The Apple rumour mill has started up again, this time it brings a story of the popular Cupertino based company adding restrictions to its recent iPhone 4 series. According to Yahoo News, Apple are set to replace screws on service repaired iPhone 4's with a tamper-proof version in order to stop people from opening up the device.
The rumour comes from Kyle Wiens, chief executive of well respected Apple service company, iFixit. He reported that he first started noticing screws were being changed over in November of last year. According to the source, "If you took your car in for service and they welded your hood shut, you wouldn't be very happy".
Although this seems to only be applicable to Apple US stores at the moment, it may move further afield. It seems that when a customer brings in a phone for repair to one of the 236 USA Apple stores, the standard Phillips screws are replaced with "Pentalobe" screws. Customers are given their phones back with out any knowledge of this whatsoever.
The source also claims that the new phones shipping from Japan already come with these new screws straight from the factory. In the past, Apple has gone to what some might call extremes to protect its intellectual property. A well reported example is the misplaced iPhone 4 prototype.
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