iFixit today began disassembling Apple's new AirPods Max headphones for one of its traditional device teardowns, with the aim of determining whether the AirPods Max are repairable to any degree or an "e-waste disaster." The teardown is in progress and will be updated over the course of the next few days.
This is an early, partial disassembly that also includes a quick x-ray look inside the headphones. The x-ray view provides a glimpse at the battery cell in each ear cup, dual-ring speaker driver magnets, alignment magnets, brackets for microphones, and more.
iFixit did not find it easy to get into the AirPods Max and there was quite a bit of glue involved. There are two logic boards inside riddled with chips, which iFixit plans to identify later in more detail.
So far, there are no other details available on the AirPods Max as the teardown is ongoing, but iFixit says that it will be updated over the coming days and there's "lots more to come" including some surprises for headphone fans.
Apple today released new firmware for the AirPods Max 2. The firmware is version 8E258, up from the prior 8E251 firmware that was released just ahead of when the AirPods Max 2 launched.
It's not clear what's included in the firmware update, but Apple provides limited details in its AirPods firmware support document. Most updates focus on bug fixes and improvements.
The AirPods Max 2 have...
Starting as early as next week, customers who sign up for an Apple Card at Apple's retail stores in the U.S. will receive $249 cash back when they purchase AirPods Pro 3, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The promotion has yet to be officially announced by Apple, so exact terms and conditions are not available at this time.
AirPods Pro 3 are priced at $249 in the U.S., so customers who...
Apple's CarPlay system for accessing iPhone apps on a vehicle's dashboard screen has received six popular apps in recent weeks: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, Google Meet, WhatsApp, and the indie artist streaming platform Audiomack.
Make sure you have the latest version of each app and they will automatically appear on CarPlay.
ChatGPT
Starting with iOS 26.4, CarPlay supports voice-based...
All that space and they didn’t include even a little storage capacity? Imagine the capability of having some playlists/albums stored locally within the headset. That would have been convenient for some.
I agree, and at the same time, I'm not sure there is any over the ears headphone that would get a high score, and, would be interested if fixit has ever done a teardown on any over the ear headphone
What exactly do you mean by as usual? Low repair score in general or low repair score for things that should get a low repair score? I ask because Apple's most popular item -the iPhone- always gets a good repair score. Certain things don't get a good repair score because they aren't meant to be repaired.
Let me guess. It get’s a zero for repairability. Honestly, the clickbait with these guys...
Let me guess. You've never seen an iPhone repairability score. The clickbait. :rolleyes:
It all boils down to whether or not the battery is replaceable and if so, how difficult it is to replace it.
That’s it. That’s 95% of the repairability factor in regards to how long the product can last. The main issue with regular AirPods is that the battery can’t practically be replaced, so the entire headphones die. That’s what I’m hoping to see avoided here.
