AirTag 2 teardown suggests Apple has quietly hardened the speaker against removal

Apple AirTag

• AirTag 2 features a more securely attached speaker to deter misuse and tampering
• Apple adds hardware-level privacy tweaks to prevent unwanted tracking
• Early teardown confirms tougher speaker removal compared to original AirTag

Did our AI summary help?

AirTag 2 is starting to reach users today, and an early teardown is already offering insight into how Apple has changed its design beneath the surface. YouTuber Joseph Taylor has published an unboxing and teardown video of the new tracker, revealing what appears to be an additional, unannounced privacy-focused tweak.

When Apple launched the original AirTag nearly five years ago, it quickly became clear that the product could be misused. Despite built-in safeguards, bad actors found ways to exploit AirTags for unwanted tracking, including by disabling or removing the internal speaker to make the device harder to detect. Apple has since rolled out multiple software updates to address the issue, but hardware-level vulnerabilities remained a concern.

With AirTag 2, Apple has publicly emphasised stronger protections against misuse. The company says the new tracker includes “industry-first protections against unwanted tracking”, highlighting cross-platform alerts and Bluetooth identifiers that rotate frequently to make covert tracking more difficult.

However, Taylor’s teardown suggests Apple has also made a quieter but potentially important physical change. Near the end of the video, Taylor attempts to remove the internal speaker magnet, a common modification used to silence first-generation AirTags. Unlike the original model, the speaker assembly in AirTag 2 appears to be far more securely attached.

Taylor notes that the speaker is “glued in quite well” and requires significantly more effort and multiple tools to remove. While he ultimately manages to extract it, the process is notably more difficult than before. This added resistance could act as a deterrent, making it harder for casual misuse and raising the barrier for anyone attempting to disable the sound alerts.

The finding lines up with earlier reporting. Last year, Bloomberg suggested that one of the privacy upgrades planned for AirTag 2 would involve changes to the speaker specifically to prevent easy removal. The new teardown appears to confirm that Apple followed through on that approach.

Taken together, these changes point to a more layered strategy. Rather than relying solely on software alerts and notifications, Apple seems to be reinforcing AirTag’s safety measures at the hardware level as well. By making the speaker harder to tamper with, the company reduces one of the most common ways AirTags were previously abused.

It remains to be seen how effective these combined measures will be in real-world use. Determined users may still find ways around the safeguards, but the added friction is likely to reduce misuse at scale. For legitimate users, the changes should be invisible, while for bad actors, AirTag 2 becomes a less attractive tool.

As AirTag 2 rolls out more widely, further teardowns and long-term use will reveal whether these design tweaks meaningfully reduce unwanted tracking. For now, the early signs suggest Apple has taken the criticism seriously and is continuing to refine AirTag with safety in mind.