pentalobe screws?

Batteries which are soldered to the board instead of using a connector, motherboard is all one assembly including the keyboard, fewer ports, nothing user serviceable. That all seems like measures to make manufacturing easier from my perspective.

How is soldering components simpler than using connectors? It's more expensive for diminishing returns.

Connectors are also soldered as well and they add to the BOM costs.

Sure, it gives them both the benefit of optimized manufacturing and the benefit from screwing the customers.

It's not a law of nature that making things better for yourself will make them better for your customers. In fact, the opposite is usually true.

Measure that make it harder (but not impossible) for users to disassemble their devices serves to avoid people doing accidental damage (and voiding their warrantee). It's possible to get a pentalobe screwdriver, and anyone not willing to get one probably has no business opening up an Apple product.

Yeah, countless businesses have been bankrupt by the mistake of using standard screws that regular plebs to violate their warranties. Apple simply can afford to take that kind of risk, their margins are very tight as it is!

For those downvoting me, if you genuinely think that pentalobe screws are bad, can you please explain why someone who doesn't have access to a pentalobe screwdriver has even the slightest business opening up an iPhone?

Wow circular logic much? So anyone without a pentalobe screwdriver is not qualified to replace a battery (for example)?

Other way around. Anyone qualified to replace a battery should have no difficulty getting their hands on a pentalobe screwdriver.

In fact, it would not surprise me in the least if vendors selling third-party iPhone batteries included pentalobe screwdrivers with the battery (or offered it as an add-on).