What are you referring to? Digital audio output is available from the various types of USB ports that most of their devices have. If I understand correctly, the iPhone and iPad Lightning port only has digital audio output, and requires an adapter to expose an analogue audio output suitable for earphones or headphones (assuming that the device doesn’t have a headphone jack).

There must be a reason for including one or two fans, even though not required in other M1 devices. I wonder if Apple increased the M1 CPU clock rate for higher performance with one fan, and increased it further with two fans? I guess that this will become evident in M1 CPU benchmark testing.

It looks like my several comments are more than 3 years too late for those who commented previously. Oh well…

Why disconnect the display assembly? Well, you really need the display assembly to lie flat on a table while you work on it. With this model MacBook when the display is opened all the way and laid flat on a table the laptop’s body will be at about a 45 degree angle relative to the table, and would be a challenge to securely support while you work on the display. If you do have a good way to support the laptop then it’s still important to remove the battery to prevent it from accidentally getting powered on.

It’s hard to control where a heat gun blows. An alternative that is easier to control and confine to the target area is a microwave heated heat-retaining bag, such as the iFixit iOpener. Similar microwave heating bags are sold by drugstores.

The suction cup won’t be able to attach well if glass is cracked beneath it. Use clear packing tape to cover the crack(s) — this helps the suction cup hold well and helps prevent further breakage of the glass.

Don’t use glue. Use double-coated tissue tape, also known as adhesive transfer tape, which applies like a double-sided adhesive tape, but after you peel away the outer covering layer all that is left is a thin adhesive layer. Easy to cut to length and shape to precisely apply to the frame for the glass will adhere to. The adhesive should be a low surface energy acrylic adhesive, such as 3M 300LSE:

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/a...

Another that I’ve used several times is 3M 9448A but the description says “formulated to hold well even in high temperatures”, which might make it harder to replace the glass again:

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/a...

USB-C also can handle much higher current and much faster data rate than Lightning.

Lightning plugs have all of their contacts exposed, and users inevitably touch them, depositing skin salts and oils that together with the electrical current over time causes corrosion of the plugs and the device’s internal contacts. USB-C ought to be much more reliable in the long term because users can’t casually touch any of the contacts. Lightning cables also have an extremely high failure rate at the point where the cable attaches to the connector, with broken conductors and/or insulators.

More specs on xeon W-2140B microprocessor:

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_...