
Why Apple Uses Pentalobe Screws In Its Devices - pepsi_can
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/01/apple-screwing-new-iphones-out-of-simple-diy-repair/
======
jdietrich
There's no such thing as a simple repair on a current Apple device. They're
simply not built to be very field-serviceable, because Apple's customers would
rather have a thinner or lighter device than one that's easier to repair. Open
up anything in their current line and you'll find fragile ribbon cables,
delicate connectors, wafer-thin pieces of glass and fragile things glued to
other fragile things. Ifixit's guides are peppered with warnings about things
that can be broken with slightly too much force or by prying in the wrong
place.

From Apple's perspective, amateur repairs are potentially a source of serious
damage to their brand. The effects of inept repair are likely to reflect at
least as badly on Apple as they do on the repairer. One bad third-party
battery could be enough to trigger a global media shitstorm, in spite of it
being nothing to do with Apple. Their customers don't expect iDevices to be
user-serviceable, so raising the barriers to entry for repairers is a clear
win for Apple.

~~~
dorkrawk
I think this really captures what a lot of tech-savvy people overlook about
companies like Apple. They have their market. They make a ton of money selling
to people who (mostly) don't care about being able to take their devices
apart. Maybe those customers care about the consequences of this, but not many
will think of the connection. They care about them looking cool and being fun
to use and catering to this has been very good for Apple.

Apple is a hardware company who likes full control of things. It seems naive
to think that they will make a big effort to be hacker or DIY friendly.

~~~
DanBC
> It seems naive to think that they will make a big effort to be hacker or DIY
> friendly.

Using weird screw heads isn't "not making a big effort to be hacker friendly",
it is "making a big effort to be hacker unfriendly".

------
bpatrianakos
This is more like gossip than news. Its quite likely that Apple does use the
new screws to lock you out of the device. But its also likely they used them
because they're cheaper or somehow easier for them for some reason besides
keeping owners out of devices.

The entire article rests on one person's speculation. Yeah, the source is
credible when it comes to DIY Apple repairs but he's still in no position to
say definitively that "Yes, this is the reason they're doing this".

I don't take issue with the premise of the article. Like I said, its quite
likely to be true. What I take issue with is how misleading the article is. It
tried to spin speculation into fact with a few lines spritzed throughout that
they can point back at and say "well, we didn't _actually_ say it was a fact".
I just think its pretty lame to do this sort of thing. If it was called "Why
_Does_ Apple Use Pentalobe Screws in its Devices?" and pose it as a question,
and make it clear that the article is pure speculation, that would be a much
better start.

EDIT: As of right now, every single reply to my comment has missed the point
entirely. Quit getting hung up on the screws or my half assed counter
suggestion that they're using it for another reason. The point I'm trying to
make is that this post is misleading people to believe something that is
speculation is fact. No matter how much sense it makes for Apple to use these
screws to keep people out there is still no reliable evidence or any sources
to support that. Only speculation. Its very possible that there are other
explanations but the big idea here is that its upsetting to see speculation
passed off as fact and people falling all over themselves to believe it.

~~~
macchina
>its also likely they used them because they're cheaper or somehow easier for
them for some reason besides keeping owners out of devices.

I am having a hard time imagining a way this could be true.

~~~
bpatrianakos
It doesn't matter. That's beside the point. I'm trying to point out that
publishing speculation as fact is dangerous and its not specific to Ars or
tech media but its endemic in all news, journalism, and media outlets. What's
happening is that those who used to be held to the highest standards have
lowered the bar and everyone else is taking advantage. So now when the nightly
news reports some speculation as fact that signals to everyone lower on the
food chain that they can do it too and they end up doing it worse and more
often. Things weren't always this way and they don't have to be. I will not
accept cynical or conspiratorial rebuttals as having any merit. The news used
to be the news and reporting, no matter if its the nightly news or some blog,
should at least try to hold themselves to some kind of standard.

But I digress. The point isn't why Apple uses new screws. Its about making it
clear that this article is putting forth _the suggestion_ that it does but
that there are no facts to back this up. Just speculation.

------
ghshephard
What I don't understand is why manufacturers were able to do something as
crazy as reverse-engineer the lightning bolt encryption mechanisms so they
could start selling after-market lightning bolt cables, but something as
simple (to my uneducated mind) as reverse engineering a screw driver just
hasn't happened.

I would think by now there would be at least _one_ vendor in a country with
fewer qualms around intellectual property who would be willing to violate
whatever licenses/patents/copyrights there are on this pentalobe screwdriver
form, and make them available at a very healthy markup to the many, many
iphone/ipad repair shops out there (not to mention those interested hobbyists
who would like to open up their own phone)

Particularly if that vendor was already manufacturing an assortment of other
screwdriver bits, I would have to believe the marginal additional cost of
analyzing these new screws, and creating a screw driver that could map to it
properly, shouldn't be that great a challenge.

Are there any mechanical engineers with more knowledge than me who might be
able to explain why this hasn't happened?

~~~
ovi256
You can find pentalobe screwdrivers on iFixit's online store, or Amazon.
They're exotic but not that hard to find.

BTW, this article is a submarine (see Paul Graham's submarine PR essay) for
iFixit, at least partially.

~~~
ghshephard
My reading from the story was the iFixit guys hadn't found a screwdriver they
were happy with yet.

"iFixit is doing what it can to source screwdrivers to work with the new
screws, though it notes that there doesn't appear to be a single reputable
supplier that carries the same tools Apple technicians use."

"Wiens notes that the pentalobe driver isn't perfect—"the tip is more star-
shaped than "flowery"—but it can remove Apple's pesky replacements and
"liberate" your iPhone."

~~~
xiongchiamiov
The article is from Jan 20 2011; since then we've designed our own.

------
drone
While I'm not a great fan of Apple's regard of their users fixing their own
devices, I can offer, what I believe to be, a plausible other explanation.

"Why use this design, and why use it only on the outside?"

It is plausible that it reduces the cost of final assembly on the device.

1: By using rounded "lobes", rather than sharp-profiled edges, they can use a
driver with a soft plastic lobes that have no sharp surfaces on them. The
lobes are large enough that the connecting material to the main shaft of the
tool will provide a desired level of strength. In fact, I would bet that the
lobe connecting material thickness was specifically designed to exceed the
required torque rating of the screw.* A square receptacle would not be
sufficient, as the 90' edges of the tool would quickly wear down, the tool has
to present all round surfaces for this to work.

2: By using a driver with no sharp surfaces, and made of a material softer
than the enclosure of the device, they reduce the number of scratches made in
the surface of the enclosure by workers who will, and I promise you this, miss
the screw quite regularly if they don't get it properly torqued before
removing the tool.

As the device enclosures are often one-piece, milled and surfaced aluminum,
the custom tool and screws would likely have less overall cost than a common
miss-rate or miss-error level with a metal tool.

I would also posit why so many are having difficulty manufacturing the tool,
is because they're trying to make them out of metal.

If the above happens to be true, I would think the choice of screw design is
an act of manufacturing efficiency genius.

* - Having had the misfortune of using plastic versions of all of torx, flat, and phillips head screw-drivers, yes, I can say they don't last long.

------
ElliotH
This article seems quite dated now. Doesn't seem to be too hard to source
drivers for these screws now.

~~~
jlgreco
Compared to other drivers, they still are. (Considering "sourcing" other
drivers involves walking 10 feet to my kitchen, or pretty much any other
toolbox in the world). They are easy to get, but you have to actually get
them; it is unlikely anyone already has one lying around.

------
thronemonkey
My initial thought was that while I've never done any 3D printing so I'm not
how hard the plastic is, it might be possible to print something in the right
shape and use it to unscrew these? Its an interesting idea, but the screws are
likely in tight enough that only a solid metal screwdriver would be able to
remove them.

------
geuis
This was published in Jan 2012.

~~~
philwelch
Jan _2011_ , actually.

Also, though I'm not sure about the Macbook Airs in 2011, the current Macbook
Air doesn't even have a replaceable SSD--the storage is directly on the
motherboard.

~~~
zitterbewegung
You can replace the SSD
<http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Air_2012>

------
evan_
Realistically, how many people repair Android or non-Apple phones? How many
iPhone users would, when faced with a broken phone, try to fix it themselves
rather than take it to the Apple store for repairs?

I've got no data on it, but my gut tells me it's a tiny, tiny percentage. I
would also bet that switching the entire massive operation over to using
pentalobe screws (not to mention the presumably higher cost of the screws
themselves) cost more than the revenue they're "losing" to people who would
repair old phones themselves.

Isn't it more likely that the pentalobe screws, with higher internal surface
area than a phillips screw, offer some other benefit? Looking at them I would
bet that they stay on automatic screw drivers better than a phillips-head
screw.

If they really wanted to make it impossible to un-screw them they'd make a
screw whose head was in the shape of an Apple logo or something that _nobody_
makes a driver for. It's not really hard to find a pentalobe screwdriver so if
they were trying to keep people out it's not working. (Actually, using an
Apple logo as the screw-head shape would be kind of interesting, because they
might be able to sue anyone who made a matching driver for using their
trademark...)

~~~
kalleboo
In any city in Europe you'll have corner stores all over the place who will do
a screen swap for you, or just sell you the screen to do it yourself. This is
far more handy, environmentally friendly, local-economy friendly, and probably
cheaper than shipping in phones to Apple for refurbishment.

> Isn't it more likely that the pentalobe screws, with higher internal surface
> area than a phillips screw, offer some other benefit?

The article refutes this with the argument "then why don't they use the same
screw on the inside of the phone?"

~~~
evan_
Yep- I've got a friend who runs a PC repair business and they do a fair number
of screen replacements. Lots of shops like that in the US, both Apple
certified and not. Another reason why the "pentalobe screws etc. make Apple
devices impossible to repair" argument is silly.

~~~
jlgreco
I don't think anyone is arguing that they use the screws to make 3rd party
repair impossible.

Rather people suggest they use the screws to _raise the barrier to entry_.

Whether or not it _effectively_ does this is _another_ issue.

------
firefoxman1
Wasn't it either the Apple II or early Macintoshes that had proprietary screws
as well. I think it was Woz in an interview that said he disliked how they
wanted to prevent DIYers from messing with the internals.

------
kalleboo
I'm kinda amazed Apple still have screws at all. I wouldn't be surprised to
see them disappear from the exterior of the device in a year or two.

------
geekstrada
TIL you can post an almost 2 year old article (that has no current merit) and
it is actively discussed on HN.

