Apple used 'gobs of adhesive' to put together 9.7-inch iPad Pro

By Julian Chokkattu April 4, 2016

ipad pro teardown — Image used with permission by copyright holder

After recently completing a teardown of the iPhone SE — finding it housing the specs of the 6S in the body of a 5S — the folks at iFixit are at it again, now targeting the new iPad Pro.

The 9.7-inch variant of the iPad Pro comprises parts from other devices like the iPhone 6S and the iPad Pro 12.9-inch, and it looks like Apple had to use “gobs of adhesive” to cram everything in there in a smaller frame.

The 7,306mAh battery takes up the most space in the iPad Pro, and Apple has unusually moved the display cable to the bottom right side of the device. The iPad Pro’s camera is significantly better than its 12.9-inch brother, as it uses the same one as the iPhone 6S — and likely includes optical-image stablilization.

That may seem like good news, but it will unfortunately perpetuate the use of tablets as cameras. The use of the 6S camera is also why the camera protrudes from the back — a feature that was not present on the larger 12.9-inch variant.

The biggest takeaway from iFixit’s teardown is that you may want to put a case on your new iPad Pro, and make sure that you never have to attempt to repair it — because the site gave Apple’s latest device a repairability rating of 2 out of 10.

The poor score is in large part due to the amount of adhesive Apple used on the device to hold everything together in place. For example, the iPad Pro 12.9-inch had adhesive pull tabs on its battery, but it’s not present in the 9.7-inch variant, making removing the battery a “sticky affair.”

Check out the full teardown here.

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Julian Chokkattu

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…

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