Repairability advocates iFixit did the first partial teardown of the AirPods Max, and it’s bad news for anyone who might want to poke around Apple’s premium noise-canceling headphones.
The main issue seems to be that the speaker cover is attached with glue, meaning that iFixit could only access the 40mm drivers by heating the AirPods Max to a glue melting point. That’s despite the presence of relatively easy-to-remove screws elsewhere, so repairing or replacing individual components is likely to be tricky.
The teardown has made some other interesting discoveries, such as how the AirPods Max uses two separate battery cells located in the same ear cup. However, it could also be that there are problems fixing these as an X-ray revealed that the battery connectors could be soldered, making replacing the cells even more difficult.
“However, we still hope for an easy battery replacement procedure,” the report said. “The connectors are not always easy to identify from here.”
While it’s disappointing that the AirPods Max is more difficult to fix than other noise-canceling headphones – the Bose QC35 II can be disassembled with just a few screwdrivers – it’s not surprising. Apple hardware isn’t always difficult to disassemble, but performing repairs can be a tricky business: iFixit previously discovered that the iPhone 12 camera would repeatedly fail if replaced by a third party rather than Apple’s own technicians.
It seems that if you buy the AirPods Max, you should use Apple’s top-notch services if you ever want to get them fixed. Something to think about if you’ve already spent $ 549 on Apple’s new headphones.
If the idea of spending over $ 500 on headphones makes you feel a little queasy, check out our list of the best headphones as it has many excellent looks for more reasonable prices. Our current top photo is the Sony WH-1000xM4, which is definitely worth a look.