hi I'm MJ with iFixit and today we're
going to take a look at the inside of
Apple's latest iteration of the iPod
Touch and see how it stacks up in terms
of repair ability in our 5th generation
iPod Touch teardown review without any
sort of fanfare whatsoever Apple
released the fifth-generation iPod touch
yesterday so we hurried on over to our
local Apple store and picked one up as
quick as our little feet would carry us
and as much as I did want to simply
admire its prettiness our iPod touch
went straight to the teardown table I've
got to admit we had high hopes for this
iPod in terms of repair ability
considering that the iPhone 5 is the
most repairable iPhone yet but before I
get ahead of myself let's take a look at
the major exterior changes that were
made the biggest change that was made
was the increased display size just like
the iPhone 5 it has a 4-inch Retina
display while the length of the iPod has
increased somewhat to handle the larger
screen this thing is still remarkably
thin coming in at just shy of a quarter
of an inch
unfortunately the use and Oz stop right
there once we tried opening the iPod we
were hugely disappointed instead of
choosing and easily open a bowl and
therefore more easily repairable design
the way they did with the iPhone 5 Apple
chose to glue the iPod shut gluing the
iPod shut puts users in a real pickle if
they ever want to replace the battery
which Apple says will hold up to 80% of
its capacity up to 400 charging cycles
after that good luck swapping the
battery out we had to resort to using a
heat gun just to get the front panel off
and if you have to use a heat gun just
to get inside you know that there have
been some sacrifices made in terms of
repair ability not only do you risk
damaging sensitive components while
trying to soften the adhesive but it
also makes things more complicated when
reassembling the device that all being
said we eventually did make it past the
adhesive but it was at this point that
we felt like Apple was playing a cruel
joke on us not only do we have to worry
about adhesive when removing the front
panel but there's also retaining clips
in the past we've seen retaining Clips
used instead of adhesive but use both is
just plain spiteful once we finally got
the front panel pried up we're able to
get our first
glimpse inside the fifth-generation iPod
Touch which actually wasn't all that
interesting considering the giant EMI
shield in the way but after a few screws
were able to see that like all other iOS
devices the battery takes up the
majority of the case and sadly to get at
the other components we had to pull off
these soldered battery connections and
you can chalk soldered battery
connections up to yet another ding in
the iPod Touches repairability score
this battery comes in at 1030 milliamp
hours which is an upgrade from the
previous generations 930 milliamp hours
and according to Apple will provide you
with 40 hours of music playback between
charges our next step was to peel the
ribbon cable that's responsible for the
volume buttons microphone LED flash and
power cable up from the rear case
combining all of these components into a
single ribbon cable is cost-effective
from a manufacturing standpoint but
detrimental to consumers looking to
replace an individual component our next
discovery was made when we remove the
home button we praised Apple in our
iPhone 5 teardown for designing a
stronger home button but it appears in
this iteration of the iPod touch they're
using a weaker rubber membrane design
similar to the all-in-one ribbon cable
that I mentioned earlier we also
discovered that the lighting connector
headphone jack and microphone share a
similar design and that that cable is
soldered to the logic board so unless
you are an expert solder herb if your
headphone jack goes out you're going to
have to replace the entire logic board
and on that note it's time to talk
repairability we score every gadget we
tear down for repair ability on a scale
of 1 to 10 10 being the easiest to
repair and 1 being the most difficult
the fifth-generation iPod touch scored a
disappointing 3 out of 10 and here's why
many of the components are soldered
together requiring either a very
difficult or a very expensive repair if
any individual parts break the iPod
touch has no external screws instead a
combination of clips and adhesive make
it difficult to open the case some of
the cables connected to the logic board
run over the top and connect on the
bottom making it difficult to remove the
board or disconnect the cables
increasing the chances that you'll
damage something during repair that
about
wraps up our teardown review as always
if you want to see the complete teardown
including high-resolution images you can
find that on ifixit.com if you want to
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and happy repairing