Teardown of new iPad Pro 9.7-inch shows Apple makes it even harder to repair than original
The masochists at iFixit are back at it. After recently prying open the new iPhone 5SE, the teardown specialists have labored over the new iPad Pro 9.7-inch edition -- with the usual results for an Apple tablet.
It's no secret that iPads -- like many of Apple's products -- are difficult to repair, which is why iFixit exists in the first place. But the smaller iPad Pro is even less easy to take apart to fix than its bigger brother. While the original iPad Pro 12.9-inch received a result of 3 out of 10 on iFixit's Repairability Score, the 9.7-inch edition earns just a 2 out of 10.
The iPad Pro 9.7-inch mixes the higher-end specs of the 12.9-inch model with the form factor of the iPad Air. That means something like the Smart Connector -- allowing for Apple's Smart Keyboard -- has to be added to the new tablet. As iFixit mentioned in its 12.9-inch teardown, the Smart Connector is seemingly impossible to replace, though the odds are you won't need to, as it doesn't have any moving parts.
