apple seems to be taking a more repair-friendly approach for high-end products recently (except the iPhone and iPad). AirPods Max are also great: - User-replaceable earcups with no tools needed; - User-replaceable headband, just needs a paperclip; - Somewhat user-replaceable battery - you can have them do it for $79 out of warranty, but a repair shop can definitely do it as well because it's just screws.
mataug 5y ago
This is wonderful news, I do wonder whether the 2021 MBP would work properly with DIY battery replacement ?! newer iPhones notoriously don't like DIY battery / screen replacements, and they disable features such as battery health with a DIY replacement.
thedailypickup 5y ago
Now if only the rest of the Macbook was DIY friendly; where I could upgrade my RAM to 64GB and NVME ~1TB without giving up my left kidney.
- anaganisk 5y ago
  Isn’t ram now part of soc?
  - thedailypickup 5y ago
    It is, that's why I'm saying it would be nicer if I could upgrade RAM myself without giving up my $$$ kidney $$$
darwingr 5y ago
IMO apple’s peak ridiculousness had to be the Magic Mouse that required you turn it on its back and unusable in order to charge it.
- MengerSponge 5y ago
  Is a charging dock for a mouse ridiculous? You can't use the mouse while it charges! How absurd! How silly! Did you actually have one? Or are you remembering a picture you saw online once?
- rswail 5y ago
  I agree it's silly, but it means that once a month, I need to plug it in when I go for lunch, or before I go to bed. And you can still use the scrolling top and click while its charging if you really need to continue browsing.
seventytwo 5y ago
The commentary about the cloth is fantastic
ineedasername 5y ago
I love that they literally did a teardown of the polishing cloth as well. Which received a 0 out of 10 on the repairability scale.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's the same cloth that came with my XDR I say it deserves at least a 5 out of 10 since you can wash it in the washing machine on cold and it air dries quickly
vbezhenar 5y ago
Well, that's a huge plus for me. It seems that this kind of laptop will have much better lifespan. It seems that some engineer in Apple now is able to make decisions. I thought that all the decisions were driven by designers.
tlhighbaugh 5y ago
Too bad you can't change out the soldered on RAM. Thus still not buying even if adobe keeps up the "no photoshop on Linux" bs forever
rconti 5y ago
Huge props to the hilarious polishing cloth teardown, complete with American Psycho quote, shade thrown at what else you could get for $19, and how it's actually two polishing cloths if you cut it in half.
nikprasad 5y ago
As a mac user, I welcome the improvement in battery replacement design. The cost of replacing the battery (and the keyboard) has been one of the worst design decisions by apple.
toolslive 5y ago
Is it just me or does the 'since 2012' reads as if it can also mean "and it has been that way since 2012".
mr2loco 5y ago
about time. My battery needs service now and I'm dreading to go to the store. Would much rather buy a new battery and put it in myself and be done with t

718 points by tailspin2019 5y ago

It seems to me, making batteries difficult to service and replace is very consumer-unfriendly--not to mention shitty to the environment. So this is definitely step in right direction. Not exactly so easy as pulling it out from the bottom like back in the day of bricks, but hey.

pipeline_peak 5y ago

I’d call that technician friendly, certainly not Do it (Yourself). What happened to outer compartments you could pop open without having to tear apart your $1500 laptop with a pair of tweezers?

webmobdev 5y ago

Thank you, frame.work - https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/ - this is what happens when there is real competition and innovation in the market.

Jcowell 5y ago
I sincerely doubt framework was even a factor in the decision making of whether or not MacBook batteries should be follow iPhones already existing design.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  100%. It was probably due to some EU lawsuit or other, and rather than make 2 designs (US / EU), they just changed the design to make everyone happy. It's weird that US companies basically need to be sued by the EU for stuff to be consumer friendly..
- webmobdev 5y ago
  > I sincerely doubt framework was even a factor in the decision making ... Oh, you may be surprised at how closely Apple watches and reacts to PR and its competitors - it's one of the things they do right and are really good at. Some examples: 1. After Apple's very successful launch of the iPhone, they got a huge shock in Europe when Jolla, a small, new startup of ex-Nokia employees launched a phone with a new mobile OS that outsold the iPhone. When Apple realised that Jolla's marketing emphasised "user privacy", Apple strategically temporarily shelved its plan to collect user data (for which it was getting bad PR) and even pretended to abandon their advertising platform. And that worked out very well for them because luckily for them Jolla was mismanaged, and failed. 2. Frame.work has received highly positive reviews from both the media and users / patrons all of whom have acknowledged and appreciated the creativity and innovative use of existing technology to create a highly repairable laptop. While it may not have outsold any Mac device yet, the PR buzz it has generated has focused public spotlight back on right-to-repair and created new awareness and appreciation for repairable electronics. Invariably, comparison has been made with Apple's popular yet deliberately hard-to-repair devices and you can bet that it has made Apple quite uncomfortable. (With regulators breathing down their neck about right-to-repair, the last thing Apple needs is an innovative competitor that tauts repairability as a feature). 3. When Apple released a Mac Mini with soldered RAM and SSD, the criticism and poor sales forced them to backtrack and release the next Mac Mini with replaceable RAM. (Again, a temporary strategic withdrawal). 4. The current and new Apple iPhones size and design are inspired by Sony mobiles phones, one of the few companies in the world that still has their own design division and produces amazing phones with great hardware. 5. The whole "thin device" craze at Apple was inspired by a Motorola phone. (And ofcourse, it remains popular as it aids their "planned obsolescence" goal for their devices). I am not completely disparaging Apple - reacting to PR and their competitors is something giants sometimes ignore at their peril. But Apple doesn't, and they cleverly calibrate their strategy to maintain their competitive lead. (I'd even say the article linked to is just a fluff piece trying to convey the impression that the new Apple laptop is suddenly a more easy to repair device because the battery is no longer glued like before but uses stretchable adhesive :). I recently repaired an iPhone SE and the battery adhesive broke as I was pulling it carefully and after that it was a real pain to remove it without damaging anything - easy to repair, my ass.)
  - 5y ago
skinnymuch 5y ago
I’ve never heard of this. Only one of my casual tech blog reading or coding friends have. I don’t think Apple would do something because of such a small competitor. The Wikipedia entry for it only has an introduction section.
- benbristow 5y ago
  It's gotten a bit more media attention recently as Linus (of Tech Tips/YouTube fame, not Linux/Git fame) has made a rather large investment in them and has been talking about them a lot on his platforms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxbc1IN9Gg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxbc1IN9Gg
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    It said his investment is $200K-ish. His YouTube stuff seems insanely popular, so he invested a couple weeks of profit at most?
    - benbristow 5y ago
      I have no idea of his financials but that does sound like more than a few weeks of profit. Remember he has a lot of staff to pay, the huge office/studio space and bills for that and running stuff like the LTT Store which will have expenses also. And then supporting his family on top of that.
      - monocasa 5y ago
        I imagine the LTT Store is a net positive with fantastic margins.
alphabettsy 5y ago
They’re a competitor by definition, but not by any practical consideration. Despite seeming like a great company and product they probably sell fewer machines and have less mindshare than the $19 Apple cleaning cloth. Since all laptops previously had and some still have replaceable batteries, including Apple, I’m also curious how Framework gets credit for this innovation?
- desiarnezjr 5y ago
  By bucking the trend and good PR really. Framework is interesting, but in reality reminds me of when Thinkpads were still tank-like workhorses that were quasi self-servicable over decade a ago. For the most part, you could swap components out, which is Framework's whole schtick. The ship has sailed on replaceable RAM and storage IMO, because most of us want the performance increases that losing upgradability brings. It's a trade-off but one that's worth it in the long run.
  - kasabali 5y ago
    > The ship has sailed on replaceable RAM and storage IMO, because most of us want the performance increases that losing upgradability brings. It's a trade-off but one that's worth it in the long run. That's what Apple marketing and clueless fanboys want you to believe. M1 is fast because it is fast. Not because it has RAM in package or soldered SSD. Socketed RAM and SSDs would be just as fast.
benbristow 5y ago
Hi, Linus! :P
pzo 5y ago
I wouldn't call it as easily repairable as frame.work - frame.work doesn't use those glue white strips instead they just have few screws and you can remove such battery without struggle. I once changed battery in my old iphone SE and it's a real pain if such white strips break - and they are sooo thin that it's really easy to break. Once it breaks you have to use heat gun and fishing line as improvised saw to cut battery from the case. BTW My old macbook 15'' pro 2012 unibody had only screws and easily removable battery
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Same here - I had to use a hair dryer and dental floss to "saw" through the adhesive strip once it broke off ... damn near took me around 30 - 40 minutes! (And some HP laptops don't even need screws but provide sliding buttons to easily "unlock" and remove / change the battery).

supernes 5y ago

They should check if the camera stops working when you replace it.

zrm 5y ago

Credit where credit is due. Let this be a trend.

spicybright 5y ago
Hear hear. It's frankly amazing how this model did a 180 in these aspects.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Yeah it's like they took the list of everyone's complaints - touchbar, ports, magsafe, battery and fixed them all. Very un-Apple-like. There's only really minor complaints left, like the unreplaceable RAM and disks, and lack of touchscreen.
  - blhack 5y ago
    >lack of touchscreen. Please god no.
    - randomluck040 5y ago
      Touchscreens are my personal nemesis, too. I have literally no scenario where I’d like to lift my hand from the keyboard or touchpad to put my finger on my screen to click something. Maybe it’s a thing with other use cases though. I think the new Microsoft Studio Laptop does it in a reasonable way since you can fold it and use a pen and all. Still not for me but with foldable devices I get it at least.
      - spicybright 5y ago
        I actually go against the grain here and say I like touchscreens. Being able to draw on screenshots with my finger (I that a lot for work) is really nice. At least it has the killer feature of having the ability to be completely ignored, unlike other "trendy" features on new laptops :) Also, I can never find a good use case for the folding tablet modes. Maybe it's because I'm not an artist, and don't my computer much for pure media consumption, but almost everything on the computer is designed around having a keyboard. I find it silly to type on a software keyboard 5x slower than the keyboard already attached to the device.

scohesc 5y ago

So they say it can actually be replaced. Nice! Hopefully they don't pull an iPhone and individually serialize batteries that authenticate with other chips on the phone - if they don't match you get an annoying warning and supposedly underclocked CPU causing performance issues even if it's a brand new battery.

kfprt 5y ago
With the iPhoneification of their product line I'm sure that's exactly what's going to happen.

speedyapoc 5y ago

Very nice to see! I use my machine in closed clamshell around 90% of the time which means the battery is usually in pretty terrible shape after a couple years of use. Will be happy to see battery replacement times hopefully go down on these new machines as waiting 5-7 days isn't fun to deal with.

asdff 5y ago
I really don't understand why macbooks are set up to still draw off the battery when under AC power. You can only get a mac to run off ac power only if you start it up with the battery physically removed iirc. I had a macbook where I was spinning fans for most of the day and I got it down to 85% battery capacity within a year since it keeps straining the battery even when its just sitting on my desk running off a 90W power adapter at 100% charge. Its like, whats the point of paying for these workhorse laptops if you are going to be blowing through batteries once you actually start to utilize the power you are paying egregiously for? Might as well get a powerful mac mini and connect to it with ssh from a much cheaper laptop.
- hbn 5y ago
  > I had a macbook where I was spinning fans for most of the day and I got it down to 85% battery capacity within a year since it keeps straining the battery even when its just sitting on my desk running off a 90W power adapter at 100% charge They released a feature in Big Sur where it learns if you always keep your laptop plugged in, and during those times (which may be all the time, like in my case) it'll hover the battery between 70-80% to preserve battery health, and won't charge up to 100% until you tell it to manually (click the battery icon -> "Charge to full now")
TMWNN 5y ago
>I use my machine in closed clamshell around 90% of the time which means the battery is usually in pretty terrible shape after a couple years of use. For those of us who usually use our MacBooks attached to the wall, deep discharging (AKA "calibration"; <https://www.newertech.com/batteries/power-calibration-guide/ https://www.newertech.com/batteries/power-calibration-guide/>) on a regular basis is a substitute, but is annoying to do. I similarly went through batteries every couple of years. I now use FruitJuice (on the App Store) as the menu bar battery indicator. If it finds that the computer hasn't been used on battery long enough, about once a month the app guides me through running a maintenance cycle to run it down to 20%. I presume that following FruitJuice's advice is why my latest third-party battery is still at 103% health after more than a year.

major505 5y ago

Well, this is great. Because, while I don`t like to admit they launch a lot of trends that other manufactures tend to follow. Hope they go the same way.

drclau 5y ago

AFAIK, replacing the battery on the previous generation meant replacing the top part of the body, to which the battery was glued. That included replacing the keyboard and the touchpad (not 100% sure if the old keyboard and touchpad could have been kept; maybe they were replaced just because of the damage done to them by the expanding batteries). At the same time, the previous generation had battery problems and keyboard problems (as pointed out in sub-comments), which meant many were replaced for free even out of warranty (as it happened to me due to faulty battery). I suspect someone at Apple realized how much would have been saved if only the battery was not glued to the case. Edit: mentioned the keyboard problem, which would result in replacing the battery too it seems.

selykg 5y ago
This is also how I got two new batteries replacements when I had to send my MBP in for keyboard replacement due to the stupid thing breaking (repeatedly). Each time the system showed 0 cycles on the battery and I basically got a nice reset. Loved that part of it at least.
- egypturnash 5y ago
  hahaha, my 2016 MBP chews through batteries - I'm on my fourth, I think - and every time I get a new battery it comes with a new keyboard, so I haven't had any of the keyboard problems some are plagued with.
nicbou 5y ago
At some point they ran out of that part, so they gave people refurbs. They didn't have the fr-CA keyboard in Germany, so I got upgraded from a 2012 mid-specced MacBook to a 2017 top-specced one for the price of a battery change. Then I got two more battery swaps when my keyboard failed.
martinko 5y ago
I suspect that they see the right to repair movement and are trying to preempt it, at least to an extent.

roflchoppa 5y ago

It’s the right thing to do from a service prospective, the last design had it built into the top case. I’m sure they hit supply issues with all the keyboard failures on the old model. Are the speakers in the old model removable? If not more topcase constraints ha.

gregoriol 5y ago
At least you got a new/clean keyboard everytime your battery did need service

alphabettsy 5y ago

I’m sure this is more to save $$ for Apple, but either way it’s a win. It’s nice to feel like someone is actually listening with this new redesign.

zerof1l 5y ago

I don't get what is the news here and why this is in top. You could always replace the battery. It's just that it is not easy. Now to replace it, you need to remove a trackpad. Ridiculous. You still can't purchase a replacement battery from Apple to replace it yourself. The only option is to purchase it from a place like iFixit once your warranty is out, or pay ridiculous price at Apple.

teilo 5y ago
This is incorrect. We are an Apple self-service shop (meaning we are authorized by Apple to do our own repairs, order OEM parts, etc.). In the 2019 models, battery replacement required a new top shell.
- drcongo 5y ago
  I'm impressed that you dignified that post with an answer.
- Wingman4l7 5y ago
  No it doesn't, you're (understandably) just not willing to do the large amount of labor required to rip out the battery: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2019+Battery+Replacement/124182 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
eli 5y ago
FTA: "this new MacBook Pro has, at the very least, the first reasonably DIY-friendly battery replacement procedure since 2012."
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago
  I'm not sure what is supposed to be an improvement? I replaced a MBP 2015 battery myself, and this did not require removing the touchpad.

dont__panic 5y ago

In a world where Apple is pushing on-device CSAM scanning and serial number locking cameras to motherboards, it's nice to see that some of their products still respect users' rights. Now if only we could get an iPhone Pro with this kind of respect for right to repair.

sneak 5y ago
You can't wipe the drives on these machines fully and make them functional again without an internet connection back to Apple. Even the Monterey installer doesn't work offline at present, even the full 12GB one, or even a usb one made with createinstallmedia --downloadassets. You must transmit your serial number to the mothership.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  On the flip side, these machines are unbrickable, which pretty much no PC is. If you wipe a PC "fully" (BIOS and all) it's dead. That's why you need to call the mothership to fully DFU reinstall one of these Macs - it literally goes and downloads things like factory calibration info from their database. You can in principle do offline OS installs on these Macs in reduced security mode. I did it once with Big Sur. If that doesn't work with Monterey, that's a bug that should be reported and fixed. Full security mode requires phoning home, as part of their security model (this is so they can stop allowing installs of old, vulnerable OSes, which could be used as an attack vector on someone else's machine). You need to make sure you install from 1TR if you want to do a reduced security install; again, this is part of their security model, to ensure you've asserted physical presence.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    > again, this is part of their security model, to ensure you've asserted physical presence. And again, it's totally optional, because "reduced" and "permissive" security mode exist. (Yes, you said that, but I feel it should be re-iterated because it's important! The user is in control here!)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

exoque 5y ago

That's not at all what I think of when I hear the words 'replaceable battery'. Too bad.

lamontcg 5y ago
Yeah there's still a long way to go to get back to where we used to be.
- sbuk 5y ago
  What is the use case? Modern batteries hold their charge for a long time. In a review I saw today, the reviewer - a professional photographer and filmmaker no less - said that he managed to shoot edit and export a video on a single charge[0]. The need to swap out batteries with these device has all but disappeared, save for permanent replacement. [0]https://youtu.be/I10WMJV96ns?t=643 https://youtu.be/I10WMJV96ns?t=643
  - Nition 5y ago
    Just noting an alternative use case: When I used to take my laptop (a Dell XPS M1530, later a Dell Studio XPS 13) on my walk between home and university, I'd take it without the battery in as that made it much lighter. There were power points where I was going anyway.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    The use case is the ability to easily replace/upgrade the batteries, RAM and drives by the end consumer without requiring any specialized tools or procedures barring removing some screws. This is what we used to have with laptops 10+ years ago. Swapping batteries due to charge issues was never particularly important to the majority of consumers and is a red herring.
    - sbuk 5y ago
      The benefits provided by SoCs outweigh the benefits of user upgradeable RAM for me. > Swapping batteries due to charge issues was never particularly important to the majority of consumers and is a red herring. Why?

tobyjsullivan 5y ago

A lot of comments seem focused on the incentives to apple and what's motivating the change. All fair questions. To me, though, it feels like just a radically different approach this year. 2016 macbook felt like leadership got in a room and said "okay, let's make a list of all the sexy things we can think of that would make the macbook unique". This netted things like thin-beyond-practicality, touchbar, removing all the ports, etc. 2021 macbook feels like leadership got in a room and said "okay, let's make a list of all the top things everybody is complaining about most." And they just fixed everything (well, most things) on that list one-by-one.

brightball 5y ago
Is the hard disk / SSD / NVMe still soldered to the board?
- DrBenCarson 5y ago
  To summarize: the MBP no longer has a “hard disk”. It has flash memory that is coupled with the SoC. This is to make the memory bottleneck tolerable (considering the cpu and ram move 400GB/s)
- colechristensen 5y ago
  I replaced one of the (honestly I don't know what to call them... gumstick sized ssd?) in a MacBook that had it as a separate component and it was a bad idea. It required an adapter board, some large proportion of available products on the market weren't compatible, and even with one that was there was still occasional strange behavior. Soldering in was the least of the problems.
  - peterburkimsher 5y ago
    "blade style drive" -> M.2 I also replaced the SSD in my 15" MacBook Pro 2014, and currently use a 4 TB M.2 drive. When a replacement battery fried my logic board, I didn't lose my data. It didn't take multiple hours to re-clone from backup; I just used a screwdriver to move the SSD over to my spare laptop (13" Pro 2015). A computer for me is primarily a data storage and retrieval device. Data loss is an existential risk to it. Data security doesn't bother me as much as it does other people; once the hardware is accessible, all bets are off anyway. I do get some strange behaviour with the new SSD (periodic weekly crash/reboot) but still accept that in order to have the larger capacity (4 TB is much more than the 512 GB when the laptop was new).

throwaway744678 5y ago

That comment about the new "Apple Polishing Cloth" is hilarious. 20$ for a piece of cloth... Glad the battery is easier to replace, though (speaking from experience!)

olliej 5y ago
But it's an artisanal cloth made of unicorn fur!
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  The lint must be picked one-by-one off the unicorns with extra small tweezers that can only be held by child laborers!
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Not just any child laborers, mind you: your $20 are getting your the finest Uighur and political prisoner labor money can buy!
mpalczewski 5y ago
The cleaning cloth was sold out immediately. $20 is a ton for a cleaning cloth, but a small price to pay for consumers of apple products. Here is the alternative (personal experience) 1. You search on amazon 2. Get presented with 1000 products 3. Read some reviews, wonder if this is the best product for your iPhone, will it work on the laptop 4. decide you don't really need a cleaning cloth The apple solution, solves your problem for a price. I haven't bought the apple cloth, but have and am considering it.
- crossroadsguy 5y ago
  It’s not really that much effort, is it? You just buy a cleaning cloth? No? Unless of course all the while one was disturbed at the very thought of not having this revolutionary invention of Apple A Cloth That Just Cleans™ at home.
- 5y ago

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

Whoah! That's fantastic news for the customers and the environment! I was thinking of skipping this model, but now I'm sure I'll buy it.

fsflover 5y ago
It's still not repairable...
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Well, I'm realistic, I don't believe Apple stops being greedy anytime soon. But the battery issue is a huge step forward. I mean, of all components, that's the one I know will break first because of the laws of physics (and chemistry). So having it irreplaceable is particularly cruel. It's like saying "buy this expensive machine and watch it die." I really hate throwing hardware away, I try to make use of everything I own and repurpose it if necessary, but the battery literally destroys everything, I have this bulge that damages the touchpad and keyboard and Apple says they will fix it for a ton of money. I could have done it a long time ago if I could, thanks.

rbanffy 5y ago

I feel that, on the ports and touchbar side, this was a step backwards. The SD slot is a good thing, but the replacement of one USB-C with a (vintage) HDMI port and the addition of a proprietary power connector is a leap backwards in time. The Touchbar was my daughter's favorite - an Emoji keyboard. It also did a lot more - bringing up manpages in the terminal, having app-specific buttons (no need to hunt down the Zoom window to mute). People wanted an ESC key and they got it eventually. I couldn't care less about function keys. I get it was very expensive for the little if offered, but, still, it's still useful. More useful than F1 to F12 ever were. Magsafe is nice from a safety standpoint (I have a kid and work from the couch sometimes), but with all-day battery life, what is the use of it? On my desk, the Mac is plugged into power, two external monitors, ethernet, keyboard and trackpad with a single cable, as God intended it to be. That's 3 free USB-C connectors for anything else (such as the external storage) and there is one power brick that lives in my backpack along a pair of US/EU adapters for when I need to travel. With USB-C power, it was nice to have the Dell and the Mac sharing power bricks when needed (if I said that 10 years ago, I would laugh myself out of the room) I like the replaceable battery, but I miss the touchbar and actively dislike the reintroduction of Magsafe.

JoshGlazebrook 5y ago
Vintage in what sense? HDMI is literally one of, if not the most common types of display ports on TVs, Monitors, game consoles, etc. I think most people would choose a straight HDMI to HDMI connection over trying to find the right USB-C/lighting/whatever cable to fit their needs (which is very hard to actually do). The HDMI port has stayed the same for a long time, yet new HDMI specs come out every few years expanding the capabilities.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- notyourwork 5y ago
  What's wrong with a USB-C to HDMI cable if you need that connectivity?

human 5y ago

I have been due to replace my battery on my 2019 MBP (I know, yeah…). The problem is not the price (which is steep) but the fact that I have to leave « my girlfriend » at the shop for 3-4 days. This new design is a game-changer.

asdff 5y ago
Any apple repair they are going to make you wait. They don't do much of anything in the store anymore these days, they just scan with their software and send away. No clue why they don't image a loaner laptop for you in the meantime. They much such a big hubbo about pros using their hardware then they don't offer services that pros require for their hardware, like no downtime since they can't just tell the client that their rig is out of commission for four days.
- r00fus 5y ago
  This would be great - they could image your machine & imprint onto the replacement with activation/etc even having you authenticate AppleID as needed. Is disk-imaging like CarbonCopyCloner possible on newer machines?
  - asdff 5y ago
    Apple definitely has the software to do this. When you buy a new laptop from them they can do this for you to migrate your old mac. No reason why they couldn't do it for a loaner.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

2022 iphone will have a 3.5mm jack. Mark my words ;)

acomjean 5y ago
I'm not positive, but by removing the headphone jack, they sell more AirPods and force bluetooth on which enables the airtag and find my network to be more way more functional.
n8cpdx 5y ago
Do people still use wired headphones on the go? It’s been a while since I’ve seen any. You can get decent Bluetooth wireless headphones for ~$20 now. I remember spending $10 every few months when I was using wired headphones back in the day. Every few months because the wired inevitably broke or frayed (don’t forget you have to put them somewhere when you’re not using them). It was hell with jackets and layers in the winter. I always got the orange version of this: https://refreshcartridges.co.uk/productimages/a_121995.jpg https://refreshcartridges.co.uk/productimages/a_121995.jpg In any case where I care enough to listen wired, I also care enough to get a separate DAC. The cheap Bluetooth is competitive with the cheap wired these days and last longer. Example: https://www.amazon.com/TOZO-T6-Bluetooth-Headphones-Waterproof/dp/B07RGZ5NKS/ https://www.amazon.com/TOZO-T6-Bluetooth-Headphones-Waterpro... Id rather use that space for extra battery capacity.
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  Both my teenagers do. And yeah, I have a monthly subscription for headphone cables.
- arprocter 5y ago
  Yes - no need to charge them, less likely to get lost, no figuring out if my device speaks random codec v1 or 2 MMCX connectors mean you can replace the cable, not that I've ever broken a Shure one (they use Kevlar)
- humanistbot 5y ago
  I hate having to remember to recharge yet another device. My wired earbuds never run out of battery.

notyourwork 5y ago

It seems I fall in the minority but I've become quite fond of the touchbar. Its a dynamic user input, if my phone rings I can touch answer on my touchbar to pick it up, if I want to seek or scroll on a spotify song I can do that with a touch and slide. I don't see the dislike for it.

sgt 5y ago
That's the only thing I use the touch bar for (I have a 2018 MBP); to hit the red button after a FaceTime call.
elboru 5y ago
Touch feedback is important for a lot of us. Specially when I’m concentrated while debugging something, I don’t want to have to look at my keyboard. But I see value for other use cases, maybe having both the touchbar plus the F keys would have worked fine?
TeMPOraL 5y ago
IIRC the dislike was mostly driven by the touchbar substituting for physical F keys. If they somehow managed to have both, I suspect people would be happy.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  They would have been happy and probably continued to never use the touch bar. I find it pretty cool and interesting to look at but I have basically never used it because everything it does can be done via the mouse which I am already using for other task so I never felt it was useful to switch to pressing the touch bar.
mostlysimilar 5y ago
I already have a dynamic interface to control: the one on the display. Having the "keyboard" change throws off my intuition on where to place my fingers and how to interact. Looking down at the touchbar each time to assess what the current interface is adds a tiny amount of additional overhead to my interactions that I dislike. It's not _terrible_, but it's not my preference. I also really dislike the lack of tactile feedback.

asdff 5y ago

Replaceable battery, after removing the trackpad to access the final set of cells. Not the easiest projecdure and still is going to result in users doing what they do today, handing the machine off to a technician rather than be able to change the batteries on their device themselves. What a fall from grace from the first unibody macbook, where you could remove the battery with no tools and five seconds of your time since they engineered a door with a latch. I guess we celebrate what small affordances we can get these days.

krrrh 5y ago
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. You can stop grinding that axe bud, it’s never gonna swing again.
- asdff 5y ago
  If it wasn't for people with axes to grind this new macbook would have a touchbar, butterfly keyboard, and only thunderbolt ports.
  - jamil7 5y ago
    Thunderbolt “port” you mean.
  - krrrh 5y ago
    Those are changes that the majority of users wanted, but very few want a return to clunky pop-out batteries, even fewer in an era of 20-hour battery life.

rwaksmunski 5y ago

For me the 2021 MacBook Pro is a single USB-A port away from perfect. I want to use my old but good printer/scanner/mouse/thumb drive/external hard drive/yubikey without dongles.

nazgulnarsil 5y ago
A lot of dongle talk seems weird to me. A to C adapters are cheap. Buy a bunch and leave them on the things you regularly use. No dongle to track.
- kaladin-jasnah 5y ago
  It's still way more convenient to have the USB-A port built-in, even if you have myriad USB-C dongles. I'm trialing switching away from an XPS13DE (Develoepr Edition) to some "cheap"-ish 600 dollar laptop from HP just because I literally cannot stand the fact that the XPS doesn't have USB-A ports. I notice the difference (my cheap laptop is so much nicer) since it's so much more convenient since a lot of things are still USB-A these days (eg. my Arduino uses a printer cable which is USB-A, my flash drives are USB-A, my HDMI capture dongle is USB-A, my cheap webcam is USB-A, et cetera). Even if I have myriad dongles, if I'm travelling away from home, I don't have to remember to bring those dongles with me anymore.
- dalyons 5y ago
  totally agree. A sucks, C is a way better port. leave the $2 adapters on your old a cables if you have to. total non issue.

tantalor 5y ago

> we notice ... battery pull tabs Is the picture supposed to show these new tabs? I don't see anything. Can I get a red arrow?

fakename 5y ago
It's the thing being stretched between the fingers. Like a command strip.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

Really sucks to see how awesome the new MBP is. It's too bad the CSAM scandal had to happen; never buying another Apple product again because of that shit.

ajvs 5y ago
And heaer I thought I was the only person who just can't get enthused about their new MacBooks, knowing that CSAM could just get added at any point in the future without my consent.
- krrrh 5y ago
  The scanning wasn’t to be done by the OS, but by the Photos app uploader, and only if you had iCloud Photo Library turned on. Lots of apps already do telemetry and photo scanning that goes beyond this, as well as nearly every major cloud provider (though Apple seemingly doesn’t scan iCloud photo libraries without a warrant unlike Google and Facebook). Like a lot of apps, you don’t need to use Photos.app. They didn’t sneak it in without explaining how it worked.
  - beezischillin 5y ago
    They also said they're open to opening it up to 3rd parties in the future.
  - neop1x 5y ago
    That's why there are self-hosted solutions like NextCloud or home NAS devices.
- Toutouxc 5y ago
  > knowing that CSAM could just get added at any point CSAM is an abbreviation for "child sexual abuse material", so no, that won't (hopefully) get added without your consent.

busymom0 5y ago

> We removed the trackpad and, lo and behold, there are cut-outs to access the pull tabs that hold the middle battery cells in place. That's not exactly what I was expecting based on the headline. Still seems pretty complicated.

riffic 5y ago

Is this Apple? Well, maybe I'll consider one of these over a Framework. I'll lean strongly towards the Framework machine but at least Apple is reconsidering some of their design choices over the last decade.

tantony 5y ago
I recently bought a Framework as a replacement for my 2012 MBP. I ordered it a few weeks before the new M1 announcements because I liked their philosophy. And the hardware is, in fact, great! But the Linux desktop experience has been ... frustrating to say the least. And I say this as someone who has used linux in the terminal at my job every day for 5+ years now. It's ridiculous that the software experience still cannot match my 9 year old laptop running macOS Sierra on a 2.5GHz Core i5 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM! I am running PopOS 21.04. There's inconsistent keyboard shortcuts, lack of touchpad precision, glitchy touchpad gestures, inconsistent fingerprint auth and more. Just on Day 2, I somehow ended up with a machine that somehow took 30+ seconds to go from login to desktop and 3-4 second lag when typing with 100% CPU usage when running any GUI app. The only way to fix it was to completely reinstall the OS -- I have no idea what caused this. I have now found some usable options for implementing my preferred touchpad gestures ("fusuma") and system-wide keyboard shortcuts ("kinto.sh") though there are still many quirks that are irritating. I like Framework's approach, so I supported them by buying the device. I promised myself I will keep daily driving it for at least a month to give it a chance. If it keeps getting on my nerves, I will sell it and buy one the of the new 14" MBPs. Life's too short to spend hours upon hours fiddling with configuration files and reinstalling operating systems to get basic functionality working.
- yepthatsreality 5y ago
  Personally I find Gnome environments pretty ugly. I switched to KDE on my Framework and it’s almost night and day that I’m leaving my desktop Gnome install behind for KDE as well.
  - tantony 5y ago
    What distro are you running?

throwawaymanbot 5y ago

replaceable battery and permanent surveillance ?

1970-01-01 5y ago

Important question: Are the batteries serialized or will any 3rd party battery just work?

martini333 5y ago

The actual content: https://www.ifixit.com/News/54122/macbook-pro-2021-teardown https://www.ifixit.com/News/54122/macbook-pro-2021-teardown

sulam 5y ago
Thanks for the direct link, it'd be good if the post linked here vs a reheated version of the same content.
- gilgoomesh 5y ago
  It's been updated to this link, now.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jangid 5y ago

They are late though. Last year I have switched to Debian because of very few DIY repair options in MacBooks. And I discovered OS superiority as well. Everything in Debian (Gnome) is so fast - opening PDF files, Files (finder), Terminal, EMacs. Debian running on i5 is much faster then macOS running on i7.

dsauerbrun 5y ago
is it faster than osx running on m1 though?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I don't imagine it would make much of a difference, unless there's some kind of M1 upgrade kit for older Macbooks I never heard of.

chrischen 5y ago

The SSD also has to be replaceable (without a full logic board swap) or the machine also has a constrained usable lifetime.

destitude 5y ago

I still remember when you didn't even have to open up the "MBP" and could replace the battery directly from the bottom. Even had green led indicator to show how much charge it had directly on the battery case.

hwbehrens 5y ago
Wow, I totally forgot about that period. I recall that I used to plug in my laptop when I arrived at my desk, then remove the battery to ensure that it was running exclusively on wall power in an effort to improve battery health. I never did have to replace that battery...
latortuga 5y ago
Was this MBP era or iBook/PowerBook era? I seem to recall this being the case on the old Titanium Powerbooks in the early 00s. Remember the glowing light near the laptop latch that would slowly swell to tell you that your laptop was asleep?
- lostgame 5y ago
  There was a MacBook Pro era - even a couple Unibody revisions - that kept the easy user replaceable battery intact. The Unibody had this lovely latch mechanism that also allowed you to easily replace your hard drive and/or RAM. God, I miss those days. :(
  - r00fus 5y ago
    Yup my beautiful 2008 "ALU" MBP had this. Was very sleek.
- NoPicklez 5y ago
  MBP era, I owned the first of the Aluminium unibody Macbook's which were released around 2008 which had a removable body with a tab.
- r-w 5y ago
  I have never seen "swell" used that way. I thought you were saying your battery was making the entire casing swell.

dang 5y ago

Url changed from https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/27/new-macbook-pro-battery-replacement/ https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/27/new-macbook-pro-battery-repla..., which points to this.

tailspin2019 5y ago
Thanks, I considered posting the iFixit link but the title of that article being “Teardown Teaser: Is the 2021 MacBook Pro Repairable?” didn’t really convey what I thought would be specifically of interest to HN (ie the battery angle which the original article chose to focus on). Didn’t want to editorialise the iFixit link with 9to5mac’s title but we ended up there anyway :)
- dang 5y ago
  Yes, it's a mixed bag no matter how one slices it. (mixed metaphor too, apparently)

znpy 5y ago

I wonder if this is the effect of Jony Ive being gone.

mrfusion 5y ago

Does framebook have an easily replaceable battery?

banana_giraffe 5y ago
Depends on your definition of "easy" https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/85 https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/85 It's past my personal definition, but just barely, since it involves dealing with a ribbon cable and an apparently fragile connection for the battery itself. It's not too bad, but not something I want to try and walk someone through if they're not used to this sort of thing.
mshroyer 5y ago
Yes, the Framework laptop's battery is more easily replaceable than the new MBP's, from what I can tell without yet having seen iFixit's full teardown of the latter—there's no need to remove the trackpad or deal with adhesives on the Framework, in contrast to the new MBP. (I'm still thrilled to see this improvement to serviceability on the new MBP, even if previous generations set a low bar.)

tobias2014 5y ago

The article says "reasonably DIY-friendly". I think this is an important distinction. Just because the battery has pull tabs doesn't mean that it's easy to get to that point.

usui 5y ago

Ease of being able to replace the battery has never been the reason stopping me from upgrading from a 2015 MacBook Pro. Anyone with the the intent of replacing a battery today will be able to make it after buying some readily available tools. What I need is the ability to swap out my SSD in the laptop, either for data retrieval, backing up, or upgrades. Unfortunately good removeable storage seems to be a thing of the past. I say "good" because I don't want to boot the newest MBP off a slow SD card. I could depend on Migration Assistant or Time Machine, but I don't trust anything other than a good raw "cat" or "dd" of a drive

londons_explore 5y ago

What is the component between the CPU and the fan on each side? It appears to be non-rectangular silicon... Or perhaps some power MOSFETs under a cover?

londons_explore 5y ago

Are they pads for extra DRAM on the bottom left of the PCB? Will we see hobbysts with a heat gun adding ram to these things? BGA soldering with tweezers and a heat gun doesn't look too tricky on those because the pad spacing is easily within what you could manage with tweezers. The actual pin layout isn't a standard I recognize - so I assume apple has ordered custom made ram chips ..

rswail 5y ago
The RAM is "unified" and on the same chip as the CPU and GPU.
garaetjjte 5y ago
That's probably far too distant for LPDDR. I guess these pads are for NAND flash, and RAM is right next to processor under the heatsink.

aunty_helen 5y ago

Stockholm syndrome doesn’t look like Stockholm syndrome. Everyone cheering apple on for making the laptop they should have made in 2016. Wow! No Touch Bar it’s so much better. Semi replaceable batteries! How great. The funny thing is, if they had dropped the ports on this generation instead of the last, less people would have cared.

breakfastduck 5y ago
Yeah but they also chose to bring all those much loved things back to coincide with their mac apple silicon. Sly but I wouldn't be surprised if they held it back for M1 to make the appeal of the devices bigger.

jrochkind1 5y ago

Damn it really is the return of the Titanium Powerbook G4, what?

diebeforei485 5y ago

Apple seems to be taking a more repair-friendly approach for high-end products recently (except the iPhone and iPad). AirPods Max are also great: - User-replaceable earcups with no tools needed; - User-replaceable headband, just needs a paperclip; - Somewhat user-replaceable battery - you can have them do it for $79 out of warranty, but a repair shop can definitely do it as well because it's just screws.

mataug 5y ago

This is wonderful news, I do wonder whether the 2021 MBP would work properly with DIY battery replacement ?! newer iPhones notoriously don't like DIY battery / screen replacements, and they disable features such as battery health with a DIY replacement.

thedailypickup 5y ago

Now if only the rest of the Macbook was DIY friendly; where I could upgrade my RAM to 64GB and NVME ~1TB without giving up my left kidney.

anaganisk 5y ago
Isn’t ram now part of soc?
- thedailypickup 5y ago
  It is, that's why I'm saying it would be nicer if I could upgrade RAM myself without giving up my $$$ kidney $$$

darwingr 5y ago

IMO apple’s peak ridiculousness had to be the Magic Mouse that required you turn it on its back and unusable in order to charge it.

MengerSponge 5y ago
Is a charging dock for a mouse ridiculous? You can't use the mouse while it charges! How absurd! How silly! Did you actually have one? Or are you remembering a picture you saw online once?
rswail 5y ago
I agree it's silly, but it means that once a month, I need to plug it in when I go for lunch, or before I go to bed. And you can still use the scrolling top and click while its charging if you really need to continue browsing.

seventytwo 5y ago

The commentary about the cloth is fantastic

ineedasername 5y ago

I love that they literally did a teardown of the polishing cloth as well. Which received a 0 out of 10 on the repairability scale.

BoorishBears 5y ago
I'm pretty sure that's the same cloth that came with my XDR I say it deserves at least a 5 out of 10 since you can wash it in the washing machine on cold and it air dries quickly

vbezhenar 5y ago

Well, that's a huge plus for me. It seems that this kind of laptop will have much better lifespan. It seems that some engineer in Apple now is able to make decisions. I thought that all the decisions were driven by designers.

tlhighbaugh 5y ago

Too bad you can't change out the soldered on RAM. Thus still not buying even if adobe keeps up the "no photoshop on Linux" bs forever

rconti 5y ago

Huge props to the hilarious polishing cloth teardown, complete with American Psycho quote, shade thrown at what else you could get for $19, and how it's actually two polishing cloths if you cut it in half.

nikprasad 5y ago

As a mac user, I welcome the improvement in battery replacement design. The cost of replacing the battery (and the keyboard) has been one of the worst design decisions by apple.

toolslive 5y ago

Is it just me or does the 'since 2012' reads as if it can also mean "and it has been that way since 2012".

mr2loco 5y ago

about time. My battery needs service now and I'm dreading to go to the store. Would much rather buy a new battery and put it in myself and be done with t