Your New Apple Watch and AirPods Still Fall Short on Repairability, iFixit Teardowns Reveal

If you’re one of the lucky people who, over the past month, managed to acquire one of the latest Apple Watch models or the AirPods 5, there’s something about your new piece of tech you should know — they’re not easy to repair.

That might not seem like a problem right now – they’re new, after all. But over time, you might wish to swap out their batteries to prolong their lifespans. It’s not impossible, but none of the wearables Apple debuted last month are a quick fix.

Repairability advocacy group iFixit regularly tears down new consumer devices and assigns them a score out of 10, based on how easy they are to repair. On Tuesday, it gave the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4 marks of 4 out of 10 on the repairability scale, with the AirPods 5 gaining a score of just 2 out of 10 in a similar exercise last week.

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On the surface, it looks like the AirPods have come out worse in this experiment than the Apple Watches, but it really depends on perspective. Apple has actually made improvements to the AirPods since the last model, which scored 0 out of 10, so these two additional marks point to the company making moves toward increased repairability.

The Apple Watch Series 12 is marginally easier to repair than its predecessor – thanks to an adhesive pull tab that releases the battery – although iFixit still describes this as “modest gains.” Meanwhile, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 is no easier to repair than the three previous generations, which all also scored 4 out of 10.

“Apple still hasn’t fixed the biggest problem with Watch repair: battery repair,” iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said over email. “You have to slice open very stubborn adhesive and risk damaging the fragile display to get to the battery of both new Apple Watches.”

Furthermore, iFixit says that it believes Apple is failing to comply with right-to-repair regulations in 10 US states. In Oregon, for example, companies are required to make the same parts, tools and documentation available to repair and DIY shops as they use to fix products in-house. “To do repairs, we need parts, tools, and manuals, and Apple has never made them available for Apple Watch,” says Wiens.

Back in June, Wiens told me that this was a “fixable design problem” with the Apple Watch. It doesn’t require Apple to make any upgrades to the device – instead, it requires the company to actively aid in the growth of the wider repair ecosystem.

Apple didn’t comment on iFixit’s findings and conclusions. Previously, a spokesperson for the company said that it meets the requirements of Minnesota’s right-to-repair law specifically, and that it’s the first smartphone maker to support a push for federal right-to-repair regulation.

Right-to-repair regulation differs from state to state, but it’s motivated by one unifying idea: making it easier and cheaper for people to have their tech repaired, usually by giving them more choice to go through the original manufacturer, a third-party repair company of their choice or doing it themselves at home.

The benefit of repairability is that it extends the lifecycle of our products, reducing electronic waste and saving us from having to keep splashing out on replacement tech.

How does Apple compare to the competition?

In iFixit’s assessment of the new Apple Watches, it concludes that the company needs to do better. It highlights Google’s Pixel Watch as an alternative product that shows how repairability can be done right.

I can speak to this personally, having successfully disassembled and reassembled the Pixel Watch earlier this year. Was it tricky? Yes. Did it take twice as long as I thought it would? Again, yes. But the point is that I was able not just to remove the battery, but replace the entire screen. This is why iFixit awarded the Pixel Watch a repairability score of 9 out of 10.

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What I learned from delving into the world of wearables repairability is that smartwatches and headphones need to be designed with repair in mind from the get-go – it can’t simply be retrofitted around an existing device. It’s no easy feat to guarantee repairability when you also don’t want to compromise a device’s durability and waterproofing. It’s especially hard to do without trade-offs.

The Pixel Watch might be the gold standard for repairability right now, but the industry is hardly rushing to play catch-up. Apple might be languishing near the bottom of the heap, but it’s not a massive outlier.

There are also benefits to the way Apple does things. By keeping certain repairs in-house, the company retains quality control over the devices it’s fixing and returning to people. But giving people the power to choose how to repair tech they already own is increasingly a consumer right, and ultimately, even tech giants must comply with regulations. 

Apple has made great strides in recent years to make its devices more repairable (even if the iPhone 18 Pro is also pretty tricky to repair). The company’s products also tend to last a long time and have great resale value. It has a great track record of making consumer-friendly breakthroughs that make people attached to their Apple devices. But repairability is one feature the company has yet to prove it’s mastered.