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Was thinking exactly the same thing - replaced a hard drive in an MBP last year, 32 screws... all Philips, except the last 4 were torx. Didn't have the right size, so had to go into town the following day to complete the job. At least it was a relatively standard size though, unlike the screws they're using on their newer models... Someone is selling the screw drivers here though.

1) The Galaxy Tab's camera cost a whopping $8. Development costs should be minimal, as the iPhone has a camera.
2) Have you seen how much wasted space there is in an iPad? You could put a HUGE camera on there with no effect on battery life.
3) Ahhh.... that sounds much better.

Leaving out a camera was not done for any technical or cost reason, but to give them something significant to add in the next version. And since their competition was nil, it made sense. No tablet could ever be released anymore without a camera, except maybe ultra-low budget tablets.

Cameras and USB ports aren't absolutely essential to a tablet, but their presence will still be missed by buyers and reviewers.

Too late you can buy the "liberation" kit for $10 that supports the removal of the funky screw with a special screwdriver. Wow, lets give props to the Chinese man they don't miss a chance at profit! And as for Apple a big Nelson "HA HA" is in order.

http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019 That didn't take long.

Well that didn't take long.

http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

A quick Google found a cheap and easy kit for removing and replacing these screws. You can probably get the screwdriver alone for less.

My guess is that the point, like most roadblocks on customers, is to discourage casual hobbyists from messing with their devices. Everyone else can get around it pretty easily.

One of the rare cases where it isn't good to have adblock. If you hadn't used adblock (or the ad hasn't been in your regional filter) you could have avoid the googling. The second article is from the guys you linked to for the kit and the kit is on that page. Or maybe you have your own adfilter in your brain.

Very little time indeed:
http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

[yes, apologies for replying to my own posts]

...but apparently I don't need to make one:

$12.95 from iFixit. They're obviously ahead of me.

http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

There is always a tool for the job.

Yeah, the size may be, but anybody that has ever done a lick of hardware work on a Mac knows that these screws date all the way back to the original Macintosh. They were hexalobular, but at the time, it was just as hard to find the drivers for them. Apple has been pulling this kind of stuff for years. I used to turn a blind eye to it, but I have just gotten tired of the creeping amount of control they exert over every new iteration of their products. I honestly see them as the biggest threat to free and open computing out there, bigger than Microsoft ever was.

Diyers can use this kit.

The one you linked to is for the MacBook Air, not the iPhone 4. The iPhone one, which is here, includes comments explaining that this is actually not the correct tool, it's just a tool that's close enough to do the job of removing the pentalobe screws and putting regular ones in their place. You can't buy the actual screwdriver.

But the point isn't that it's impossible to get a tool that opens these devices. The point is that Apple is intentionally going out of their way to make it difficult to open these devices so that the vast majority of their users will fork over cash to get a "Genius"(R) to do it for them. It's not illegal or even necessarily unethical, it's just really scummy, and a reason to avoid buying from them.

There

The CEO of iFixit talks about how evil Apple is for changing the screws in their iPhone, but thankfully his company has a solution, a $10 USD "liberation kit" which liberates you from the evil hands of Apple by selling you a pentalobular screw driver for three times its normal cost. Gee, thanks!

1. Replacement philips screws

2. A philips screwdriver for said screws

3. A second, non-approved, screwdriver that they claim will easily remove the penta-stupid screws. As it is not an official penta screwdriver, this makeshift screwdriver is likely to damage the penta screws (but NOT the iphone).

I have no connection with ifixit, and have not even purchased their stuff. I can not attest to their quality.

Gee, the screwdriver is also being sold on a site linked to in the article. http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/MacBook-Air-5-Point-Pentalobe-Screwdriver/IF145-090/

I can't believe you passed up the opportunity.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pentalobular+screwdriver

And, in the spirit of actually being immediately helpful, The Register's article about this subject had a link to a kit with the appropriate screwdriver and replacement non-bondange-and-domination Phillips screws for an iPhone 4. Just don't take it to any Apple service outlet after that; as TFA points out, they'll undo your work and put those ridiculous screws back in.

Right back at you.
iPhone 4 Liberation Kit
http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

A quick Google found a cheap and easy kit for removing and replacing these screws. You can probably get the screwdriver alone for less.

My guess is that the point, like most roadblocks on customers, is to discourage casual hobbyists from messing with their devices. Everyone else can get around it pretty easily.

http://www.ifixit.com/iPhone-Parts/iPhone-4-Liberation-Kit/IF182-019

The physical construction of the phone makes his scenario extremely unlikely as well.

The battery(basically the only source of energy sufficient to do any damage to the phone or its surroundings, none of the caps in that thing are other than tiny-size tantalum units,) is enclosed at the back of the phone only by a little plastic battery door. Were it to blow, it'd be totally plausible for that door to be melted/deformed/pop off and the user to suffer burns on their hand, wrist, possibly neck/shoulder, depending on the angle of the flames. On the other side of the battery, between it and the user's ear, is pretty much the entire damn phone. Toughened glass touchscreen, RF shielding, keyboard, logic board, etc. It would take an extraordinarily 'shaped' failure of the battery to cut through all that, rather than just exiting the battery compartment through the flimsy plastic door...

Batteries can and do burn, often pretty enthusiastically, and "explosion" isn't totally inaccurate if they are enclosed at the time; but they aren't exactly shaped charges here, just some flames and hot gasses that would tend to exit the easy way.

The internal OS is WinCE, so the interface is either serial or USB.

The internal OS of what? The Kinect? Unlikely. Check the iFixit teardown. The device is pretty basic in terms of processing capabilities, relying on the Xbox to do most of the heavy lifting. Or are you referring to the Xbox? If so, you're still wrong. The Xbox 360 OS is not Windows CE. About the closest you can come to comparing it to another existing OS is by looking at its lineage. The Xbox 360 OS was derived from the original Xbox OS, which in turn was derived from Windows 2000. The extent that the Xbox 360 OS resembles Windows 2000 is almost certainly miniscule at this point, as it runs on an architecture that is not supported by the Windows codebase and does not need most of the core functionality of a Windows OS (shell, explorer, etc). There are probably some bits and pieces of Windows 2000 kernel code still lurking around somewhere, but aside from exposing DirectX and some minimal win32 functionality that's really about it.

Nothing. I had to buy the Kinect at retail, just like we do with every device we take apart.

Check out Step 15 The Ram is circled in yellow. No sockets that I can see.-- it looks like surface mounting.

iFixit cracked the case on a new Macbook Air and did an expose. http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Air-11-Inch-Model-A1370-Teardown/3745/1 The SSD is a DIMM package, not chips soldered onto the main logic board. It seems to be a custom design from Toshiba, not anything off the shelf from the regular suppliers of SSDs (Corsair, Intel etc.) but it can be swapped out and replaced, and maybe in the future when the flash chips are up to it Apple or some OEM will release a larger capacity version. The main system RAM IS soldered onto the board and is not field-upgradeable.

In the MacBook Air, the SSD chips are soldered to the logic board. It is not like there is a choice on what kind of drive can be installed. When 64GB isn't enough, there is no way to upgrade. When the SSD gets a fault, there is no drive to swap out - it would be time for a new logic board. With NAND Flash having a finite lifetime, soldering the SSDs to the logic board is a prime example of planned obsolescence. When the SSD dies (when, not if), there is only Apple to turn to, so Apple effectively has vendor lock-in as well, but we have come to expect that from Apple.

No, the SSD's are on a removable board. See http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Air-11-Inch-Model-A1370-Teardown/3745/1 (It's the thing that comes off from above the RAM)

FTFS: "Apple has apparently found that non-bumper style cases — specifically those that slide onto the iPhone 4, which are occasionally prone to particulate matter getting caught between the rear of the phone and the case — can cause unexpected scratching that could quickly develop into full-on cracking."

This happened to me (particulate matter getting caught between the rear of the phone and the case causing scratches). Have gone caseless since with no further scratching. In any case, replacing the back panel is trivial.

Fantastic question! You own it. This information is *never* going behind a paywall. Everything is CC-licensed, and original authors retain ownership of their own stuff. We are a free, open repair manual wiki. We're finalizing an XML schema for the manuals, and we are going to do regular data dumps to archive.org. If you want to take all the manuals + PDFs and post them on your site, please do. This is too important to risk someone locking it down-- the world needs an open repair manual. We're doing our darndest to make that happen, but we can't do it alone!

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-Xbox-360-Cooling-Fan-Duct/3336/1
The fact that ANY air flows through this mess of plastic and metal is amazing! You actually DO need to take it apart to get the dust out.

This is the second time in this thread that I've caught an Apple hater claiming that a fanboy had made up facts when the Apple hater himself had been making up facts. This study from February 2010 by Rescuecom ranks Apple #1 in reliability for the last three years. As for pre-magsafe macs, I can only surmise that you don't see any because you haven't been looking. My laptop and my desktop are both 5 years old and are PPC (one's a G5 desktop and one's a G4 laptop). THEY RUN FINE. I did have a service call on the laptop once because a key on the keyboard stopped working. Also, where in the world did you get this idea that you can't get applications? I've never had a problem in my life getting a universal binary for something. As for getting batteries and replacement parts, you're nuts, have you ever heard of ifixit? Just two years ago I got a battery for a 1999 G3 lombard laptop (yes, that one runs fine too!). The idea that you can't get replacement parts for old macs is just silly. Good lord, I don't know why I even read these slashdot apple hate-fests...

The old one may be using Infineon: http://www.phonewreck.com/2009/06/19/iphone-3gs-teardown-and-analysis/

But the iPhone 4 seems to use Skyworks: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4-Teardown/3130/2

Seek, and ye shall find: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4-Teardown/3130/1

"A great example of this [stagnation] is the notable lack of GPS chips in laptops."

Or maybe it's because Intel did some research and found that 99% of people use their laptops indoors 99% of the time.

"Today's 3G wireless chipsets integrate GPS, Bluetooth, and 802.11n on a single chip."

And they do so at great expense because size and power consumption are an order of magnitude more important in a handheld than on a desktop. And single chips cost more to revise than individual components. But speaking of desktops, have you seen the Mac Mini? Tiny little motherboard with a two-core CPU, wired and wireless networking, bluetooth, SATA, two types of digital video output, FireWire, USB, an SD card reader, audio in, and analog and digital audio out. When the first Mac Mini came out five years ago it lacked the cardreader, had one video out, only had analog audio, and BlueTooth and 802.11 were physically separate add-on cards. Progress has been made.

You keep stating that it is the same hardware, but it isn't. Although apple uses some of the same commodity components as other manufacturers, but they engineer their products quite differently from others with an overall greater emphasis on quality. A4 chip residing in ipads is not "same hardware" that's in other tablets(laugh) and netbooks. The claim that they sell the same hardware as acer, hp, or dell is ridiculous. Apple earns higher margins on their consumer items because their products provide higher value, this is because of software and hardware integration. Other pc makers slap windows on their boxes while apple tailors their software to each device. That's what people pay extra for and thats how apple makes good margins, by offering something no one else can.

You do realize that Apple themselves produces practically none of their internal hardware...right?

Tearedown of the 3GS

iPhone mainboard.

"Here's what EETimes.com is claiming to be the first teardown of the A4 processor

Oh really?

um... I honestly believe that the latest Android phones have comparable features to the latest iPhone model, yes.

like anything you buy, the competing products have various strengths and weaknesses. but they're all comparable and none is clearly superior to the rest.

google informs me that I am not the only one who thinks so

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/devices/htc-incredible-vs-apple-iphone-3gs/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/194464/droid_vs_iphone_3gs_an_update.html

http://www.ifixit.com/Misc/nexus_vs_iphone.html

Gosh. If it were that easy to keep things quiet with the FCC, you'd have thought that Apple would've known about it.

Instead, we get this.

Hmm.

You'd think so.... but possibly not. And this might also account for being able to reduce the size of everything *and* probably improve power usage too.

I think even with older iPhones/iPods they've had funny serial numbers on chips that are similar to, but not quite the same as other off-the-shelf components, making it not entirely clear what they are.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple-A4-Teardown/2204/1

It's not a "dual core Power Architecture."

According to the teardown, the chip is "quite similar to the Samsung processor Apple uses in the iPhone."

iFixit concluded that it was a Cortex A8 in there and I've seen nothing to contradict that.

RAM is cheap, and there's no lack of space inside the ipad for an extra chip.

The iPad's A4 processor has the RAM inside the A4 package using package-on-package technology. Perhaps the RAM inside the A4 could have been a higher density, but space inside the iPad is not relevant.

Integrating the RAM minimizes the pinout of the A4 and may have allowed them to avoid a difficult-to-breakout BGA pitch. (Changing from a 0.5mm to 0.4mm pitch allows more pins but complicates PCB routing and PCB expense.) I can't tell from this shot of the A4 what pitch is used, but the pin count is pretty high. Note: You need the blank areas in order to breakout traces and place vias.

RAM is cheap, and there's no lack of space inside the ipad for an extra chip.

The iPad's A4 processor has the RAM inside the A4 package using package-on-package technology. Perhaps the RAM inside the A4 could have been a higher density, but space inside the iPad is not relevant.

Integrating the RAM minimizes the pinout of the A4 and may have allowed them to avoid a difficult-to-breakout BGA pitch. (Changing from a 0.5mm to 0.4mm pitch allows more pins but complicates PCB routing and PCB expense.) I can't tell from this shot of the A4 what pitch is used, but the pin count is pretty high. Note: You need the blank areas in order to breakout traces and place vias.

The latest generation of iMacs have removable graphics cards.

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac-Intel-27-Inch-Teardown/1236/3#s6693

Definitely true.

If you take a look at the iPad Teardown, you'll see the WiFi antenna (step 24, bottom), which can only peer out of the Apple logo. There's no use thinking otherwise - it's just that one antenna out the spot in the back. The rest of the case is metal, and the screen probably has a metal backing on it, making the only place for signals to escape is that little patch of plastic.

I'm surprised you get any signal at all without having to "aim" the back of the iPad at the AP.

You haven't heard of http://www.ifixit.com/, eh?

I haven't built a PC in 10 years. I probably won't ever again. Too much effort; too expensive due to getting sucked in to going for higher-end components; too much effort with unreliability; too expensive to buy an OS (no, I don't want to us Linux any more either); and for games, a dedicated console is a better choice.

I'm quite happy to buy a mid-range Dell if I'm worrying about price... at least everything has been tested, and it's one place to go if something fails. If price isn't an option, or I want something that just works really well, then it's a Mac all the way thanks. I don't have the time to spend pissing around doing the research, then keeping on top of drivers, or fiddling with configuring the OS. Give me something that works out of the box thanks.

The non-unibody MacBook Pros take quite a bit of finicky work to replace a hard drive. It's my understanding that the Unibody designs made it significantly easier. But, that said, as a sysadmin in a primarily Mac shop I've only had to replace a MacBook Pro hard drive once and pull the drive out of a wet polycarbonate MacBook once. Strangely it's as if the quality of Apple gear is very good.

That said the Dell laptop that had its failed hard drive replaced twice in a month had a very accessible hard drive tray. Maybe they intended the hard drive to be replaced so frequently.

'... what iPod would that be? You can change the battery in every iPod, it just takes a little effort rather than a trip to walmart for a new 'pack'.'

A little effort? Here are the 24 risky, difficult steps required just to get at the battery in a current iPod Classic:

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-iPod-Classic-Battery/561/1

("To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order")

As the guide notes: "Apple designed their new iPods to be very difficult to take apart without destroying major components. Because of the metal faceplate, the metal backing, and the 13 (yes, 13) metal clips holding the case together, this is one of the toughest iPods to disassemble. Proceed with caution and the warning that you may significantly damage your iPod beyond its present condition." Because of the risk of destroying components using this approach, some people seriously suggest just cracking it open with a Dremel and living with the (severe!) cosmetic damage:

http://www.pcxmedics.com/blog/diy/alternative-way-to-opendisassemble-an-ipod-classic-case/

'Its certainly possible for anyone who wants to put some effort into it, and since the mass of the people buying them will just replace it before the battery is shot anyway, its really not an issue.'

This is, of course, exactly the attitude Apple wants to encourage - either buy a new one, or use their expensive service option.

'There IS an engineering reason to it as well you know, its not just 'because they are assholes'.'

Yes, the engineers were asked to design a product that would be very hostile to disassembly, and they've succeeded rather well. This goes way beyond making something that's just not actively designed for easy battery replacement by the user (as in earlier iPod generations).

One of the very common example is the laser assembly on almost any optical disc reader. This is easy to forget about, even though it most definitely uses a flexible PCB. It's not just for connection, either, because the PCB connects to the laser, often has the adjustment potentiometer soldered on, and connects to the optical pickup block and the focus coils.

Back of lens unit on Sony DSC camera

Odometer with large flexible PCB

Video game controller with flexi-PCB layer over rigid PCB, with plenty of SMT components.

The two main benefits of a flexible PCB that I can see: ability to fit into non-planar space, and ability to solder all components onto PCB, even though component leads don't terminate in a planar space.

only for certain values of "can't".

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/18/2227231
which links to:
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/137639,macbook-unremoveable-battery-is-a-doddle-to-replace.aspx
which links to:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Unibody/618/1#s3248

The MacMini uses 2.5" drives, so you can only go as high as 500GB. For the second hard drive, you can just take the optical drive off and plug it in another 500GB and get the full terabyte. iFixit has an article about that here: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Mac-mini-A1283-Terabyte-Drive/660/1