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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.'"
This screw design was patented in - 1974. Yeah keep that conspiracy going, boys. Especially when the screwdriver costs $2.35.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I forgive them, because the word "pentalobular" is hilarious to say.
I also don't own an iPhone, so it's all academic to me anyway. :D
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.
We're complaining about their choice of screws now?
http://www.blog.sw-box.com/cell-phone-accessories/cheap-pentalobular-screw-driver-for-only-2-35-on-sw-box-com/ Don't even have to go that far! iPhone 4 opening tool for $2.97
Isn't that called theft?
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
*sings*
Cellular, Modular, screws are Pentalobular.
Bonus points to who gets the reference
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
Interactive Audiular...BANANAPHONE
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
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.
Take a picture of your laptop or device, carefully documenting the screws.
Take it in for service
Tell them not to change the screws
If they change the screws, ask them to put the old ones back.
Document change in screws
Take it to your states AG, and start a criminal investigation.
ITS YOUR COMPUTER, if they change it against your will, we have laws to protect you. It is illegal for them to do this without your permission.
When did you last open a Dell?
They are, admittedly, ugly fuckers; but every desktop of theirs that I've dealt with in the past 4 or 5 years has been held together with a mixture of screwless plastic pieces(they've standardized on green as a visual code for "this plastic piece is an FRU) and hex-head phillips screws that can be removed with either a phillips or hex tool. Usually all the same length, too.
Laptops tend to have some variation in length, and don't feature the convenient dual hex/phillips; but you can take the entire laptop to bits with a single phillips screwdriver, and each screw hole is labelled with the length of the screw that goes into it(ugly, yes, convenient, also yes...)
Toshiba, on the other hand...
It is the very model of the modern dollar generator.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
This has a picture of the screw in question:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1349144/Apple-fits-iPhone-4-fixings-impossible-remove.html
Karnal
Except, of course, that penta- is from the Greek; quint- would be the Latin.
Yes. This is not a Torx 5-point. The points of the star have been rounded into "lobes". The "iPhone Liberation Kit" being sold by ifixit will open the screws but does not actually fit them precisely so it will ruin them on the way out. They are selling it so you can get the pentalobular screws out and replace them. I suspect the other $2.35 tool people are linking to is the same thing.
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.
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.
Or, you should make a point to buy a dremel before purchasing any apple products.
Someone had to do it.
Then you can sue them for breach of warranty.
I don't think Apple thought this cunning plan all the way through. Somewhere, somebody with spare time and money and a propensity for making statements or grinding axes is going to flex their state's consumer rights laws, specifically the part about warranty service on goods as rendered.
Unless Apple can somehow argue that anti-tampering devices are crucial to the proper and desired function of the phone as a phone, they may be in for some trouble.
first they pentalobed the iphone users ;-)
and i didn't speak out, because i wasn't an iphone user...
They're called iScrews.
I think in this case they moved the extraneous vowel to the end, they're called ScrewU's
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
Yup. Somewhere, a design engineer at Sony is getting his ass kicked for not thinking of using screws that require a screwdriver nearly nobody has.
"Yeah, I know, you came up with memory-stick. But that was years ago. Look at this! This is state of the art non-standardization!".
It's the "logical next step" in all the "break this sticker with a screw hidden underneath and void your warranty" crap.
And of course, it's got 90% of the consumer population so fucking scared that they won't break that sticker even when they need to repair a device that's 5 years old and 4 years, 9 months out of the stupidly short 90-day warranty.
It's the same kind of brainwashing crap you get with expiration dates on bottled water (also found on non-expiring foods/spices such as honey and salt) and stupidly short expiration dates on medicines.
Pop Sci still runs a great "void your warranty" column. I recommend reading it on a regular basis and learning to say "fuck it, void the warranty, I'm going to improve/repair my own fucking property" whenever possible!
If Apple wanted to be real assholes, they could have made the screw heads look bitchin' like this. Good luck finding a common source for screwdrivers that look like that. And then they could use trademark/copyright/DMCA to crush anybody trying to sell Chinese screwdrivers on ebay.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
With apologies to the folks of MST3k for shamelessly stealing one of their best ideas:
Tom: Hey, fellas, this sure is a screwey screw in this device, isn't it?
Mike: It sure is!
Crow: Yet despite all the goofyness of the thing, I just can't come up with a word that describes it
Tom: Well I can
Mike: You can?
Tom: Why, sure!
Tom: Oh, it's stupid-alubulal, annoya-nonpractical pentular lobular fun!
Mike: Aggravata-maximal irrita-scam-ulal?
Tom: Right-o, that's the one!
Crow: Is it frustrate-orificcal, butt-in-your-face-ical screwya from morning 'til night?
Tom: Well you're rip-off fantastical purloin-irascable Stevejobs-an-ass-hola right!
All: It's a swindle-a-boobulal rip-you-off-obulal Toobular Pentalobular joy!
An expososular-buttular humped without lubular fun for girl and boy!
An Apple-fantastical scamu-lal job-ulal financial-al steal-it-all ball
Crow: the most defraud-o-riffical
Mike: Fleece-yer-customeral
Crow: con-game-el-fuck-you-lar
Tom: Jobs-u-big-crook-ular
All: Screw job off them all!
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
The very first thing I do on newly acquired devices is to rob them of their virginity by breaking the seal. The sooner it's over and done, the better. It also seems to make them more resilient too.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
I hope you never have children......
First, that link requires registration. Yuck.
I prescribe Bugmenot to solve that.
Second, IIRC from Pharm School, expiration dates are legally mandated by the FDA to be when the active ingredient(s) degrade to 90% efficacy?
You're completely wrong.
Alternate link to harvard:
It turns out that the expiration date on a drug does stand for something, but probably not what you think it does. Since a law was passed in 1979, drug manufacturers are required to stamp an expiration date on their products. This is the date at which the manufacturer can still guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug.
Most of what is known about drug expiration dates comes from a study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration at the request of the military. With a large and expensive stockpile of drugs, the military faced tossing out and replacing its drugs every few years. What they found from the study is 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date.
I posted previously about the problems I had getting my father's iPad to work. What a headache.
So then my brother and his wife visit me with their iPhones. They have some video that they want me to watch.
So I first I try putting in an standard A/V plug to my TV. It works with my smart phone. Nope. No A/V on iPhone.
So then I think, I'll just download the video to my computer over the USB connector. So I connect the iPhone to my computer. Nada. It does not appear as mass storage device or anything. What? I have to install iTunes to get data off it? And my computer has to be 1 of the only 5 computers to which this thing can ever connect? My brother only visits me once every five years!
So then I think, I will have my brother upload the video to my web site. My brother brings up the browser and my web page on his iPhone. And guess what? The "choose file" button is greyed out! Something as basic as uploading a video file is not allowed.
Any of the above work just fine on my smart phone. There is no way I would ever recommend anybody buy any kind of Apple product. What a headache.
From TFA:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/012011-the-case-of-apples-mystery.html
This isn't the first time Apple has used screws to gain an advantage. Apple had been using 5-point Torx screws for its MacBook Pros, not standard 6-point Torx screws."We did a little bit of research and found out that this particular screw has been patented," Wiens says. "It is illegal to import screwdrivers that can open this screw into the U.S. unless you buy it through Apple's sales channels. Apple sells the screwdriver for $40." (Wiens doesn't know if the Pentalobular screws have been patented.)
So I guess if you smuggle one of those penta(hahaha)lobular screwdrivers into USA you'll be an OUTLAAAW!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
iTunes is not their best work, but is far superior to Windows Media 1-99 (whatever version we are up to now).
Except that I've never needed to use Windows Media Player to update ANYTHING on my Windows Mobile phone. In fact, I can simply drag and drop whatever I want, just like the phone is another memory device... Why do I need a special program to access my phone in the first place?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
They should have made the screw hole in the shape of the Apple logo.