It's irrelevant who cares - if you give your word NOT to do something, it's generally viewed as a morally upright "given" not to do what you're asked NOT TO DO. It's *THAT* simple.
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Apple Bans iFixit Developer Account and Removes App After Apple TV Teardown
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It's irrelevant who cares - if you give your word NOT to do something, it's generally viewed as a morally upright "given" not to do what you're asked NOT TO DO. It's *THAT* simple.
Actually the faux outrage over this is more vomit worthy.
From this:
We get this:
We get this:
Right, it's a contractual violation meaning the liability laid out in the contract should be enforced. That likely means they shouldn't get test devices anymore because they violated the contract. It doesn't mean that Apple should remove their app that doesn't violate any terms of the developer agreement just because they're pissed off. That isn't how American contract law works. Seeking redress is permissible in criminal law in some states and in civil cases everywhere, but in civil cases it's usually monetary compensation or terminating the contract (in this case, no more test devices and maybe even a lawsuit or out of court settlement). Unless the contract says "if you violate this NDA Apple will remove your app from the App Store" then Apple shouldn't have done it. One contract cannot and should not effect another, unless the contracts reference one another. Conceivably both sides now have liability. Now that Apple mishandled this, they can both (probably) show damages. Now they're both in the wrong. iFixit was/is being stupid and Apple is being a bully. And we don't KNOW that they know better. They could have been misadvised by their legal department. This should have been handled quietly, especially since iFixit raises Apple awareness and enthusiasm. This is how you get the tech community angry at you, and your customers to think you're evil and petty.
I'm totally with everyone who thinks iFixit should've honored their agreement and not torn it down.
At the same time, the above comment prompted me to wonder just what the heck someone at Apple thought that iFixit was going to do with an Apple TV. I mean, their company is not in any way focused on writing apps. They tear down new gear, that's what they do.
Lack of common sense on both sides.
Wat? The new Chromecast doesn't do anything the old one didn't. It is slightly different looking hardware but the functionality is the same. How is it going to do any more damage than the existing one?
Firstly, you're just deciding that it didn't hurt Apple. You have no idea, so don't pretend to know something about what goes on behind the scenes. You do realize that pre-released hardware is subject to change under the hood and until the proper release date things under the hood should remain there unexposed. They broke the NDA and if companies don't put their foot down nobody will respect it.
It is a single developer account, it comes with documentation, the ability to make things for apple, and you could test out software. And in this case, that account was offered pre release hardware. The person that signed up for the apple developer account should realise if any terms are broken that it applies to that account. Consequently that means there's a risk that submitted apps can no longer be in the store if the account isn't in good standing, or for example are not eligible anymore for receiving software and/or hardware pre-releases when they can't login to the account anymore.
They're a commercial company and they gain from beating others to the punch, not being patient enough and breaking contract is a consequence they were clearly willing to take; like they themselves said: live and learn.
You do realize that iFixit is a major contributor to Apple's success, right?
As someone who also received a developer Apple TV, I'm guessing there wasn't a lot of deep thought on Apple's part. It looks like an automated lottery (given the number of boxes given out, it wasn't like someone at Apple was deeply considering each winner).
apple had the right to ban them, but deleted the app is excessive
I could see the point if Apple had ALSO stomped on some of the NDA violators that are less useful to the Apple community.
There's so many leaks and Apple picks on a repair competitor. Not a good look.
Unless the other leaks are unofficially authorised. Even worse look.
There's so many leaks and Apple picks on a repair competitor. Not a good look.
Unless the other leaks are unofficially authorised. Even worse look.
So that means they should get away with it, over say .. you or me?
Being a great part of a community like macrumors or ifixit, I'd say .. lead by example?
Sarcasm or a true believer? Hard to tell, it's so on the nose.
Beautiful if sarcasm, worrying if not.
Perhaps, but iFixit still agreed to the contract.
I can't get over this comment:
Apparently iFixit's word is not trustworthy and they are only concerned with their own self-interest. I suggest people remember that and ignore their reviews.
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Who cares. The whole thing is petty and Apple is just flexing it's power, I mean arrogance. Every time I see Apple act smug, there's always an army of you apologists taking it's side.
They're protecting the value of NDAs and contracts people sign with them.
Almost all companies, of just about every size, have information they don't want being publicly available. Sometimes it's pointless, sometimes it's materially harmful or catastrophic to the company. Apple, for various reasons--legitimate or not--has a habit of being secretive about a lot of things.
But the bottom line is, they have contracts and NDAs with a lot of companies and people. Sometimes the NDA covers a piece of prerelease hardware or software that's already been announced and will be publicly available in the near future. Other times it's buying a smaller company, details of a product design, CPU design, or upcoming software the disclosure of which would be somewhat or extremely harmful to the company.
Violating some NDAs will cost Apple nothing. Violating others could easily cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.
But if they allow people to blatantly violate their NDAs and don't react at all, it sets a terrible precedent. "Violate an agreement with us, and nothing will happen to you."
I would challenge you to find any company of even moderate size that had an entity sign an NDA or other contract with them, then after having it quite publicly violated isn't going to at least void the rest of their contracts with that entity.
It's a very, very simple section of the contract; excerpting relevant bits:
It's that simple. The contract specifically calls out violation of the confidentiality clause as one of five things that will get your contract immediately voided. It would be downright strange if Apple didn't void the contract for highly public violation of this clause.
It says "don't disclose information about pre-release versions of Apple hardware, or we will immediately terminate your contract." This is exactly what Apple did. The contract also includes the ability to sue someone who discloses confidential information for damages, which it looks unlikely Apple will do.
In fact, if you read carefully, iFixIt was the one that terminated the contract. The termination just didn't become effective until Apple notified them.
Yes, unfortunate they now can't deliver this service. For the difference of a short time and a publicity stunt, they have in fact made a disservice to their audience.
You know, I hadn't even thought of that. I was assuming "who would ever want to run an iFixIt app on their TV?", but you're absolutely right. Giant image that you can look up from while working on your computer which you would normally be using to access that information (but can't because it's broken!) would be genuinely useful. And since there's no web browser on the TV, an app is your only option.
The alternative is using AirPlay to display content from your phone, but that's not as cool of a solution.
Of course, it's also possible that people (like me) would assume it's useless, so even if they did build an ATV app nobody would download it.
There must be something more to the story. Why would iFixit choose now to violate an NDA? Is this the first time that they've had access to prereleased hardware?
Meh, who knows. They might have gotten more publicity from the teardown, and maybe even from this termination of their account (since fixer-types tend to get angry at Apple for their relatively closed ecosystem anyway), than anything they lost by having their app pulled and dev account terminated.
If that was honest that they were planning on ditching the app anyway, this is a drastically more dramatic way to get your name in the press than "we're discontinuing our app in favor of a mobile site", which would at best get a few complaints from annoyed users.
Not exactly defending them, just pointing out that it's not all downside for iFixIt--there's no such thing as bad publicity, as they say.
Yep, that is exactly the way it is when infixit voluntarily signed a contract.From this:
We get this: