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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.'"
To be brutally honest, you shouldn't have purchased an Apple device if you valued your freedoms THAT much... It is a well documented and thoroughly slashdotted subject this.
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.
Don't be defensive and taking it personally. They don't REALLY think you're an idiot. They don't REALLY think you'll break your device.
They just want to CHARGE you for 100% of device maintenance and support. It's $$$, not smarts.
Making these things about skills and smarts is a disservice to ALL CONSUMERS b/c it gives CREDIBILITY to the company's bogus argument that this prevents unskilled consumers from causing damage and driving up support costs for everybody since #1 most consumers skilled or not will never open the device anyways and #2 of the ones who do, the % who open the device, break it, AND then try to get free support is VANISHINGLY SMALL in actual honesty.
You may be able to patent the screws, but I doubt you could patent the removal tool so much that no third party could manufacture them. (Apple once again showing their brilliant "security through obscurity" ideals.) I can guarantee that within months there will be multiple companies manufacturing these pentalobe screwdrivers, and selling them publicly to anyone. So congratulations Apple, you are pissing off your loyal customers to gain a small time frame when the tool is hard to come by. And switching out existing customers standard screws if they bring in their phones for any type of service? Tsk tsk. That is pretty underhanded.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Yea because the Chinese manufacturers and Harbor Freight and eBay are going to be on the ball at keeping penobular tools out of their inventories.
Lets not forget that its a standard screw. The only reason its hard to work with is that its on a relatively fragile and expensive piece of electronics. Dremeling a slot in it might damage the device, but a small counterclockwise drillbit or screw-out tool and a steady hand will git 'er done too.