iPod Touch tough to repair
iFixit's teardown also shows a "a much simpler, cheaper design" for the screen and a weaker home button.
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The site gave the fifth-generation iPod a ranking of 3 on a repairability scale of 10, with 10 being the easiest. It noted it's difficult to open the case, but it's not impossible, and the battery is flanked by notches that makes it fairly easy to remove.
However, the volume buttons, microphone, LED flash, and power button are connected with one ribbon cable. To repair one component would require replacing the entire ribbon cable assembly. And the Lightning connector, headphone jack and microphone ribbon cable are all soldered to the logic board."This is just another example of how Apple is simplifying and grouping the components in its products," iFixit noted. "Unfortunately, in doing so, it's inadvertently putting an end to repairability."
Meanwhile, the site say that when comparing the Touch to the iPhone 5 display, "it's apparent that this is a much simpler, cheaper design, despite Apple claiming the two have very similar functionality."And iFixit had praised Apple for designing a stronger home button for the iPhone 5, but it said it was "somewhat disappointed" with the weaker, rubber-membrane design of the Touch's home button.
The teardown also showed the iPod Touch's main components suppliers include Cirrus Logic, Toshiba, Murata, Broadcom, STMicro, Texas Instruments, and NXP Semi.