Apple starting to use new screws to prevent users from upgrading their hardware!

[newtekie1]

http://www.ifixit.com/blog/blog/2011/01/20/apples-diabolical-plan-to-screw-your-iphone/

Want to upgrade your SSD in that new Macbook you bought? NO! You have to buy a new one according to Apple!

You want to take the battery out of your Macbook? NO! You overpaid good money for that computer, why would Apple let you do anything with it?

I can't believe people put up with this crap...

 

[[Ion]]

This is horrible! :shadedshu

This is why I have a Thinkpad, it may not be the easiest to disassemble, but it's put together entirely with Phillips screws and can be completely disassembled with a cheap screwdriver

 

[Kantastic]

It won't take long until some cheap Chinese OEM makes a screwdriver that fits the screw.

 

[mlee49]

Apple will spin it for 'security' reasons and people will praise them and happily buy it.

 

[Mussels]

It won't take long until some cheap Chinese OEM makes a screwdriver that fits the screw.

^ what you said

 

[[Ion]]

Apple will spin it for 'security' reasons and people will praise them and happily buy it.

How will they be able to spin this as "security"?

 

[Mussels]

How will they be able to spin this as "security"?

now people cant do insidious things like put third party batteries in your iphone to shorten its life and void its warranty, or give you a faster, higher capacity drive through 'unreliable' sources. hell, it might be a PC part and not a mac part, and ofc, mac parts are just better

 

[newtekie1]

It won't take long until some cheap Chinese OEM makes a screwdriver that fits the screw.

If you read the article, they already are selling them.

 

[Andrei23]

apple is a cult
I am pretty sure if steve jobs decided to sell a shiny mac that had an AMD K7 CPU 2 kb of ram that was soldered shut so you would need a blow torch just to open it, 90% of the people buying mac without fail will have to have it for the mac price ofc

 

[erixx]

screwed, yeah

 

[KainXS]

ya they're selling the part but they say it will almost definitely destroy the old annoying screws which will probably kill your warranty, and whats with all the apple/pc slander

they been good friends since then, everything else is marketing and fanboys, look at waldo lol

 

[Thatguy]

It won't take long until some cheap Chinese OEM makes a screwdriver that fits the screw.

Snap on tools "likely Matco to" already has a screw driver for these. Its not in the online catalog yet.

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I don't get this at all, they had to know someone would make a screw driver for it, and that anyone wanting to upgrade won't just give up instead of buying a $2 screw driver. Seems all this does is cost them .2 cents more per laptop for having non standard screws made. They'd lose more sales for being labeled dicks than they'd gain from people deciding it was too hard to upgrade and just buying a new laptop.

 

[newtekie1]

I don't get this at all, they had to know someone would make a screw driver for it, and that anyone wanting to upgrade won't just give up instead of buying a $2 screw driver. Seems all this does is cost them .2 cents more per laptop for having non standard screws made. They'd lose more sales for being labeled dicks than they'd gain from people deciding it was too hard to upgrade and just buying a new laptop.

I think you over-estimate the average user, and Mac plays on their ignorance. I had a guy come in my shop the other day with a Macbook Pro that wanted to upgrade the RAM to 8GB and put in a larger 750GB hard drive. The Apple store wanted $500 for the RAM and $400 for the HDD, plus the installation charge. He thought I was insane when I quoted him $300 w/ Labor. He said "but don't you have buy the special Mac memory and hard drive?":shadedshu

If apple says you need special parts and need a special screw driver, most of their users will just accept it and either get it done at an Apple store or just buy a new one.

 

[Mussels]

I think you over-estimate the average user, and Mac plays on their ignorance. I had a guy come in my shop the other day with a Macbook Pro that wanted to upgrade the RAM to 8GB and put in a larger 750GB hard drive. The Apple store wanted $500 for the RAM and $400 for the HDD, plus the installation charge. He thought I was insane when I quoted him $300 w/ Labor. He said "but don't you have buy the special Mac memory and hard drive?":shadedshu

If apple says you need special parts and need a special screw driver, most of their users will just accept it and either get it done at an Apple store or just buy a new one.

i had a similar discussion with someone at work.

After a lot of questions that she had no answers for (read: she couldnt repeat mac advertising back at me) it boiled down to: her school used macs, so she assumed they were the best and now only buys apple.

After i told her that schools buy whatever they get offered cheapest, she had a sad.

(and yes, the big companies love offering schools extremely low prices to catch students in this trap)

 

[FordGT90Concept]

It won't take long until some cheap Chinese OEM makes a screwdriver that fits the screw.

Ironically, probably the same Chinese OEM that supplies Apple.

 

[HossHuge]

If apple says you need special parts and need a special screw driver, most of their users will just accept it and either get it done at an Apple store or just buy a new one.

They keep using that word "special" to make the consumer think, WOW! It must be better because you can't just use regular things on it or with it.

I'm proud to say that Apple doesn't have single red penny in their pockets from me.

 

[newtekie1]

i had a similar discussion with someone at work.

After a lot of questions that she had no answers for (read: she couldnt repeat mac advertising back at me) it boiled down to: her school used macs, so she assumed they were the best and now only buys apple.

After i told her that schools buy whatever they get offered cheapest, she had a sad.

(and yes, the big companies love offering schools extremely low prices to catch students in this trap)

Yep, Microsoft used to supply every student at my College with a free copy of the latest version of Windows Professional and Office Professional every year. It was exactly for that reason, to get us all used to using it so we would want it once we graduated and had money to pay for it.

I got a free copy of Windows 2000 Pro, 3 copies of XP Pro, Office 2000 Pro, Office XP Pro, and two copies of Office 2003 Pro...all which I promptly sold on ebay...

They also gave every student enrolled in the Computer Science, Information Technology, MIS, or ECT majors free access to an MSDN account with even more free Microsoft software(pretty much everything major they put out going back to Windows 3.1 and DOS5.

 

[DriedFrogPills]

They keep using that word "special" to make the consumer think, WOW! It must be better because you can't just use regular things on it or with it.

I'm proud to say that Apple doesn't have single red penny in their pockets from me.

or its the other kind of "special"

 

[Mussels]

They keep using that word "special" to make the consumer think, WOW! It must be better because you can't just use regular things on it or with it.

I'm proud to say that Apple doesn't have single red penny in their pockets from me.

god, the amount of things i want to slap people for with that kind of thinking.


"No, i dont want this stupid cable (3.5mm stereo) i want an IPOD cable" (friend bitching about hooking their ipod to their CD player, which only had a 3.5mm aux input)

or even a radio ad you could tell they had to dumb things down for consumers

"with famous brands like dell, sony, samsung, IPOD and IPAD"
average joe doesnt even realize they are a product, and not a brand

 

[AltecV1]

my honest opinion is that i think people who buy MACs dont really give a shit!, they buy MACs coz they think it will make them special and they are easy do use(AKA dumbed down for idiots). one of my friends (who is in do music and photography) wanted do buy a macbook pro and i asked why would he want do that,when he can get a much more powerful laptop for the same money....well it all boiled down do"it looks cool" and "all the other artistic people have them"

 

[MohawkAngel]

It won't take long until some cheap Chinese OEM makes a screwdriver that fits the screw.

look at the website its already done 9.99$

 

[streetfighter 2]

So mac has finally turned into Mercedes. I'm so stunned I think may need to get another beer out of the fridge-- Which is probably because my current beer is empty...

Honestly, anyone who really gives a hoot will either buy a Chinese driver with one of these penta-globular heads or use a screw extractor.

IMO No complaint with apple here. They fill the niche for people who don't care and have a lot of money to throw around; the same people that own German cars that don't even have a dipstick. God bless em .

@MohawkAngel - Your car doesn't have an engine oil dipstick?

 

[MohawkAngel]

My sunfire 2005 does not have a dipstick on the automatic transmission its a little bolt on the front. Went the oil flow form the hole stop filling and screw it back. I like it like that you dont overflow the tranny

 

[MilkyWay]

Reminds me a lot of those game-bits they used on consoles to stop people modding them. I know Sega used to use standard Phillips heads but Nintendo used game-bits on some consoles.

Wow manufacturers want you to buy their overpriced tat instead of some other overpriced tat. Everyone does that look at Microsoft and the Xbox 360 they got that pretty much locked down to first party accessories and hard drives.