This kind of falls under the category of “Invoking the Wrath of Apple”.
Or at least its legal department.
The coolest of cats over at iFixit, famous for providing amazing hardware teardown and repair guides for assorted gadgets, had their developer account canceled after publishing a teardown of the new Apple TV developer unit in violation of Apple’s terms and conditions.
As such, iFixit’s app has been pulled from the App Store.
iFixit offered the following statement regarding the situation in a blog post:
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. 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. 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.”
iFixit’s terrific guides are still available on their web site, but Apple remains sticky about its terms and conditions and that probably won’t change in the near term…