“Big news for repairability and environmental responsibility: the battery can be individually replaced in the new MacBook Air, according to Apple’s internal Service Readiness Guide for the notebook,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors.
“In all other MacBook and MacBook Pro models with a Retina display released since 2012, when a customer has required a battery replacement, Apple has replaced the entire top case enclosure, including the keyboard and trackpad,” Rossignol reports. “This is because the battery is glued into the top case in Mac notebooks with Retina displays.”
“The battery in the new MacBook Air is still glued into the top case, the aluminum enclosure that houses the keyboard and trackpad, but Apple will be providing Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers with tools to remove the battery and reinstall a new one with no top case replacement required,” Rossignol reports. “Once the new battery is installed, technicians are required to place the notebook in Apple’s existing iPhone display press tool to activate the new adhesive. The glue strips are exactly the same as those used for iPhone batteries. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good news for the environment and repairability!
“technicians are required to place the notebook in Apple’s existing iPhone display press tool to activate the new adhesive”
What is this magic they speak of? Is the adhesive something that already exists in the market but Apple has simply integrated?
We need to be able to replace RAM and hard drives.
Apple would rather owners throw their laptops away instead of upgrading them, increasing the service life and also being environmentally friendly.
Absolutely anyone concerned about “environmentally friendly” would just take it back to the Apple Store. The way they recycle them will be far greater then any other way you could recycle it.
Wrong again, Wrong Again.
“Throw away” was just an exaggerated way of saying that the old one is gotten rid of, including recycling.
But, absolutely anyone concerned about “environmentally friendly” knows that RECYCLE is the last of the “R”s. The first two are REDUCE and REUSE.
Apple has sort of addressed the REDUCE by limiting the amount of materials in the product and packaging, but are failing at the REUSE because they’re restricting people who don’t front-load RAM and storage at Apple’s outrageous prices from using it as long as possible with cheaper hardware upgrades down the line.
IMO, a semi-nothingburger.
Unfortunately, this is just Apple playing “defense” for their own cost benefit: this change reduces their internal costs for warranty service … but the price of Applecare isn’t changing to benefit the customer.
Apple Care also isn’t going up in price for MacBooks either… and if it’s not going up, it’s actually going down, thanks to inflation.
Considering that AppleCare for the MB/MBA costs $250, which is roughly 20% of the retail cost of the product, plus it only covers two incidents … and also has an additional fee ($99-$299) … its not really all that stellar of a value.