A teardown of Apple's AirPods 5 has found that the batteries inside the earbuds are easier to reach than before, according to heise online. The change marks the first time Apple has made swapping the batteries in its earbuds noticeably simpler, Mac Life reports. The charging case, however, does not share that improvement, heise online says.
The reports, published Thursday, draw on a disassembly of the new model. MacTechNews.de describes the shift in blunt terms, calling a product once treated as disposable now at least "barely repairable." That framing suggests the earbuds remain far from a user-serviceable design, even with the easier battery access.
Apple has not commented on the teardown findings in the material available. The coverage comes from several German-language outlets that examined the hardware after launch, including iphone-ticker.de, which also reported that Apple had eased access to the batteries.
The limited repairability of small wireless earbuds has drawn scrutiny in recent years, since sealed designs and glued-in cells typically make battery replacement impractical for owners. The AirPods 5 teardown indicates Apple has addressed part of that problem in the earbuds themselves, but not in the case that stores and charges them.
Computer Bild also published a review of the new AirPods, though its assessment is not detailed in the available summary.
What to watch next: whether Apple extends the same battery-access design to the charging case in a future model, and whether independent repair scores reflect the change.
