In Apple’s case, the good news is that it looks like the company’s newly-launched MacBook Airs could potentially feature a cheaper battery repair program. This is according to Apple’s internal Service Readiness Guide that was obtained by MacRumors, where it was discovered that the batteries in the new MacBook Airs can actually be replaced individually.
For those unfamiliar with the repair process, prior to the 2018 MacBook Air, Retina MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops released since 2012 had the battery glued to the top case of the laptop, which means that a simple process of replacing the battery also meant having to replace the entire top enclosure, including the keyboard and trackpad, which many felt was unnecessary and no doubt added to the costs.
However this change would seem to indicate that might no longer be necessary, which should make changing batteries on the new MacBook Air easier and potentially cheaper. We can only assume and hope that these design changes will eventually be applied to Apple’s other future laptops.