Not entirely! We removed the trackpad and, lo and behold, there are cut-outs to access the pull tabs that hold the middle battery cells in place. But wait, we don’t see any pull tabs on the middle cells. The four outer battery cells have easily-noticeable pull tabs, which are the typical thin white strips we know and love from the iPhone and MacBook Air. That could mean battery swaps without removing all the brains first-a procedure we’ve been dreaming about for a while. But as we peer into the guts, we notice something we haven’t seen in a long time in a MacBook Pro, three words that make our hair stand on end: battery pull tabs.Įven better, it appears the battery isn’t trapped under the logic board. Normally we get to the battery last because, well, they suck to remove. This year, however, Apple has at least partially reversed this decision with new “battery pull tabs.” IFixit explains that Apple began gluing the MacBook Pro’s battery to the top case of the device with the introduction of the first Retina MacBook Pro in 2012.
In a teaser posted today, iFixit says that the new MacBook Pro has the “first reasonably DIY-friendly battery replacement procedure since 2012.” Following yesterday’s release of the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, the folks at iFixit have shared an early look at their teardown of the new machines.