While those of us in Canada are still waiting to find out how much the Apple TV will retail for here, the fine people at iFixit have managed to get their hands on Apple’s new microconsole almost a month ahead of its official release date. Rather than wait until the set top box’s official release date to preform one of their signature teardowns, they’ve gone ahead and published it today.
In the process of taking apart the Apple TV, iFixit also discovered it’s one of Apple’s most reparable devices. Many of the components found within are modular and can be replaced with relative ease. Moreover, the screws used to hold the whole thing together are standard Torx ones.
Despite being held together by adhesive, the same can be said of the accompanying Siri Remote. A wide gap makes it possible to stick one of the company’s iOpeners (or a guitar pick) to separate the two halves of the remote. Once inside, the website found a lot of interesting components, including two microphones, an accelerometer, gyroscope and a Bluetooth 4.0 module, meaning you don’t have to point the remote at the Apple TV for a command to be properly registered, though no such luck if it’s your actual television that needs to be told to preform an action.
With both the Apple TV itself and its accompanying remote, Apple used a lot of components that can be found in its other products. For example, the Apple TV’s memory controller is the same one that can be found in the 2015 MacBook. In a lot of ways that’s the story of the Apple TV. The company put together its new microconsole by taking what was available. The result is a device that iFixit gave an eight out of 10 in terms of repairability score.
It’s not all perfect, however. One major issue iFixit notes is that all the device’s important component are soldered to its logic board. This means that replacing a faulty port will require either completely replacing the board or doing some complicated soldering, neither of which are something most consumers will be comfortable with doing.
[source]iFixit[/source]
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