Last week, the teardown experts at iFixit took a look at the new Retina MacBook Pro, noting how Apple used a number of innovations first deployed in the MacBook Air to reduce the machine's thickness but in the process hampered users' ability to repair and upgrade components.
The Retina display is an engineering marvel. Its LCD is essentially the entire display assembly. Rather than sandwich an LCD panel between a back case and a piece of glass in front, Apple used the aluminum case itself as the frame for the LCD panel and used the LCD as the front glass. They’ve managed to pack five times as many pixels as the last model in a display that’s actually a fraction of a millimeter thinner. And since there’s no front glass, glare is much less of an issue.
With the LCD so tightly integrated into the display assembly, iFixit actually broke the LCD in the process of trying to disassemble it, noting that anyone looking to replace their display would need to replace the entire assembly instead of trying to swap in a new LCD panel.
The teardown documents the full range of features used to keep the display slim and light while delivering crisp images on the ultra-high resolution screen, including routing of cables through hinges, 48 LEDs at the bottom of the screen to light the display, and various diffuser, prism, and polarizing sheets to generate the screen's images.
The new Retina MacBook Pro remains in high demand amid tight supplies, with shipping estimates for new orders through Apple's online store remaining at the 3-4 week figure reached less than two days after the machine debuted.
Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by Juli Clover
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag.
Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year.
Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by Juli Clover
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro.
The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup.
The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie.
The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
Dear iFixit, next time around, get yourself unwaxed dental floss, and use that to "saw" through the adhesive / tape. Small enough to fit in there, cheap enough to discard, flexible to get around stuff, strong enough to cut RTVs and tapes. ;)
As there is no front glass, how is the screen 'protected'? I mean, the previous generations have glass to almost prevent damage from scratches etc. Does it still have a glass element to it or is it more lift a standard LCD 'finish'?
