“The electronics repair site iFixit says that after it published its detailed teardown of the upcoming Apple TV hardware, Apple reached out to say that the company had violated the developer agreement and revoked the account that was used to obtain the device,” Mike Beasley reports for 9to5Mac.
Beasley reports, “The iFixit app, which was previously available on the App Store for free, was tied to that developer account, meaning the app’s listing was removed along with the account.”
Read more in the full article here.
“Not too long ago, we tore down the Apple TV and Siri Remote. The developer unit we disassembled was sent to us by Apple. Evidently, they didn’t intend for us to take it apart,” Kyle Wiens writes for iFixIt. “But we’re a teardown and repair company; teardowns are in our DNA — and nothing makes us happier than figuring out what makes these gadgets tick. We weighed the risks, blithely tossed those risks over our shoulder, and tore down the Apple TV anyway.”
“A few days later, we got an email from Apple informing us that we violated their terms and conditions—and the offending developer account had been banned. Unfortunately, iFixit’s app was tied to that same account, so Apple pulled the app as well,” Wiens writes. “Their justification was that we had taken ‘actions that may hinder the performance or intended use of the App Store, B2B Program, or the Program.'”
Wiens writes, “Live and learn.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Should have waited to post the teardown until the Apple TV and Siri Remote were released to the public.
Now, who at Apple approved sending out a pre-release Apple TV developer unit to a company best known for tearing down Apple products?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]