Oh really, breaching NDA is nothing, right? and if iFixit can do it publicly without repercussions, why others cannot? Apple just had to do what was done.
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Apple Bans iFixit Developer Account and Removes App After Apple TV Teardown
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Oh really, breaching NDA is nothing, right? and if iFixit can do it publicly without repercussions, why others cannot? Apple just had to do what was done.
Didn't cause any harm? How do you know? Have you done trade studies on the question? HAve you researched the best release date? Have you checked out the relationships between market release and profit margin?
Do you realize that now the inside information is in the hands of competitors? Do you realize that in this cutthroat business the reduction of research of a single day is worth millions? Do you realize that looking into private information before a product is released is worth millions? If Amazon, Samsung, Roku or Sony can skip a single day of research because of this leak, the damage is done. And it's big damage. I love iFixIt, but they're dead wrong. I guess you never worked on a serious product.
If I were a competitor in this space, would I hope and wait until somebody dissects the machine and put it on the net? Or would I find access to a machine myself via any other way.
Apparently not. Because there was a contract between Apple and iFixit, and Apple made the assumption that when a company signs a contract, they act according to the terms of that contract. An assumption that millions of companies make every day. And since iFixit was in breach of that contract, Apple terminated, quite correctly, their side of the contract.
Saying it doesn't hurt Apple in any way is short sighted.
I guess any time a large and successful company enforces their agreements and contracts it's petty. But imagine they were a smaller company.
Let me ask you a question. If you were running a small startup (and perhaps you are as I do) and you had a new widget and you offered to various companies/people a review product program to help you get a feel for the market for said widget. Being smart, you asked these parties to sign an agreement not to share some specific information with anyone (NDA, restrictions of use, etc.) and in return they enrolled in the program and had early access to your widget. Let's say, one of these parties decided to talk about your widget and show pictures of it. Are you being petty if you enforce the agreements you signed with them by retracting their rights to participate in your program? In essence to protect your company's property and business advangates? I would call you smart, and I would also call you retrained for not suing.
Let's say Samsung secretly applied with a fake developer account to get early access to the Apple TV. Would Apple be petty if they found out and took action? Where would you draw the line? As well, iFixit is a great company, agreed, but they could have waited to purchase the Apple TV when it was released and added value to the community at that point.
I don't think you understand me right at all. I'm saying that the punishment is too harsh. I do believe that they violated terms and for that they should face punitive action.
What I was saying isn't that they shouldn't be punished, but that their punishment was too harsh. Be forever prohibited from gaining early developer access to things, sure. That seems fair. Removing them from the developer program altogether (which always has the potential to cost a company tons of money) and pulling their apps from the app store is harsh.
Apple probably didn't like iFixit and all these reviews over the years... and found an excuse to drop them. Anyway thanks Ifixit for what you've been doing.
Wow, whoever is defending either company is being silly. An NDA is very serious. When you break it, it's pretty serious.
Any industry that you work in, it's a very binding agreement. Just imagine if you were in the movie industry, say you were an actor in Star Wars The Force Awakens, you signed an NDA not to disclose anything. Then, you started spilling info about storyline, etc...Same thing here. Sure just spilling the guts of the hardware to some people isn't "damaging", but it can still give competitors ideas, etc...Plus, it might not even be representative of the final hardware.
The point is, NDAs are there for a reason. Even legal fees might apply, just stripping iFixit just a developer account isn't even that serious, so they have to consider themselves lucky.
Any industry that you work in, it's a very binding agreement. Just imagine if you were in the movie industry, say you were an actor in Star Wars The Force Awakens, you signed an NDA not to disclose anything. Then, you started spilling info about storyline, etc...Same thing here. Sure just spilling the guts of the hardware to some people isn't "damaging", but it can still give competitors ideas, etc...Plus, it might not even be representative of the final hardware.
The point is, NDAs are there for a reason. Even legal fees might apply, just stripping iFixit just a developer account isn't even that serious, so they have to consider themselves lucky.
This thread contains some of the most absurd opinions and conclusions ever stated publicly. The apparent non-understanding of the importance of a Non-Disclosure Agreement is staggering.
And, for all of those saying things like "Big bad Apple has so much money that this shouldn't matter" or "Apple wants everything to be a secret" or some such silliness... why don't you come back and post something again after your 15th birthday.
And, for all of those saying things like "Big bad Apple has so much money that this shouldn't matter" or "Apple wants everything to be a secret" or some such silliness... why don't you come back and post something again after your 15th birthday.
Assuming much? Personally, I try and stick to them or, as you say, use something else. Heck, I've even got full licenses for the copies of Windows I use in my VMs ('use something else' isn't an option if you have to work with people who use Windows software). Anyway, most of the problematic clauses in EULAs aren't the sort of things you can choose to ignore (like the publisher denying any responsibility whatsoever for the quality of the product, or having to put up with DRM that makes it stop working after a motherboard repair) - unless, of course, you know that those clauses have been ruled invalid in your jurisdiction. The "don't give away copies" bit is fairly uncontroversial (and not why I'd like EULAs to go away) and analogous to the "don't disclose this information" bit of a NDA.
Thank you Apple for stealing other companies work, trades and secrets then go develop it before the company and then ban a dev who leaked the internal workings of the same product you stole
I don't think there's anything wrong with people wanting to fix their own things. And I don't think iFixIt are a bunch of cranks.
It's just not true that Apple products are being "thrown out" and fostering a "disposable culture." Every Apple device I've ever owned has been handed down the line in my family, or traded in to Gazelle, or some other trade in site. Even my 5th gen iPod Video, which was my first Apple Device since my Apple IIGS (which I sold a long time ago like a moron.) I willing to bet every one of my Apple devices in the last 10 years is either still working (as a refurb unit) or was properly recycled. In fact, you can make the case that removable batteries led to more waste because people would buy a new one and just throw out the old one. Granted, Best Buy and some other places will take any battery as a recycle, but still we all know how people really work. Apple is preventing waste by giving value to the second hand market to buy refurb. No one would throw out an iPhone because they all have some value.
Anyway, I applaud iFixIts ideals, but I just think the reality of the situation is much different now and they are just pretending that's not the case. There's pictures of massive junk piles of electronic waste on their site, but it's not Apple's stuff in there. They're on the second and third market living as refurbs.
What does that have to do with breaking an NDA? Had iFixit posted this teardown the day TV went on sale there would have been zero issues.
The irony is that they actually gave it a pretty good repairability score, though in practise it's a more of a "disassembility" score.
I still like iFixit and their general message, even though it's a business to sell fixing tools. It's cool to see high quality videos and photos of the internals of our devices!
I still like iFixit and their general message, even though it's a business to sell fixing tools. It's cool to see high quality videos and photos of the internals of our devices!
Barring other activities that are just as dubious, they get to wait until the device comes out, just like everyone else. Get one off the shelf and then dissect it. They can make speculation based on what Apple did publicly say in the meantime. But if you are looking to get one early, then you get into the realm of illegal behavior (theft, bribing someone to break an NDA, etc). Even if you get one under NDA because you both partner and compete, the NDA will bar you from sharing the details with other parts of the company to avoid giving the competing part an advantage.
The issue here is that iFixIt did damage by releasing the details early. So as a competitor, I don't have to wait until launch to dissect my own, and I can start adjusting my competitive plans early based on these details. The whole point of the NDA in the first place is to avoid disclosures like this, which result in details like these, from getting into the hands of the "wrong people" (competitors) before the launch. Competitors in this case now have about a month of lead time to adjust their plans that they didn't have before. That's huge.
NDA isn't about hiding this stuff from users (beyond the need to avoid misconceptions), it is about protecting projects from competitors before they launch.
I would have said the same on an Android forum or whatever, the "who cares" part that you seem to refer to is exactly the attitude iFixit seemed to have, and that's why it came back to bite them. I see your signature implies you're using a hackintosh, so I could generalize like you and say it's no wonder that this is your opinion in the matter. But I won't.
I think there's quite the difference between a consumer at home that just wants the system to run the software they use for their social, hobby, or profession. Versus a developer who decided this is a way to make money.
Who does business without reading a contract?
Interesting. Post an App with a pirated version of Xcode to the AppStore that puts the personal data of millions of users at risk (by the way not only in China as for ex WeChat also got an update in the US AppStore because of the XcodeGhost issue) and you can keep your dev certificate.
Put a tear down as a fan and you get banned and your app removed.
I mean Apple has every right to handle this NDA breach. But certainly it seems users data security is not of apples primary concern.
Put a tear down as a fan and you get banned and your app removed.
I mean Apple has every right to handle this NDA breach. But certainly it seems users data security is not of apples primary concern.
"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime". As a developer, I _always_ have access to information that is not publicly available. That's the most essential thing in any business relationship, that you have to trust the other side to hold up their side of the bargain. iFixit has been demonstrating very strongly that they cannot be trusted. If you read through this thread, you will even find some people saying that actually Apple is to blame because they should have known that iFixit cannot be trusted!
Well, it isn't a "punishment". A and B sign a contract. B breaches the contract. A decides the finish the business relationship. That's not a punishment, it's just normal business (except for the breach of contract).
I fully agree that Apple has been stealing other company's trades, especially Microsoft and nowadays Samsung. For the rest of your post, could you please try to explain what you are talking about?