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The Case of Apple's Mystery Screw
Pickens writes "Network World reports that in the past if you wanted to remove the outer case on your iPhone 4 to replace the battery or a broken screen, you could use a Phillips screwdriver to remove two tiny screws at the base of the phone and then simply slide off the back cover. But now Apple is replacing the outer screw with a mysterious tamper-resistant 'pentalobular' screw across its most popular product lines, making it harder for do-it-yourselfers to make repairs. What about existing products in the field? Pentalobular screws might find their way into them, too. 'Apple's latest policy will make your blood boil,' says Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit. 'If you take your iPhone 4 into Apple for any kind of service, they will sabotage it by replacing your Phillips screws with the new, tamper-resistant screws. We've spoken with the Apple Store geniuses tasked with carrying out this policy, and they are ashamed of the practice.' Of course, only Apple-authorized service technicians have Pentalobular screwdrivers and they're not allowed to resell them. 'Apple sees a huge profit potential,' says Wiens. 'A hundred dollars per year in incremental revenue on their installed base is a tremendous opportunity.'"
Thanks, Apple! I love being told I'm a fucking idiot and shouldn't be allowed to open my PURCHASED device, should I choose to do so.
Yes, that goes for all companies that use screwy screws like this.
Living With a Nerd
Isn't that called theft?
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
type pentalobular screwdriver in google - how fucking hard can that be?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
2. Yes, special screwdrivers will stop the casual tinker, but not a business man, or any other determined person. This is why most normal businesses do not use weird screws as security. The idea just pisses off your customers WITHOUT in anyway affecting competitors.
3. Apple has always been a control freak of a company. Luckily, their are other products out there that are cheaper, just as well built, that encourage more tinkering (aka android).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Meh, I made one using my dremel and a spare hex shank from a driver set. If any DIY'er can't do THAT then they probably don't need to be inside their phone anyway.
Or be called a DIY'er, come to think of it.
So go ahead, set your iPhone free with our iPhone 4 Liberation Kit! Rid your phone of those terrible Pentalobe screws forever. The $9.95 kit includes a Pentalobe driver, 2 replacement PHILLIPS screws, and a regular #00 Phillips screwdriver.
I suppose they weren't selling all that many of these so they decided to go ahead and do some mud-raking to generate sales. You can even get one of these screwdrivers for less if you shop around. How about iFixit's diabolical plan to screw you out of a few dollars on tools?
Just another reason to buy an Android phone and not an iPhone. Maybe I'll buy a PC laptop instead of that MacBook Pro I was thinking of buying in case they decide to pull crap like this on their other lines of products.
If Microsoft did this, somehow the screws would allow hackers to remotely take over your system. Five years from now a patch would be applied in the form of masking tape over the screw heads.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This screw design was patented in - 1974. Yeah keep that conspiracy going, boys.
I don't know what the screw design patent has to do with it, it's more the fact that the average household does not have a pentalobular screwdriver. I'm reminded of Tim Wu's proposition that there were two Apples: Steve Wozniak's and Steve Jobs'.
There is no conspiracy, it's just another omen that we have moved so far away from Wozniak's Apple that we are seeing this in Jobs' Apple. There's no question who's been making the most money but the days of Apple encouraging the user and hobbyist to open up their products and tinker and learn are over. Wozniak's Apple is dead. This is no conspiracy. This is simply fact; the final screw in the hobbyist's ass is yet more unneeded evidence indicating this.
My work here is dung.
I can understand switching away from Phillips, since those suckers strip pretty badly even in larger sizes, and strip like it's their job in smaller ones; but switching to some totally oddball screw type, as opposed to one of the various fairly standardized strip-resistant heads already in use in electronics and elsewhere seems like a dick move.
The hardcore DIY community isn't the target of this change. They'll do whatever it takes.
Don't forget, Apple is not really a computer company any more. It's an consumer electronics company. They sell to consumers, not geeks. (Geeks buy anyway, because the engineering is great, but again that's clearly the minority case.)
Consumers have Phillips screwdrivers in the tool box. Consumers may try to save a few dozen bucks trying to replace the battery in their iPod or upgrade the mass storage in their iPad. Apple doesn't want that to happen, for a variety of reasons. For instance, most Apple products truly have no user-serviceable components at the skill level of most Apple customers. Apple probably wants inept DIY attempts to fail as expensively as possible--full-price off-the-shelf replacement ("You voided your warranty, and killed your iPhone. You'll have to buy anew."), expensive service work, etc. And in the few cases where there are genuinely user-serviceable bits in the product, Apple still wants to capture the service money.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
It's just my opinion, but Philips screw heads are only slightly better than slotted heads. It's still very easy to torque out of the opening. Square drive, Hex/Allen, Torx all allow much more torque to be applied to the screw without stripping the head. I notice in commercial applications, where driving a large number of fasteners quickly is important (home decking, trailer flooring) you almost always see square or Torx drive heads due to the positive driver/head linkup and the high torque that can be applied.
The non-conspiracy version of this story isn't that Apple's trying to screw the end user, but that they're using Loctite or some other screw fixative on the screws, the screws are torqued in tight and they have a history of stripping the screws to get them out.
I just find it curious they would use pentalobe instead of Torx, or to demonstrate some meanness, security torx.
What? You never heard of a Sony screwdriver? When I worked at the California Museum of Science and Industry in LA back in the late 80s, they sent me to a training class to learn how to work on the Sony 3/4 video tape players - which we used a lot in the museum because they had better video quality and were built like tanks. Anyway, only people who had attended that class were allowed to purchase a special screwdriver that would work with certain screws in that VCR.
Tamper resistant screws have been around for ages. The problem isn't the screws. The problem is using them to jack up revenues at the customer's expense for things that could otherwise be easily done by an average customer or electronics technician. In Sony's case the screws only protected parts of the VCR that one would not know how to adjust properly if one had not taken the class. In Apple's case the screws only protect Apple's bottom line.
In the years since the iPod came out Apple has shown their true nature. Anyone who has purchased an Apple product since then deserves what they get and should not complain.