Apple removes Ifixit's repair manuals from App Store

boing
22

It’s why I didn’t buy, and won’t buy, another Apple product since I damaged my iBook.

1 Like
23

Another website with a useless app. Why did they make an app in the first place? It’s a website. It doesn’t need an app.

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24

Because sometimes you need to repair stuff while offline. An app lets you download the whole manual, with all the associated videos, high resolution pics and so on, without worrying that your job site lacks reliable internet.

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25

How about not sending them pre-release hardware in the future? Or any free hardware at all? Even if your wild conspiracy theory is true, it just confirms that Apple only thinks about expressing its power instead of its users.

26

That doesn’t sound like deterance. It was spelled out directly in the agreement BEFORE Apple let them borrow the equipment. It isn’t even Ifixit’s hardware – it was Apple’s.

I don’t know about you, but if I loan you my car and your take photos of your destruction of it, I’m going to ban you from having anything to do with my world again. But that just sounds like a power trip. I mean, Apple COULD have sued these folks into the ground…if they would have gone this route, I’m sure there would be someone claiming BUY YOU COULD HAVE JUST BANNED THEM.

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27

So holding people to the terms they agreed to is wrong? iFixit readily admits it knew the consequences, but did it anyway. Just not giving them hardware in the future really isn’t much of a deterrent.

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28

You won’t buy another Apple product because a developer intentionally violated an agreement it agreed to with Apple and Apple held it accountable? Wow.

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30

But did the NDA say anything about their app? Or was it a different agreement? I’m willing to bet, dollars to donuts, that it was a separate agreement. Can Microsoft revoke your Windows license because you stole a pen from their office?

Somethingsomethingtwowrongsthreeeleftsmakearight.

1 Like
31

We had high-quality apps like that back in the nineties. They were called “bookmarks”.

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32

There are two or three lists.

33

Nope.

None of this really influences my current decision to acquire a new laptop from Apple, though. Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

34

ORLY?

http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/MacOSX_10_10.html#installation2

35

Which, independent of the whole controversy is frankly true. I’m sure I’m not the only one here who’s fed up with every goddamn website creating an “app” that’s basically a Webkit view with an icon tied to their URL…

1 Like
36

Yeah. I’ll consider it useful if this works for Snow Leopard on Yosemite, but not before.

37

Oooh. Maybe I should try that, then. I had no idea you could do this.

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38

The NDA very likely explicitly states that failure to abide by it will result in the termination of the developer account used to obtain the hardware (which has the side-effect of nuking all of the material published by that account). iFixit used their production developer account to obtain hardware on loan from Apple, tore it apart, posted pictures of it publicly, and then acted miffed (but notably not surprised) when Apple did exactly what they said they would do: terminate the offending developer account.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with what Apple did. If they’d banned iFixit for tearing down an iPhone 6s that they’d bought at retail, I could understand being justifiably upset at Apple wielding undue power over its ecosystem, but that’s categorically not what happened. If iFixit had signed up for an Xbox One or Playstation 4 developer console, torn it down, and posted it online, Microsoft or Sony would have done exactly the same thing, because in these instances, it’s not iFixits hardware. In a developer relationship, these sorts of hardware lease/loan arrangements are completely acceptable practice.

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39

I won’t buy another Crapple product because fixing it would have cost more than buying a new one, which wouldn’t have been their case if their policies, price structure and fees for maintenance contractors wouldn’t be geared to make product repair economically un-viable. So, while I liked the OS X interface and the overall user experience, I won’t support a company with policies that are actively geared against sustainability, wow!

2 Likes
40

If being banned was deterrence, Ifixit would have been deterred. And who is hurt by removing the app? Only the people who wanted to use their app.

41

But did it?

42

“Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.”