A teardown of the AirPods Max revealed the highly complicated, though repairable, internal components and the extreme engineering that went along with them.
It is the AirPods Max's turn. The highly anticipated teardown of Apple's premier over-ear headphones finally occurred with iFixit, in true Apple device teardown fashion, revealed what is under its hood. Industry observers marveled at the intricacy and complexity of AirPods Max's internal components, with some saying the over-ear headphone is overengineered, making its competitors look like toys.
The long-in-the-making AirPods Max teardown by iFixit allowed everyone to see what makes Apple's over-ear headphones so special. Upon completion of the teardown, iFixit examined the headphones' reparability and compared it with similar headphones made by competitors. According to some industry observers, the overengineered AirPods Max made its competitors appear like toys.
Reparability Score
With the intricacy and complexity of the internal, and some say overengineered, components of the AirPods Max, you would immediately think it is very difficult to repair. Surprisingly, iFixit gave the unit a reparability score of six out of ten, which is a relatively high score considering that the repair expert refused to grant even a single point for any Apple AirPods in the past.
AirPods Max teardown makes Sony and Bose headphones look "like toys" https://t.co/RBOmDvUjDJ pic.twitter.com/dsm1UyfEUv — The Verge (@verge) January 19, 2021
Many started asking why iFixit gave the AirPods Max such a high reparability score, despite the complexity of its overengineered internal components. There are many factors that iFixit considered in giving such a score. For instance, the AirPods Max's cushions that attach to the unit via magnets make them easy to replace when they wear out. In addition, screws and not glue hold most of its internal components, making it easy for technicians to swap them out in case they break or fail.
Neat Design
Apart from admiring the complexity of the seemingly overengineered internal components, iFixit also expressed approval at the AirPods Max's headband hinge mechanism, which the repair expert found easy to detach by using a paperclip or SIM card removal tool. Found between the over-ear headphones' band and ear cups, iFixit says you can detach it "with just a SIM card removal tool or paperclip, without even opening the ear cup."
The repair specialist calls the mechanism as "perhaps the most elaborate part of the AirPods Max." It also noted the fact that the internal components of Apple's premier over-ear headphones shows it is both intricate and overengineered, making the steep price tag of the AirPods Max a little easier to swallow. The repair expert also praised the neat design of the headphones, though iFixit issued a warning that fixing the headphones is not for the faint of heart as it involved using a bewilderingly diverse array of screwdrivers to perform the task.
