{"id":960,"date":"2016-05-07T16:22:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-07T16:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/54.201.249.27\/?p=960"},"modified":"2016-05-07T16:22:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-07T16:22:24","slug":"wired-huawei-just-copied-iphone-last-screw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wired-huawei-just-copied-iphone-last-screw\/","title":{"rendered":"Wired: Huawei Just Copied the iPhone\u2014Down to the Last Screw"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wired: Huawei Just Copied the iPhone\u2014Down to the Last Screw<\/h1>\n

China has been engaged in full-on Economic War with the US and The West for decades.<\/p>\n

Every organization: business, government, military and academic organization is under attack for theft of innovation and trade secrets. China\u2019s efforts have been expanding dramatically over the past few years and are having an irreversible effect on every US organization and the US economy. What organizations have done up to this point has been grossly ineffective. Every organization must ReThink and act aggressively to protect their sensitive data.
\n–\u00a0Casey Fleming, BLACKOPS CEO<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Originally reported by KYLE WIENS:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Apple's<\/a><\/p>\n

This is not\u00a0a photo of two Apple iPhones. This is a photograph of an iPhone on top of\u00a0Huawei\u2019s new P9<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll excuse your\u00a0double-take, because Huawei is shamelessly copying Apple here. Yes, it migrated the fingerprint sensor like a flounder\u2019s eye and eliminated the mechanical home button, but the two phones share similar antenna bands, styling, and finish. They even sport the same proprietary star-shaped security screw, in exactly the same spots. After all, if you want your phone to resemble an iPhone, you\u2019ve got to nail the details.<\/p>\n

But this screw, called a pentalobe, does more than make the P9 look a bit more like an iPhone. It keeps you from opening your phone and impedes recycling it when you finally toss it. And it offers another reminder that where Apple goes, others follow, even if what\u2019s good for Apple isn\u2019t always good for the orchard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everyone Rips Off Apple<\/h3>\n

By this point, everyone expects everyone else to rip off Apple. The company employs the best designers in the world, and the industrial and mechanical design principles it established guide the industry.<\/p>\n

Consumers, too, associate Apple with quality. Its insistence on high-end materials dramatically extended the lifespan of laptops. In the past, people tended to upgrade every year or two, but today it\u2019s common to see people toting a 5-year-old MacBook Pro. The exterior might be scuffed and dented, but the hardware still works. (And the battle scars add character.) Dell and HP followed suit, and their metal-framed laptops are more durable than previous plastic designs.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

But Jony Ive and his team are not infallible. Recently, they\u2019ve made a number of design choices that hurt consumers and recyclers. Apple upended the idea that owners could swap the batteries in their devices. It used integrated batteries in the iPhone and started gluing them down in iPads and Retina MacBooks. This requires recyclers to painstakingly remove those batteries before sending devices to the shredder. And when Apple does something that promotes recycling, like using a pull-tab removable adhesive to secure the battery in the 12-inch iPad Pro\u2014it doesn\u2019t adopt the change in every product line. The 9.7-inch iPad, released just five months later, eschews the easily removable battery.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

These seemingly small inconveniences present\u00a0a big problem\u00a0in a world with\u00a0more mobile devices than people<\/a>. Eventually, those devices land in trash heaps, incinerators, or recyclers. Americans generated more than\u00a03 million tons of e-waste<\/a>\u00a0in 2013, and recycled just 40 percent of it. Recycling more devices, and doing so more efficiently, prevents salting the earth to make new gizmos.<\/p>\n

At the same time, batteries pose a major safety hazard to recyclers. In the best-case scenario, glued-down batteries significantly slow down a recycling operation. In the worst case, a punctured battery starts a fire or triggers a dust explosion.<\/p>\n

Which brings me back to the pentalobe screw\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Much Ado About a Little Screw<\/h3>\n

Apple introduced the unusual star-shaped screw inside the\u00a0mid-2009 MacBook Pro<\/a>\u00a0as a means of keeping people from replacing the battery on their own. One year later, it used smaller pentalobe screws on the\u00a0exterior\u00a0of the iPhone 4<\/a>, placing the two small sentinels\u00a0on either side of the charging port.<\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t see pentalobes often back then. (I first saw one in 2010 and couldn\u2019t identify it, even though I do this for a living.) Putting esoteric screws in every iPhone was a strategic move. The design wasn\u2019t patented, but only Apple had the tool needed to remove the damn things. And that meant only Apple could open your phone.<\/p>\n

This is essentially security via obscurity, an obstacle that impedes all but the most determined people. No less annoying, they\u2019re another barrier to recycling, albeit a minor one. My company, iFixit, reverse-engineered the screw and sold screwdrivers to fit it. Recycling centers use our bits by the bucketful.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d never seen a pentalobe outside of the Apple ecosystem. Until now.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Wrong Way, Huawei<\/h3>\n

I can\u2019t tell you why Huawei put pentalobe screws in the P9. But I can tell you there is not one functional reason for it.<\/p>\n

Mechanically, the pentalobe sucks. A shallow draft and rounded lobes make it easy to strip. It\u2019s not even a particularly good security screw anymore. Apple\u2019s put them on every one of the 873 million or so iPhones sold worldwide since 2011. You won\u2019t see\u00a0a pentalobe driver in most home toolboxes, but you don\u2019t have to look hard to find a professional with one.<\/p>\n

Frankly, the only reason for Huawei to use a star-shaped security screw is because Apple uses a star-shaped security screw. And Huawei really wants its phone to look like an iPhone. Just like everyone else.<\/p>\n

Look, I realize artists steal. But the best artists steal only the best ideas. Huawei copied a really stupid idea, and did so for a really stupid reason: Because it\u00a0looked\u00a0right.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a radical thought for Huawei and everyone else: Stop copying the locked-down iPhone and make something different. I get excited by something like the LG G5 because\u00a0LG\u2019s modular design<\/a>\u00a0doesn\u2019t remind me of something I\u2019ve seen before. LG also squeezed a\u00a0user-replaceable battery<\/a>into a unibody phone. No one else is doing that. It used easy-to-assemble press- fit connectors instead of glue. The\u00a0Fairphone 2<\/a>\u00a0drew inspiration from LG.\u00a0You can\u00a0swap its screen<\/a>\u00a0in less time than it takes to shave in the morning. Which is pretty cool.<\/p>\n

The world needs tech companies to innovate rather than chase Apple through its walled garden. It needs more repairable, recyclable products. But no one is smart enough, or brave enough, to do that. In their misguided and single-minded focus to emulate Jony Ive, these companies are copying everything Apple does, down to the last screw.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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