Apple’s AirPods Torn Apart with Brute Force, Impenetrable Design and Questionable Component Quality Revealed

As with all new products released by the Silicon Valley tech-giant, Apple’s brand-new, truly wireless AirPods were recently handled — dissected, I should say, in the traditional fashion — by the prying, inquisitive hands over at iFixIt. And while the mere thought of willfully tearing apart Cupertino’s hottest new product might seem unjust to the majority of us, we have to remember that these types of things are all carried out in the name of science — to discover, educate, and learn more about the delicate internal components, and the outer construction materials, alike, employed by Apple to make its products truly remarkable.

What iFixIt found in the process of dissecting its own set of AirPods, however, might leave many of us questioning Apple’s design choices and, perhaps even more so, the wireless earbuds’ construction quality. For starters, iFixIt notes that the teardown didn’t start off on a smooth note, at all — largely due to the fact that AirPods are constructed in a way that provides no obvious means of accessing the internal structures. Therefore, the guys had to literally cut their way through to the internal components, as you can see from the image below, which in turn rendered the earbuds destroyed before the components could even be reached.

It was also noted that Apple’s AirPods are held together using a copious — perhaps even unnecessary — amount of industrial adhesive, which means the inner components cannot be accessed without physically destroying the AirPods in the process. Once they were actually reached, iFixIt revealed that the tiny, fragile nature of AirPods’ internal components — including their tiny Lithium Ion batteries — present a number of complications. For starters, their seemingly impenetrable nature is what results in AirPods’ repair being essentially impossible — which could, perhaps, explain why Apple recently announced that it would be offering reasonably priced replacement AirPods – even if you lose one of them – whether you’re under warranty or not. Another issue is that, due to the teeny-tiny nature of AirPods’ Li-Ion batteries, they cannot physically be recycled as they would pose a major fire risk if placed in an industrial shredder, according to PhoneArena.

iFixIt reported having similar difficulty accessing the components of the case too, as it appears to be forged of the same seamless and impenetrable design. As a matter of fact, the case was so difficult for the guys at iFixIt to pry open, that multiple tools and techniques — cutting, burning, and even melting — had to be employed to get in.

Once inside, it appeared that at least one of the micro-controllers housed within the charging case was fabricated to “very low quality standards, with the chip showing tiny air bubbles in its solder joints, which could cause problems with its proper operation,” iFixIt reported. It’s worth noting that no issues caused by the previously mentioned quality concerns have been reported.