Teardowns of new AirPods show no major repairability gains

Apple announced its AirPods 4 and AirPods Max with USB-C last month and the team over at iFixt has now shared their teardowns.

Long story short, neither of the new AirPods offers improvements in terms of repairability. The small AirPods 4 require a specialized jig holder that keeps them in place while a heat gun helps loosen the adhesive to open up the top half of the buds.

AirPods 4 teardown (iFixit)

We can then see the speaker and battery components surrounded by heaps of glue.

Opening up the bottom of the stem is a lot more challenging and requires a knife to cut…