The folks over at iFixit have just published their signature teardown of the 2019 MacBook Pro 15″ with Touch Bar, giving it a poor repairability of score of just 1 out 10. “The processor, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board. Repairs and upgrades will be impractical at best,” according to the teardown experts.
As expected, the main highlight of the teardown is to look at the third generation butterfly keyboard in the company’s latest notebook that has been plagued with reliability issues for the past few years.
It appears that Apple has used a new plastic to protect the key switches. “Where 2018 models had a rubbery feel and milky look, this plastic is crinkly and transparent,” said iFixit. Using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, they found that Apple is now using polyamide, or nylon, instead of polyacetylene used in last year’s models:
The metal dome over each key switch is subtly different, too. It could be a new surface treatment, and/or a tweaked alloy, possibly to alleviate problems with durability, bounce-back, or other issues.
These switches are also magnetized from the factory. Best guess as to their composition: ferritic stainless steel, with a thin polymer coating on the bottom. The difference in surface finish from the 2018 version to the 2019 indicates Apple may be using a revised heat treatment, or alloy, or possibly both.
You can check out the teardown in its entirety at the source page.
