Magic Trackpad Teardown

Edit Step 1 — Magic Trackpad Teardown

• The Magic Trackpad is the first full desktop trackpad that supports a full set of gestures, including click, scroll, swipe, and rotate, all available at the tip of your fingers.
• Requirements:

  • Mac desktop or laptop.
  • Bluetooth connectivity.
  • Mac OS X 10.6.4 or later.
  • And of course, batteries! (Apple Battery Charger not included).
• As the rumors confirmed, the Magic Trackpad is designated Model A1339.

Edit Step 2

• The Magic Trackpad is 80% larger than the trackpad included in current MacBook Pro models.
• It features the same aluminum design as its wireless keyboard counterpart, allowing for the perfect union of typing and gestures.
• Let us not forget the main attraction, which is the 0.5 mm thick, capacitive touch, wear-resistant glass surface.
• That's all good, but what lies inside?

Edit Step 3

• Removing the batteries is about as straightforward as it can get. Give a twist to the battery door and the two AA batteries slide right out.

  • Check out those square threads! While square threads have the highest mechanical efficiency of all lead screws, their difficulty of manufacturing makes them prohibitive for most applications.
  • Kudos, Apple, for sweating the details.

Edit Step 4

• Time to get our hands dirty!
• Use a plastic opening tool to pry the lower panel away from the adhesive securing around its left, right, and top edges.

  • Don't pry up along the bottom. There are a bunch of retaining clips.
• After slicing through most of the adhesive, the lower panel lifts right off.

Edit Step 5

• And there's......not really that much to this thing.
• After a good amount of quasi-non-destructive prying, the inner spacer can be removed from the trackpad.

  • This spacer prevents the highly unlikely event of squeezing the lower panel against the logic board hard enough to damage it.

Edit Step 6

• Next, disconnect the two ribbon cables connecting the capacitive touch pad to the logic board.

  • These things are ridiculously thin and are stuck to the underside of the touch pad. If you plan to remove them, proceed with caution.

Edit Step 7

• We've noticed a trend about Apple's newer products: thin and pretty = not user serviceable. The Magic Trackpad is no exception.
• After using a heat gun to warm up the adhesive, the touch pad can be carefully pried off the aluminum chassis.

  • This is not for the faint of heart. A copious amount of heat, guitar picks, and plastic opening tools were required to make this thing budge.

• View huge
• Image metadata

Edit Step 9

• To completely remove the logic board, you must first de-solder the four wires leading to the battery connector/status LED.
• After removing two Phillips screws, the logic board can be separated from the chassis.

Edit Step 10

• At the heart of the Magic Trackpad's logic board lies a Broadcom BCM2042 for Bluetooth connectivity.

  • This is the same chip used by the Magic Mouse for data transmission.
• We found a Broadcom BCM5974 touch screen controller chip that provides Multi-touch functionality.

  • This is the same chip you'll find in the iPhone, iPod Touch, and MacBook Air.
• Also, an SST 25WF020 provides 2 Mbit of serial flash memory.
• This appears to be a TI CD3238, which has been identified by Hearst as a RS232 line driver/receiver. It was also in the original iPhone with a BCM5973A.
• The back of the logic board features nothing but blackness and glue.

• View huge
• Image metadata

Edit Step 11

• And there it lies: the Magic Trackpad in nine difficult-to-disassemble pieces.
• Keep an eye on our teardown page for an inside look at the latest gadgets!