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January 24, 2011

Apple Puts the Screws To Its Customers

By Michelle Amodio, TMCnet Contributor

Tamper-resistant screws may be useful in certain household devices that shouldn’t be, as the name suggests, tampered with. However, Apple announced last week that many of its devices, such as the iPhone (News - Alert) 4, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air, will all feature new and improved screws, thus making it more difficult for users to perform any kind of at-home repair.




The pentalobe, as the screw is known, is purposefully unusual so that those who own said devices can’t open them up and tinker with them. While the news on the screw only hit the wires within the last week, iFixit reports that this isn’t the first time Apple (News - Alert) has implemented a tamper-resistant piece of hardware. 

“Apple is switching to a new type of tamper-resistant screw. This is not a standard Torx, and there are no readily available screwdrivers that can remove it. This isn’t the first time they’ve used this type of screw—it first appeared in the mid-2009 MacBook Pro to prevent you from replacing the battery—and Apple is using a similar screw on the outer case of the current MacBook Air. This screw is the primary reason the 11″ MacBook Air earned a lousy repairability score of 4 out of 10 in our teardown last October,” wrote Kyle Wiens on the DIY fix-it site.

All obvious screw jokes aside, why is Apple instating these new pentalobe screws? Some speculate that it’s all about the money, citing that Apple gets a cut of any repair job performed by authorized Apple technicians.  Perhaps Apple is merely doing this to protect us from ourselves. Not everyone is a self-proclaimed gadget genius, and maybe this is a way to prevent users from nullifying their warranty.

Wiens doesn’t quite see it that way. He told CNBC that Apple “wants to have complete control over your hardware all the way from when you buy it to when you need a repair.” iFixit (News - Alert) has managed to produce a screwdriver that will work, albeit after substantial effort since it is not a perfect match.


Michelle Amodio is a TMCnet Contributor. She has years of experience in business and marketing. Previously, she worked in broadcast journalism and as an editor abroad in London, England for a privately owned magazine. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell







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