IFixit app pulled from App Store following fourth-gen Apple TV teardown

“The good news is we’ve been working like gangbusters on our mobile site”, Wiens said, adding that the native iOS app was already beset by compatibility issues with iOS 9 before it was pulled.

Ifixit are one of the heroes of the computer revolution. We’d better get our tin foil hats.

The iFixit is a favorite when it comes to teardowns and iOS users had a profound appreciation for all that the iFixit community has been doing for them over the years. Many companies (especially Apple) have gone to enormous lengths to prevent independent service centers from fixing or modifying their products, and so Ifixit’s manuals are the go-to resource for people who need to defeat these measures.

The reason for Apple’s decision came after a recent Apple TV tear-down. The new model supports third-party apps, so Apple offered developers early access to the device so they could start testing their code on actual hardware.

We’ve reached out to Apple for comment and will update here if or when we hear back.

That’s exactly what iFixit did with the new Apple TV. What happened is iFixIt secured an Apple TV dev kit, which is a pre-release model meant to give developers a chance to build and test their apps on the new model before it becomes publicly available. iFixIt then proceeded to disassemble the set-top box and post a teardown analysis on its blog. Evidently, they didn’t intend for us to take it apart. “But we’re a teardown and fix company; teardowns are in our DNA – and nothing makes us happier than figuring out what makes these gadgets tick”.

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. And iFixit doesn’t seem to have too many complaints about the closure of its account – in fact, it acknowledges it was aware of the risks. The site’s developer account was deleted and their App was taken off the Appstore.

Apple informed iFixit that the Apple TV teardown they shared via the iFixit app is in violation of the terms and conditions that the team agreed to when accepting the Apple TV preview unit.