We’d better get our tin foil hats. The developer unit we disassembled was sent to us by Apple. By pulling apart the Apple TV developer unit and publishing its findings, iFixit quotes Apple as saying that its terms and conditions had been violated, and iFixit’s actions “may hinder the performance or intended use of the App Store, B2B Program, or the Program”, said Kyle Wiens, iFixit co-founder and CEO, in a blog post.
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Unfortunately, the iFixit app for iOS is no longer accessible as Apple has removed it following teardown of the Apple TV. “We weighed the risks, blithely tossed those risks over our shoulder, and tore down the Apple TV anyway”, wrote iFixit in a blog post.
In Apple’s defense, any such teardown jobs clearly violate the terms and conditions of its developer account. iFixit too is not raising a stink about it as it admitted that it knew that Apple could pull its app from the App Store if it published a teardown of the new Apple TV and the new Siri remote. Even though the iOS iFixit app was outdated and a bit cumbersome to use, iOS users appreciated the opportunity of learning about their smartphones, their hardware, value, how they work and the specifics of each component withn their new phones. We’ll continue to do so – theirs is a valuable service to the DIY community, especially since company’s like Apple sometimes go to great effort to keep consumers from opening up their devices.
We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update here if or when we hear back. Apple rarely gives developers pre-release access to hardware like this, and thanks to iFixit that likely won’t happen again.
By cpartsalot, who notes: “I have a theory that the reason they have yet to have an official sequel announcement is because the scriptwriters are busy trying to slip in as many Mad Max references as possible past the censors”.
“All the functionality you need for mobile is already there”.
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