The New Technology Elite: How Great Companies Optimize Both Technology Consumption and Production

Chapter 13

Paranoid: But Not Paralyzed

As companies develop their smart products, they need to become thick-skinned about what are generally accepted traditions in the tech industry.

A good example is teardowns as soon as products become available. Photos of components, guesses about their likely suppliers, likely costs, and product margins show up on blogs, the most prominent of which is a website called iFixit.

“An iFixit teardown is at once a twenty-first-century repair manual, a work of art, an exhibition of a curiosity, and an activist gesture.”¹

Some of the advice and related parts available on the site are for the aficionado. Example: “Apple has substituted (on the Verizon iPhone 4) the two bottom Phillips screws near the dock connector with 5-point ‘Pentalobular’ screws. This guide will illustrate how to replace the Pentalobe screws with good ol’ regular Phillips screws.” It has for sale a “liberation kit,” which includes a 5-point “Pentalobe” screwdriver, a #00 Phillips screwdriver, and two 3.6 mm “Liberation” Phillips screws.²

Most users find the site even more useful for a whole variety of repair guides for cars, cameras, and other devices.

Then there are the bragging rights from the teardowns. Says Popular Science magazine: “In late 2006, PopSci.com had one of its all-time highest traffic days when we posted photos looking inside the then just-to-be-released Nintendo Wii. At that point, we had beaten even iFixit to the punch.”

Jailbreaks and Roots

The term “jailbreak” ...