
MacBook Pro 13" Touch Bar 2018 Teardown - velmu
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Touch+Bar+2018+Teardown/111384
======
rayiner
So for the first time in more than a decade, I bought a non-Apple personal
machine. (Thinkpad X1C 6th gen). It's _okay._

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.

~~~
sharms
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

~~~
timidiceball
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.

~~~
sharms
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.

------
crazygringo
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...](https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/Xi2aYwBSYTs2fZT1.huge)

~~~
nsxwolf
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.

~~~
petercooper
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.)

~~~
std_throwaway
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.

------
bigtones
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...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/07/13/2018-macbook-pro-fastest-
laptop-ssd-ever/)

~~~
MBCook
Haven’t the drives been soldered on board for quite a few years now? At least
since the 2016 redesign, right?

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
Not in all models. The non-touchbar 2017 13" had an upgradeable ssd.

~~~
abrowne
If you can find something to upgrade it with!

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
Well, yes, there's that. I assume you'd have to get one pulled from a busted
machine on eBay.

~~~
abrowne
Which caps your upgrade at whatever largest size Apple ever sold, which you
may already have.

------
walterbell
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](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?

------
notafraudster
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.

------
solarkraft
> Given this MacBook's non-removable storage, Apple must have a new recovery
> method. Any ideas?

None?

~~~
samcat116
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...](https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/24/apple-special-cdm-
tool-macbook-pro-ssd-recover-repairs/)

~~~
stavrus
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](https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup)
since the customer isn't paying for parts?

------
Groxx
> _NXP 80V18 secure NFC module_

Does that mean there's an NFC antenna somewhere on the laptop?

