Inside The Apple Vision Pro
The Apple Vision Pro Is here, and of course, like any sane technician would do - we tore the thing down.
Just ignore the red tape
Opening It Up
The Glue Dilemma: First up, let's talk about the glue situation. Apple seems to have gone all out with the industrial-strength stuff, making it feel like prying open a bank vault. Seriously, it's tough. You'll need more than just a regular toolkit – think jackhammers and dynamite (okay, maybe not that extreme, but you get the picture).
It’s Impossible To Open
Seriously you probably won’t get this open without causing some sort of damage
Flex Cables: Now, imagine you've managed to tackle the glue monster, only to be greeted by a jungle of tiny flex cables, just waiting to be snapped like twigs. It's like walking through a minefield – one wrong move, and bam! $3500 gone!
Flex Cables Everywhere
The only safe point of entry are on the sides of the device
The Plastic Predicament: And let's not forget about the front panel, which is apparently made of some super-sensitive laminated plastic. Apply even a hint of heat, and you're playing with fire – literally. It's like trying to defuse a bomb without a manual.
Yeah We Really Scratched it up, but we think it’s almost unavoidable.
A Beautiful Mess
Now that we have this open we can finally get a good look at the inside, and well It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Just like any other Apple device this one is beautiful inside and out. But from a repair and disassembly perspective, this is as scary as ever.
Ever see so many flex cables in one device before?
A Close Look At The Motherboard
Getting to the Motherboard was no easy task, we had to disconnect a ton of flex cables and open the device from both the back and the front. There were two fans and unlike the meta quest, this device used stepper motors to shift the lenses to align with your eyes while you have the headset on!
Apple’s New R1 Chip
On the left is the new R1 Chip and On the Right is the M2 Chip. Of course they are covered in thermal paste but there’s not much to see under except a faint Apple Logo
All The Components
This is about as far as we went. We could have gone a little bit deeper but we wanted this thing to still work after the teardown, after all, it is USD 3500. It looks kinda simple when you have it all laid out like this but getting all of these components separated was no easy task. Not something you’d never want to do DIY a repair on.
Is This Thing Repairable?
Well, that’s a hard question to answer. The short answer is yes (sort of) . Everything is modular and removable, which means pretty much everything can be replaced without any soldering, but the main issue is that It’s near impossible to pry this thing open without causing some sort of damage, it might be cosmetic but the damage is damage. The biggest benefit though is that the battery is on the outside, meaning you will probably never need to repair this thing if you take good care of it. Get a screen protector on the front, something to cover the lenses and you should be okay. We haven’t done our serialization tests on this device yet which means we don’t fully know the answer, but so far it’s pretty on par with most other VR Headsets.
Conclusion
The Apple Vision Pro is one of the most compact devices I have ever seen, but because it’s still modular and has a removable battery it may also be one of the most repairable VR headsets on the market right now ( Assuming parts aren’t serialized ). While it is extremely hard to tear down it would not be so hard to replace individual components, take the display for example - it’s readily accessible and replaceable - assuming the previous one is broken. I think iFixit’s 4/10 score is fair and accurate this time around, but after we do our serialization test we’ll know for sure.
Check out the full teardown video here for more juicy details!