PENTALOBULAR

[gunug]

Apple is replacing phillips head screws with pentalobular ones that make it harder to open your iPhone.  They are even doing this when you take them a iPhone for repair that originally has the phillips head ones:

http://apple.slashdot.org/submission/14499...s-Mystery-Screw

iFixit has a "fix" for this:

http://www.ifixit.com/Tools/5-Point-Torx-P...-Tool/IF145-070

But people are stirred up by it!

[Xairbusdriver]

So, iFixit can't buy these new screwdrivers? Seems other repair shops are managing to do this. I have a couple of Torx drivers, very seldom used now. And a set #00 and #0 phillips... But I already know I can't easily replace the battery in my iPhone or iPod even if I had a better soldering iron. Steve and crew have been moving toward computer/device "appliances" for several years. How many of us attempt repairs on other "appliances" around the house? Especially highly miniaturized ones! I've changed timers/switches on our clothes washer/dryer but if the coffee maker/toaster/hair dryer breaks, we usually just buy a new one. It's been decades since tubes were replaceable in a TV. Anyone else remember tubes in radios?!

Much ado about a teapot...er somethin' like that.

[kimmer]

We have several gadgets/appliances that were assembled with those funny little screws. Yes, it is annoying when we can't get in to fix something and have to replace or pay to have it repaired, but is it an Apple conspiracy to keep the consumer from replacing their own battery? I    

[Xairbusdriver]

Battery replacement, at least in the iPhone, requires removing the old one and soldering in the new one. I don't think the one in the iPad is "user replaceable," either. And this was done from the very beginning of the devices, these new screw heads are just now coming into use by Apple, well after the decision to make the devices. The two things are only tangentially related, IMHO.