Until then, battery replacements done the Apple Self Repair Store Way are wildly time-consuming and expensive. That's a steep price to pay for a new battery, especially if everything else is working.Īpple says it will eventually sell individual battery replacements for M1 MacBook Pros but hasn't specified when. To replace the battery on an M1 MacBook Pro via Apple's Self-Service Repair Store, you'll have to buy an entire top case, too, which will run you about $527-$615, minus an $88 credit if you send back your original part (you can see a deeper price breakdown in this handy price list from The Verge). Although, those designs differ from Apple's MacBook Pros. iFixit, for example, has a MacBook Pro 14-inch 2021 battery replacement guide that breaks the process down into 26 steps and removes mostly just the bottom case, trackpad, and battery board.Īnd a quick look at repair manuals for other PCs, such as Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon or HP's Zbook Fury G8 have simpler, shorter battery replacement processes. The manuals instruct users to remove the entire top case, bottom case, battery management unit, flex cable, lid angle sensor, the trackpad and its flex cable, the vent/antenna module, the logic board, display hinge covers, the display, the laptop's audio board, fans, the MagSafe 3 board, as well as the USB-C boards and Touch ID board.īasically disassembling and reassembling a laptop to change its battery, a part known to need replacement after time, isn't user-friendly or. Apple's 13, 14, and 16-inch 2021 MacBook Pro self-repair manuals say that to replace the battery, you need to remove far more than just the battery. IFixit focused heavily on Apple's approach to MacBook Pro battery replacements, citing the natural degradation of lithium batteries. Perhaps most notable is a strongly worded blog from iFixit, which said the program 'manages to make MacBooks seem less repairable.' While iFixit found the MacBook Air repair manual to be 'in-depth, mostly logical, and well worth an additional repairability point,' it was less impressed with the MacBook Pro repair manuals. The past few days have seen numerous right-to-repair activists critique Apple's MacBook self-repair program.

After a few days of availability, the MacBook self-repair program shows welcome progress, but work is still needed before Apple is considered a true right-to-repair ally. Giving customers repair manuals and the ability to buy parts and buy or rent tools for M1 MacBook Airs and M1 MacBook Pros is a far cry from the Apple of yesteryear. On Tuesday, Apple expanded its self-service repair program to M1-based MacBooks.

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