Apple's AirPods 4 Have A Shockingly Low iFixit Repairability Score – Here's Why

Following scrutiny, Apple has spent the past few years making its phones easier to open up and repair. While its efforts are far from perfect, there's still progress — like with the iPhone 16, which earned credit from repair specialists for featuring a simpler battery swap. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the company's earbuds. Apple's AirPods 4, released in 2024, have been rated a zero for repairability by iFixit, a repair outfit that tears down new gadgets and grades how fixable they are. That's the lowest possible rating.

Even just getting into the earbuds to repair them is its own problem. For a teardown of the AirPods 4 shared on YouTube, iFixit's technician had to clamp the bud into a jig, a specialized rig that holds the earbuds still as they are heated to loosen up their casing. The heat had to be dialed up all the way to a whopping 110 degrees Celcius before the adhesive finally gave up enough space to separate the stem from the driver. Unfortunately, in doing so, iFixit also ended up damaging the outer plastic shell. Underneath, glue coated nearly every component.

Cracking these open is difficult enough, but the worst part is that doing so gets you nowhere. There's just no component inside that anyone can actually replace. That includes the battery, which is generally the most sought-after component for replacements — after all, its wear is what primarily decides how long a set of AirPods lasts.

There's a bigger reason as to why the battery is impossible to swap. Apple actually solders each one onto a ribbon cable, with two solder joints holding it in place. iFixit tore those cables while pulling the components out. Anyone repeating the job needs a soldering iron and a steady hand to fit a new cell. It's a similar story for the charging case, which is sealed with an especially hard adhesive. iFixit blasted the case with 130 degrees Celsius worth of heat, which had a similar damaging effect. So, no, you can't replace the case's battery either. Inside, there are no stretch release strips – the pull tabs you might commonly see in phone teardown videos — in either the case or the earbuds.

Another contributing factor to the low rating was that Apple sells no replacement parts for any of this, nor does it publish any repair instructions. The company's stores don't attempt any repair work either, since Apple replaces damaged AirPods instead. It's a similar story for the newer and pricier Apple AirPods Pro 3, released in 2025.

Now it's worth noting that building repairable earbuds isn't the stuff of myth and folklore. As iFixit points out, other brands like Sony, Samsung, and Fairphone have all built cases you can get into. Fairphone — a Dutch outfit behind Android phones you can repair yourself – actually tops the earbud rankings, scoring a 10 out of 10 with its Fairbuds. These are so repairable that they run on easily-purchasable coin cell batteries. Samsung's Galaxy Buds Live aren't so far behind, boasting an 8 out of 10 repairability score. These use clips, not glue, making teardown and battery replacement much easier.