How Apple Is Screwing Your iPhone

Apple doesn’t want to let you inside your iPhone, even if all you want to do is fix it.

That’s what repair company iFixit claims, at least. The company recently discovered that Apple has quietly switched the screws in the latest shipments of the iPhone 4 from a basic Phillips head to a tamper-resistant screw that you can’t remove with any screwdriver you’d buy at a hardware store.

The screw in question is called a “Pentalobe”, a five-point head with a round shape resembling a daisy. “They chose this ‘Pentalobe’ fastener specifically because it was new, guaranteeing repair tools would be both rare and expensive,” said Kyle Wiens, iFixit’s CEO. “The iPhone 4 originally shipped with Phillips screws, but Apple has transitioned completely to this new security screw. Shame on them.”