MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar 2018 Teardown(ifixit.com)
ifixit.com
MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar 2018 Teardown
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Touch+Bar+2018+Teardown/111384
84 comments
> But at least they understand how their own machine works.
That may be true for the HDD, but Apple uses tons of third-party components elsewhere. Large parts of their OpenGL drivers, for example, are written by the manufacturers themselves, which is part of the reason why Apple has by far the worst OpenGL support in the industry, and why Metal on desktop is inferior to Direct3D and Vulkan.
That may be true for the HDD, but Apple uses tons of third-party components elsewhere. Large parts of their OpenGL drivers, for example, are written by the manufacturers themselves, which is part of the reason why Apple has by far the worst OpenGL support in the industry, and why Metal on desktop is inferior to Direct3D and Vulkan.
My LTE on my Latitude E7250 has worked flawlessly...16GB of ram and an i7-5600U (2C, 4T, 2.6/3.2ghz)
I am a horrible user. I severely mistreat my equipment. My laptop rides in a backpack full of tools, crimpers, patch cables, sand. It goes on my back when I climb towers, work on buildings, and work in the office. It gets left in my black SUV in the Florida sun where it gets to 130+ deg f.
I've opened and closed the screen at least 4000 times since I bought it 3 years ago. It's been dropped several times. Sat on. Stepped on. Kicked. Liquids spilled on, both opened and closed. I've left it on and put it in my backpack more times than I can imagine(I disable stand-by on close) to later find it had shut itself down due to overheat. But it survives.
My cat sits on my lap, half over the keyboard, so it gets full of cat hair routinely.
I bought accidental damage protection because I was sure I would destroy it before it reached the end of it's useful life.
Nothing has broken and I've never had to even call Dell. The finish is getting worn on the keyboard because I use it easily 12 hours a day. The chassis has nicks and scrapes all over it. I just opened it for the first time since buying it to install a 1TB SSD. I took the keyboard apart at the same time and de-furred it.
And it has LTE. I've yet to see a Macbook even give you the option for LTE.
My girlfriend's MBA is sitting in the closet going on a year now with a cracked screen that nobody knows how it happened. Just opened it one day and it was cracked.
Everything may be pretty and work great inside a walled garden, but I prefer choices and options -- the ability to get exactly what I want.
I am a horrible user. I severely mistreat my equipment. My laptop rides in a backpack full of tools, crimpers, patch cables, sand. It goes on my back when I climb towers, work on buildings, and work in the office. It gets left in my black SUV in the Florida sun where it gets to 130+ deg f.
I've opened and closed the screen at least 4000 times since I bought it 3 years ago. It's been dropped several times. Sat on. Stepped on. Kicked. Liquids spilled on, both opened and closed. I've left it on and put it in my backpack more times than I can imagine(I disable stand-by on close) to later find it had shut itself down due to overheat. But it survives.
My cat sits on my lap, half over the keyboard, so it gets full of cat hair routinely.
I bought accidental damage protection because I was sure I would destroy it before it reached the end of it's useful life.
Nothing has broken and I've never had to even call Dell. The finish is getting worn on the keyboard because I use it easily 12 hours a day. The chassis has nicks and scrapes all over it. I just opened it for the first time since buying it to install a 1TB SSD. I took the keyboard apart at the same time and de-furred it.
And it has LTE. I've yet to see a Macbook even give you the option for LTE.
My girlfriend's MBA is sitting in the closet going on a year now with a cracked screen that nobody knows how it happened. Just opened it one day and it was cracked.
Everything may be pretty and work great inside a walled garden, but I prefer choices and options -- the ability to get exactly what I want.
I opened my MBP after owning it for maybe a year and the touchpad suddenly had a crack right across it. Utterly baffling.
Apple has no LTE modems to begin with. Intel sucks though, better get a Sierra card (Qualcomm).
Actually, Apple does have LTE modems. It's just that they insist on referring to them as iPhones or iPads.
I thought it was clear that this is about laptops...
Apple's latest laptops mostly require dongles now...
Mostly? I would say all. Which is bad obviously.
No, they just require you to have an iPhone or LTE iPad. Then it's one click away without any dongles or wires.
They do expect you to stay within the Apple ecosystem, and it works surprisingly well if you can live with it. It severely limits choice - and won't work for everyone.
They do expect you to stay within the Apple ecosystem, and it works surprisingly well if you can live with it. It severely limits choice - and won't work for everyone.
>No, they just require you to have an iPhone or LTE iPad. Then it's one click away without any dongles or wires.
Which is the same as an embedded modem. I know the US a third-world country when it comes to mobile networks, but why Apple assumes this is the case in other countries -- I don't get it.
Which is the same as an embedded modem. I know the US a third-world country when it comes to mobile networks, but why Apple assumes this is the case in other countries -- I don't get it.
You can get a macbook with LTE? Also designing everything yourself isn't all roses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8&t=1279s
As I read this comment, my mouse and keyboard stopped working (MacBook Pro 15" 2018) because they can only connect to my laptop via USB-C (required a reboot)
Saying there are no driver issues cannot be true, just by googling for cases under support.apple.com
Saying there are no driver issues cannot be true, just by googling for cases under support.apple.com
Do you use Discord? There’s an issue at least a year old for me wherein if I have been using discord for a while, quitting discord kills my mouse until I unplug/plug my mouse back in and reopen Discord. No other electron apps do this.
No discord here. In this case I fully disconnected my USB-C devices, replugged and they were still unresponsive. I then rebooted and everything worked again.
There are occasional driver issues. However, there’s not much you can do about them either.
That 6th gen bug completely put me off buying one. There's no reason for a bug that big to ship.
Bought a pixelbook instead and haven't looked back. It has an extra port (can charge and still have a free port). The keys actually travel. It has a decent touchscreen and (to my surprise) a better touchpad than my macbook pro had. General build quality is probably better too. Despite the extra features, the pixelbook is slightly cheaper.
Android apps work great. There's crouton for a full-blown linux dev environment (Crostini generally works well for me, but VPN isn't working yet). If rumors are true, windows support is coming too.
Bought a pixelbook instead and haven't looked back. It has an extra port (can charge and still have a free port). The keys actually travel. It has a decent touchscreen and (to my surprise) a better touchpad than my macbook pro had. General build quality is probably better too. Despite the extra features, the pixelbook is slightly cheaper.
Android apps work great. There's crouton for a full-blown linux dev environment (Crostini generally works well for me, but VPN isn't working yet). If rumors are true, windows support is coming too.
From a comment on the article
> Looks like one of the Thunderbolt ports on the right-hand side, probably the one closest to the headphone jack, is connected to the T2 by way of a USB switch. This is probably the port that is used to perform a DFU restore of the iBridge, like on the iMac Pro ( https://help.apple.com/configurator/mac/2.7/#/apdebea5be51) It’s possible that data recovery could also be performed via that Thunderbolt port given the right tools.
The T2 ARM coprocessor secure enclave with encryption keys is connected to an external PCIe bus that is also connected to the main x86 CPU? Is there a risk of DMA attacks like PCILeech? What policy restricts devices that can pair with the T2?
> Looks like one of the Thunderbolt ports on the right-hand side, probably the one closest to the headphone jack, is connected to the T2 by way of a USB switch. This is probably the port that is used to perform a DFU restore of the iBridge, like on the iMac Pro ( https://help.apple.com/configurator/mac/2.7/#/apdebea5be51) It’s possible that data recovery could also be performed via that Thunderbolt port given the right tools.
The T2 ARM coprocessor secure enclave with encryption keys is connected to an external PCIe bus that is also connected to the main x86 CPU? Is there a risk of DMA attacks like PCILeech? What policy restricts devices that can pair with the T2?
Unrelated side note: I recent had my MacBook 2016 repaired under Apple's recently announced keyboard repair program. Previous keyboard repairs came with topcase + battery replacements. This keyboard repair does feel like it replaced the whole keyboard and topcase, but it did not replace my battery. I'm not sure if they changed their repair process to make repairs easier on them or cheaper on them and that's what spurred the extended repair, or what.
>NXP 80V18 secure NFC module
Does that mean there's an NFC antenna somewhere on the laptop?
Does that mean there's an NFC antenna somewhere on the laptop?
Most interesting tidbit:
> Apple was careful to mention its latest third-gen keyboard in its press release. The added quietness seems a bit underwhelming to our ears, and we suspect there's something more going on... As you may have heard, there's a brand new silicone barrier under here. Apple says this new addition is purely for soundproofing, but it bears a suspicious resemblance to their 2016 ingress-proofing patent—one that might help prevent the keyboard failures we keep hearing about. This bears further analysis. We'll have a deeper dive on the keyboard situation later in the week. Stay tuned!
Relevant image:
https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/Xi2aYwBSYTs2fZT1.h...
> Apple was careful to mention its latest third-gen keyboard in its press release. The added quietness seems a bit underwhelming to our ears, and we suspect there's something more going on... As you may have heard, there's a brand new silicone barrier under here. Apple says this new addition is purely for soundproofing, but it bears a suspicious resemblance to their 2016 ingress-proofing patent—one that might help prevent the keyboard failures we keep hearing about. This bears further analysis. We'll have a deeper dive on the keyboard situation later in the week. Stay tuned!
Relevant image:
https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/Xi2aYwBSYTs2fZT1.h...
Would it kill them to say "We're sorry about the keyboard problems. Here's what we did to try to address them"?
My future buying decisions will depend a lot on my confidence level in the keyboard.
My future buying decisions will depend a lot on my confidence level in the keyboard.
It could be legally problematic. Admitting to a general fault could lead to a full on recall which given how integrated the keyboard is could cost almost the same as replacing every single machine.
(Of course, with $100bn+ in cash, they probably should do this, but I can see why they wouldn't.)
(Of course, with $100bn+ in cash, they probably should do this, but I can see why they wouldn't.)
I don't like the improvements they made that actually make the new MBPs worse for what I do. I also don't trust them regarding the keyboard issues and will wait two years before even considering a new MBP. If my old MBP breaks it will be some other manufacturer with questionable long term quality but much lower price. They lost my faith and doing a major recall would do lift their image in my eyes tremendously.
Hopefully this is a lesson to Apple to stop integrating fragile / breakable components with almost everything.
1- lawsuits
2- Apple's marketing strategy has always been to declare themselves geniuses that make magical product. Explaining that they are just like any other company and also completely screw up goes against that.
2- Apple's marketing strategy has always been to declare themselves geniuses that make magical product. Explaining that they are just like any other company and also completely screw up goes against that.
It is likely due to several lawsuits that are targeted towards previous unreliable keyboard models, which limits their ability to say just that.
Well they did address the problem. They have a service program where keyboards are replaced for free until about 2021. And the 2018 model has a technical fix.
I don't think people really care about apologies. They just want a working laptop.
I don't think people really care about apologies. They just want a working laptop.
I'm not looking for an apology. I just would like to not have to guess that the noise reducing technology is actually meant to keep debris out. Just treat me like an adult and say so.
Youtube video that goes over this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tbVDV1xdQI
Doesn’t “we created a patent to fix this issue” basically admit they knew the product was ‘defective’?
No because their line is that the fix is there only to dampen the sound.
If a fix happens to do both then you're stuck in murky grey territory.
If a fix happens to do both then you're stuck in murky grey territory.
The patent mentioned by the the comment you're responding to has nothing to do with dampening sound.
Interesting to note that the SSD is literally 4 chips permanently soldered on both sides of the motherboard, they don't even bother with an NVMe M2 drive. So you can't upgrade your hard disk to a larger one ever - you have to choose when you buy it.
I guess that contributes to it being the fastest ever hard disk in a laptop: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes...
I guess that contributes to it being the fastest ever hard disk in a laptop: https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastes...
It's possible that may contribute. But even my 1.5 year old NVMe Samsung 960 Pro has write speeds similar to that. It uses a standard form factor so I dropped it into a PCIe adapter and use with my 4 year old Z97 motherboard. Being able to do that makes me appreciate standards.
Fastest non PCIE drive I suppose? PCIE SSD drives are usually around that speed.
See this one from the Surface Book 2 which is from 2017:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12167/the-microsoft-surface-b...
2800MB/s sequential read and honestly once I went with PCIE SSD's I can't go back to regular SSD's only for secondary storage. Sad they soldered it on though. Good luck fixing that laptop when that drive fails...
See this one from the Surface Book 2 which is from 2017:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/12167/the-microsoft-surface-b...
2800MB/s sequential read and honestly once I went with PCIE SSD's I can't go back to regular SSD's only for secondary storage. Sad they soldered it on though. Good luck fixing that laptop when that drive fails...
It’s still PCIe just soldered on board.
Point being that benchmark is a little misleading claiming to be the fastest "hard drive" when it's just standard PCIE speeds.
I find that benchmark result to be naive at best.
Most of the performance gains, relative to other current PCIe SSDs, are likely due to the APFS file system stack, tuned with their specific hardware.
As they say, a performance win is a win, but the hyper-focus on Apple hardware (and consequent lack of understanding of the software stack) is misleading.
Most of the performance gains, relative to other current PCIe SSDs, are likely due to the APFS file system stack, tuned with their specific hardware.
As they say, a performance win is a win, but the hyper-focus on Apple hardware (and consequent lack of understanding of the software stack) is misleading.
Haven’t the drives been soldered on board for quite a few years now? At least since the 2016 redesign, right?
Yes, but I still see people asking if there's user replaceable RAM in these things too.
Not in all models. The non-touchbar 2017 13" had an upgradeable ssd.
If you can find something to upgrade it with!
Well, yes, there's that. I assume you'd have to get one pulled from a busted machine on eBay.
Which caps your upgrade at whatever largest size Apple ever sold, which you may already have.
This isn't really true. Its a very non standard form factor, and I doubt you'll be able to find a third party version for many years, if ever.
The T2 chip now has the SSD controller on die so its probably the consolidation of that and other features that make this happen. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862
I was frustrated when I learned the 2013 Mac Pro didn't have upgradeable SSDs... not because they aren't removable, but because they're proprietary and Apple won't sell you one. They will replace defective units with replacements of the same capacity only.
When the 2013 Mac Pro was introduced, their SSDs didn't use a standard connector so you couldn't buy a replacement drive but third parties then did make SSDs for the Mac Pro. What helped create the market for them was Apple used the same form factor in some laptop models.
https://www.owcdigital.com/products/aura-ssd
https://www.owcdigital.com/products/aura-ssd
Well shit. I assumed I could upgrade my hardrive 5 years from now. External hard drive it’ll be I guess! Good thing usb-c is fast.
On a MacBook Pro they have Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Which are 4x faster than USB-C.
Which are 4x faster than USB-C.
In case anyone else finds this tricky to remember, Thunderbolt 3 is a superset of USB-C.
https://thunderbolttechnology.net/blog/difference-between-us...
https://thunderbolttechnology.net/blog/difference-between-us...
I see this claim a lot, but the fact that it's so often incompatible with USB-C peripherals gives it the lie.
USB-C is often incompatible with USB-C peripherals. It's not a lie, it's just a bunch of devices that all implement different parts of the spec.
The Thunderbolt 3 port is still there. The USB-C is also Thubderbolt 3 on the pros.
Performance looks great but being soldered in is disappointing. It's much nicer when RAM and disk is user upgradable.
I'm going to guess copy-on-write is 90% of what makes it fast:
"To be fair, Apple’s relatively new APFS file system is designed to speed up file copies using a technology Apple calls Instant Cloning. But a win is a win."
"To be fair, Apple’s relatively new APFS file system is designed to speed up file copies using a technology Apple calls Instant Cloning. But a win is a win."
Copy on write should be WAY faster than that.
These numbers are similar to the iMac Pro, which uses a similar setup (T2, multiple flash chips).
I don’t think the benchmark was dumb enough to just be ‘cp fileOne fileTwo’, they would have taken the APFS instant copy into account.
These numbers are similar to the iMac Pro, which uses a similar setup (T2, multiple flash chips).
I don’t think the benchmark was dumb enough to just be ‘cp fileOne fileTwo’, they would have taken the APFS instant copy into account.
Why you can't upgrade? Good engineer should be able to replace those chips, it's not exactly rocket science. Or those chips just don't available in China or they are somehow paired with motherboard and different ones won't work? For example I know that you could replace disk on iPhone for some reasonable money (less than buying new iPhone with higher capacity) in China, at least that was the case few years ago.
I believe the T2 chip is paired with the storage ones in the factory, or something like that.
You can bet the Chinese are already hard at work figuring out how to defeat Apple's DRM and provide repairs and upgrades, the way they've always done. Give it some time.
you’ll need to replace the NAND and the controller so good luck with that.
> Given this MacBook's non-removable storage, Apple must have a new recovery method. Any ideas?
None?
None?
I work at an Apple certified repair center. Theres a tool called the "Customer data transfer tool" that connects to a certain port on a logic board thats hard wired directly into the SSD. On the other side is a USB C cable that is connected to the machine with a new logic board. This will work even if the rest of the logic board is dead, as the SSD circuitry is isolated.
You can read more about it here: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/24/apple-special-cdm-tool-macboo...
You can read more about it here: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/24/apple-special-cdm-tool-macboo...
Unfortunately this doesn't apply for warranty repairs directly through Apple, as Apple won't bother using this port. They'll just tell you you're SoL and happily remind you of their iCloud services for backups. I had this happen to me on my 2016 TB MBP where the logic board had issues detecting the power level of the battery and wouldn't boot. I knew of the port, and asked them to use it, but their response was that the warranty would only cover like-for-like repairs and that I was responsible for backing up the data. Fair enough, except that Time Machine can and will lie to you about whether it actually backed up the data on your machine. Which is exactly what happened with my machine when I got it back and attempted a restore. Thankfully I had a separate non-Time Machine back up that I could use to bring my data back, but it wasn't fun manually restoring my OS profile and settings. I even managed to get a CS rep to confirm with me over the phone that I was not the only person to have had this happen to them.
Apologies for ranting here; I just hope I can save another person from this BS if they attempt to rely on this port. Through the entire process no Apple rep would confirm the existence of the tool so they made it seem like I was forced to use them for the warranty repair with total data loss.
If I may ask, samcat116, what's the normal procedure for handling warranty repairs at a certified repair center like the one you work at? Is it just labor cost, with parts billed to Apple? And does that include the copying of the data off the SSDs? I'm imagining for warranty repairs the easiest way to handle them is to just swap the logic boards out like Apple does and not bother doing actual diagnosing at the board level like https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup since the customer isn't paying for parts?
Apologies for ranting here; I just hope I can save another person from this BS if they attempt to rely on this port. Through the entire process no Apple rep would confirm the existence of the tool so they made it seem like I was forced to use them for the warranty repair with total data loss.
If I may ask, samcat116, what's the normal procedure for handling warranty repairs at a certified repair center like the one you work at? Is it just labor cost, with parts billed to Apple? And does that include the copying of the data off the SSDs? I'm imagining for warranty repairs the easiest way to handle them is to just swap the logic boards out like Apple does and not bother doing actual diagnosing at the board level like https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup since the customer isn't paying for parts?
The article explicitly says that port is gone.
"Recovery" meaning what?
When I went to the Genius Bar because my laptop had WiFi issues, they didn't boot from the internal hard drive, they booted from an external unit that seemed to do way more than just function as a USB-external-HD.
If they mean "self-service" recovery, then I don't know that a soldered hard drive is any different from a removable one. It either works or it doesn't, if it does you can recover from a recovery partition... if it doesn't then you can't recover no matter what.
When I went to the Genius Bar because my laptop had WiFi issues, they didn't boot from the internal hard drive, they booted from an external unit that seemed to do way more than just function as a USB-external-HD.
If they mean "self-service" recovery, then I don't know that a soldered hard drive is any different from a removable one. It either works or it doesn't, if it does you can recover from a recovery partition... if it doesn't then you can't recover no matter what.
Well, if your computer dies, you take the hard drive out and plug it into something else to get your files off of it. Here, your data goes with your computer, it seems.
And, if you work with confidential information, just about any issue would make these machines disposable (even within warranty) if your organization is unable to remove the drive containing said confidential information before sending the unit in for repair.
And, if you work with confidential information, just about any issue would make these machines disposable (even within warranty) if your organization is unable to remove the drive containing said confidential information before sending the unit in for repair.
If you work with confidential information, you should be using strong full-disk encryption. Forget about sending your device for repair - what happens if a device is lost or stolen?
They are using full-disk encryption. But most organizations also have policy that requires removal of the encrypted disk before sending a device offsite for repairs.
IIRC, on the 2016 MBP revision, they included a port to be used for data recovery by authorized repair centers.
They appear to have removed that port for this revision.
They appear to have removed that port for this revision.
It's encrypted using the T2 chip (with a key that can't be extracted) so I'm not sure what value getting a copy of the SSD would be. The 2016 MBP did not have this encryption.
with a key that can't be extracted
I'm pretty sure it can, just that the methods are (currently) beyond the reach of DIYers.
Besides, there's probably easier ways... like tapping into the decrypted data. Like any classic DRM scheme, if you have the key and the algorithm, you can get the content. That does not make it easy, but it can certainly be done with enough effort.
I'm pretty sure it can, just that the methods are (currently) beyond the reach of DIYers.
Besides, there's probably easier ways... like tapping into the decrypted data. Like any classic DRM scheme, if you have the key and the algorithm, you can get the content. That does not make it easy, but it can certainly be done with enough effort.
> I'm pretty sure it can, just that the methods are (currently) beyond the reach of DIYers.
That would be very huge news worth many millions of dollars as it's the critical piece of iOS device security.
That would be very huge news worth many millions of dollars as it's the critical piece of iOS device security.
Haven't people extracted keys from TPM chips with electron microscopes? I don't know if the T2 is fundamentally different in some way which would render it immune to such analysis.
>Haven't people extracted keys from TPM chips with electron microscopes?
Once, with one brand, in 2010. And it took 9 months.
Once, with one brand, in 2010. And it took 9 months.
That sounds like much to me, with a 2018 mindset. Is it not pretty easy to read out a chip nowadays, even at low double digit nanometer levels?
Something "worth many millions of dollars" will most certainly be kept very quiet by the repair industry, since it can provide recurring revenue (until someone else discovers and reports it to Apple) to an otherwise extremely repair-hostile ecosystem. Bug bounties are a one-time deal that otherwise gives no advantage to the reporter, but unlocking services are not. These people are certainly not looking for a pat on the back from Apple or wanting to make its devices more difficult to repair.
[deleted]
Buy a new laptop?
The T2 chip?
In the first week of ownership, I ran into the issue that the LTE is flaky coming up from hibernate. Trying to debug that issue (spoiler: there is no fix) really made me appreciate how Apple is operating on a different level from other PC manufacturers. The fact is that Lenovo doesn't have the expertise to make an LTE card or write drivers for it, and neither does the company that makes the card for Lenovo (Fibocom). Fibocom takes an Intel reference design, buys Intel chips, throws the other components on the card, glues some Intel code together and ships it. Lenovo buys it and puts it in the machine, but doesn't really know how it works. When it doesn't work, it's not Intel's problem (they just make reference designs and sell the chips), it's not Fibocom's problem, and even though Lenovo takes responsibility, it's out of its depth in fixing the problem.
Compare Apple. They don't just take an SSD and slap it in a machine. They make their own SSD controller and combine it onto a chip with other functionality. Non-upgradable? Yes. But at least they understand how their own machine works.