During a teardown at this year’s DesignCon in Santa Clara, Calif., Kyle Weins, the CEO of iFixit, blasted Apple for switching out its Phillips screws for new tamper-resistant screws.
Weins, who has written a hardware manifesto stating that users should be allowed to tinker with their own devices, called the move “diabolical” on Apple’s part.
“This is not a standard Torx, and there are no readily available screwdrivers that can remove it,” he said, though iFixit has recently built a tool that can do the job. “Apple chose this fastener specifically because it was new, guaranteeing repair tools would be both rare and expensive.”
Click the image below to view a slideshow of the iPhone 4S in various stages of disassembly:
UBM TechInsights, which specializes in intellectual property analysis, got its hands
on one of the first iPhone 4S models and conducted this teardown.
The screw that Apple is using is similar to a Torx -- except that the points have a rounder shape, and the screw has five points instead of six.
Apple's service manuals refer to them as "Pentalobular" screws, which Weins admits is a fairly fitting description.
“This screw head clearly has one purpose: to keep you out,” he said.
Moody Tools, Inc. manufacture the required tools. A search on "Moody 5 Star Torx" will yield several suppliers who will sell them for less than $9 each. I wasn't sure which of the 4 sizes I would need so I bought one each of the 4 sizes I found. I have no assocaition with Moody except as a customer.
Your exactly correct. Only those savy enough to acquire a pentelobe screwdriver whould even begin to have enough smarts to understand what's going on inside their iDevice. Apple needs to keep the idiots out of the product's guts.
I concur with fatmanonabicycle. Love when people who trump "free" cry when someone or company "freely" tries to prevent others from easily diseminating their product.
In a free market you don't necessarily have to be mr. nice guy to everyone that wants to use your product in a "their" way. That's why there are many manufacturers of these devices; one company cannot, nor should, try to appease everyone. Nor should they be "forced" to have to create open products; if that's that important to you then you go make products anyone can take apart.
As a dedicated "bodge artist"; I avoid Apple devices preferring more open sourced products. The issue comes in however when family or friends ask me to repair little Timmy, or Tina's iPlop. Although replacement components are readily available from many online sources it would be nice to not have a requirement of buying a new 5 sided torx for a one off repair; in my opinion, it's just unnecessary cost which only benefits the tool maker / seller.
The 5 sided pentagon drive screws used in UK municipal playgrounds are exclusive to Wicksteed Leisure, and spare fixings and keys can be obtained from them. This is an anti-vandal safety measure and is not intended to give Wicksteed a monopoly on maintenance.
We all have pet peaves about Apple no doubt, but you probably can't blame the 5-pont screws on them. The 60GB Toshiba drive in front of me now (from a crushed 2005 Apple iPod I should add) has 5-point screws and it's many years older than the iPhone 4s. Yes. Looks almost like a toque, but lacking 1 point -- and I don't have a driver either. By the way, Amazon has a driver for 0.99.
I agree with the meme expressed here that if you're not smart enough to deal with these screws, you shouldn't be mucking around attempting repairs anyway. I don't think that was the point though in the original criticism of Apple. It's more that they have a culture of making things difficult.
If anti-tamper screws are that much of an issue, (or non-replaceable batteries for that matter), tell Apple exactly how you feel.
DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT.
There are competitive products to the I-Phone. There is a price to be paid for the Apple interface. If you must have it, you must also accept their anti-tamper methods. Otherwise, shop elsewhere.
If enough people do this, you will effect a change.
Really!?, I'm pretty sure when I or you buy anything it belongs to you or I, and not Apple, they don't repair it for free since it's not their property anymore once a consumer buy it, the consumer owns it an can do whatever they want to it.
I guess car manufacturers should do the same, but they don't because once a car is bought and leaves the lot it belongs to the person who bought the car, and yes you can purchase warranty repair so that Apple and others will fix "YOUR" phone, just like you can purchase a warranty repair for a "YOUR" car or you can work on "YOUR" car yourself and be responsible if it's repaired incorrectly.
Apple doesn't own "YOUR" phone once "YOU" buy it, now do they?
The only idiots are the ones who are seriously trying to say that a person can't open, tinker or repair something "THEY" bought and now own. Get real!
I guess when you buy a house you shouldn't tinker with anything in it, and the person or company that owned the home should be the only ones who do any repairs, but they won't because it's "YOUR" home and "YOU" the home owner are responsible for doing any repairs, which you can choose to do "YOURSELF" or pay some else to do them for "YOU".
Why, because it's your property and you bought, if you lose it Apple isn't going to give another one for free unless "YOU" purchased insurance on the phone and even then depending on the carrier it may not be a new phone, and "YOU" may have to pay a deductible first.
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