Snap suggests Apple out to 'screw' hardware hackers
Flatblade, philips, pentalobe and now... WTF?!?!
Apple is designing its own, entirely proprietary screw-head in a bid to prevent punters and repair shops getting inside its future iDevices.
At least, it is if - and it's a very big 'if' - you take a piccy posted on the interweb at face value.
Captioned "a friend took a photo a while ago at that fruit company, they are obviously even creating their own screws", the snap shows a screw with a rounded thread and a head of maze-like complexity.
Source: r/apple @ imgur
Apparently, it's a snap of an email, which mentions the complex head is "totally asymmetric" and entirely unburdened by third-party screwdriver support.
Even if it's not a fake - and we all know how easy is to knock up authentic-seeming crap, which is what we reckon this is; there's literally nothing here to confirm the claimed source - does it really matter?
Head design details will quickly slip out of the Chinese IT industry sieve, and there'll be compatible screwdrivers aplenty on eBay before iFixit.com et al have completed their obligatory iPhone 5 and iPad Mini take-aparts. ®
COMMENTS
Does it matter?
Yes it frickin well does matter when Apple have shitty warranties and refuse to repair devices for realistic prices. (no, I'm not paying even more for AppleCare, I paid a premium for the device, I EXPECT it to be built well)
My iPhone 4 home button gradually died (common problem), after 20 months into a 2 year contract, Apple didn't want to know and wanted to charge me £130 for a replacement refurb'd iPhone. Only alternative was a back-street fixit guy who replaced it for £17 and it's worked ever since.
My iMac's Seagate hard drive died after a similar amount of time, do Apple care? Noooo, Apple want £200+ to put in a new 1TB drive. That's a 300% mark up on the price of 1TB 3.5" internal SATA drives. Because they changed the firmware on the drive it's hard to do independently without incurring the case fans spinning up.
So YES, it does matter. Enough of this proprietary bullshit. Someone lend me a Galaxy S3 please, cos iPhone 5 is looking less likely by the day, it wouldn't take much to convince me...
Re: Does it matter?
If you buy premium you expect a two year standard EU warranty.
And if Apple try to screw you over you take them to small claims, you win, and they pay you extra costs for wasting your time and the court's.
If this aint fake, then why didn't they invent a screwhead in the shape of their very own apple logo? Or even better, they should have invented the turtle-necked screw!
Re: Does it matter?
"You fail. Anyway, for £61 quid to cover your iPhone for an extra 2 years, you'd have covered your repair cost double. Don't complain when you take risks."
Hmmm...
£130 to replace an iPhone without AppleCare ... or ...
£61 for AppleCare ... or ...
£17 to the back-street guy to fix it.
Unless my understanding of mathematics is somewhat out of kilter, £17 is considerably less than £61! Now who's failed?!
