Will all the news about the pentalobe screw switch cause some folks to shy away from Apple?

I had to google “pentalobe screw switch”, I had no idea what it was. It sounded like something only the nastiest kind of prostitute would do for you.

So yea, this is all news to me, but I don’t think it will hurt apple that much. People used to be able to pirate the Sony PS1 with ease, now with the PS3 it seams fewer people pirate them, but they still sell.

Also, I really don’t think these screws will stop anyone, If there is that much demand for a hack there will be hacks.

If anything is going to hurt apple, It will be it’s competitors. If you mess up your product bad enough, some people will leave, but there will always be people who will want to buy the stuff. No apple will be here for a while, they do phones, “computers” and all kinds of other things, they have too many fingers in too many pies for any one single product screw up to kill them.

I expect they will be around until nokia or some other company start making the same thing for $10.

EDIT: Pentalobe Screwdriver for the iPhone $5

I don’t necessarily think that using the screws will hurt them but the manner in which they slyly slid it into the mix will probably hurt their rep. Yet another sneak attempt! They should be paying better attention to Facebook perhaps with all their privacy sneaks (new one just last week involving facebook connect). If anything hurts Apple it will be the price point (which is ridiculously high compared to upcoming market options) as well as the apps store (whose policy + regulation leave much to be desired). The Android market is getting big big bigger each day + opensource movements have a way of turning the tide!

I’d guess that 99.9% or more of iPhone users simply don’t care.

I couldn’t help but assume that a “proprietary screw” was one you got from your best gal or fella.

But now that I know what it really is, yeah, it kind of bugs me that we are reverting back to non-standardized things. It was standardization of screw types and sizes, as well as standardized types of tools back in the early 20th century that lead to the leaps and bounds that were made with machines and technology during the 20th century. This screw might be easier to turn, but if Apple is the only company using it, then it’s not very helpful.

Apple has long had a reputation for this sort of thing. I remeber the older Macs required a special driver and a case-cracker to get into.

However, the simple truth is that there are three types of people:
1) Those who aren’t tech-savvy enough to ever have this become an issue since they are not opening their hardware up
2) Those who are savvy enough to work around this problem
3) The really savvy who have always avoided Apple stuff on general principle, and who probably have an Android phone anyways.

Group #1 won’t care, #2 will grumble, and #3 will laugh.

I can’t imagine it’ll drive too many Apple addicts (like me) away. There are a couple of kits available that allow you to replace Apple’s screw for regular ones, so what’s the big idea. Nonetheless, I don’t plan to open my Apple products anyway. Invalidates the warranty.