In a lone piece of happy repair news: the trackpad is replaceable as ever. Twirl away a few Torx screws, and off it flies.

We get our first taste of some chips under the trackpad (looking virtually unchanged from their first outing back in 2016):

STMicroelectronics STM32F103VB ARM Cortex-M3 MCU

Broadcom BCM5976C1KUFBG Touch Controller

Maxim Integrated MAX11291ENX 24-Bit, 6-Channel Delta-Sigma ADC

Meanwhile, we can't help but notice the earlier model's port to nowhere—which turned out to be for data recovery—is mysteriously absent.

Given this MacBook's non-removable storage, Apple must have a new recovery method?

Update: They didn't—until they did.