Pentalobular Screws anyone?

Since this rant is about a particular company, I will refrain from using its real name, in order to protect its privacy. I will instead refer to the company as "Pear" and its range of products "weProducts".

Now this particular instance of company decided to add a new feature to its line of products - Pentalobular Screws. Awesome name right?

Source

 What they basically are, are screws which can only be opened with a particular screwdriver. Oh and its patented. So yeah, you can get a screwdriver off the internet, but it'll be illegal. And you're not meant to get that screwdriver anyway - because if anything happens to 'your' weProducts, you should take them to an official Pear Repair Center, so you can give more money to the company.


So, what's the big deal? The entire system is now brilliantly closed off - to give consumers no choice whatsoever. So lets go through the process! Then I'll tell you why you should care.


Step 1: You purchase the weProduct. If its a wePhone, and you're not lucky enough to live in Europe - its probably locked down to one (but coming soon to another) phone company. Tough luck. You also pay a premium because - lets face it - its a Pear. And it'll increase your trendiness by 6x10^23%.


Step 2: You can only use Pear-approved connectors to stick it to your computer. Once you do , you need Pear-approved software to communicate with it. They take a cut out of everything.


Step 3: If you want to install additional software on your Pear-device, you need to download it from the crAppstore. Which is also Pear-owned. With Pear's rules. You can't install anything else (see Note1). They take a cut out of everything.


Step 4: If something bad happens to your weProduct, you need to take it to their own Pear-repairShop. They take a cut out of that as well. If its something tiny like you dropping it and needing a screen moved a bit, you now need a PENTALOBULAR screwdriver. (I love pronouncing that word)


So since you purchase this amazing pear-product, the Pear company is maximising the money it gets from you - by reducing your freedoms.


But why should you care?  You can (Note 1:) Jailbreak it! Unfortunately this voids the warranty. So if you have any problems, you can't take it to an authorised Pear-repairShop. Congrats on having bricked an expensive device. You could try opening it if you have one of those fancy-shmancy pentalobular screwdrivers.


Also, if you do take the risk of Jailbreaking it - you still filled their coffers by 600 euros or so - and increased the usercount by 1. So you are basically telling them that you agree with their approach - and encouraging them to keep going.


Good luck with that.


The Llama