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> I'm no fan of Apple's App Store policies, but this one is entirely iFixit's fault. Not necessarily. It's not clear that Apple's rules were reasonable. If the

> I'm no fan of Apple's App Store policies, but this one is entirely iFixit's fault. Not necessarily. It's not clear that Apple's rules were reasonable. If the dev unit is identical to the production ones then an NDA is unreasonable unless it was only under NDA until an embargo.

mikeash 11y ago
Why would you assume iFixit didn't violate the NDA? The NDA said you couldn't talk about your Apple TV developer hardware until the final Apple TV shipped. It hasn't shipped yet, and won't for a month or so, while iFixit already posted their teardown a week ago. That's a pretty obvious violation. It's not like iFixit went to a store, bought something, tore it down, and are getting punished for publishing the pictures. They got prerelease hardware for free (technically for a dollar plus sales tax) in exchange for an agreement not to talk about that hardware for a while. Then they talked about it anyway.
tvmalsv 11y ago
To me it doesn't matter if the rules were unreasonable or not. If you accept an offer under specific rules, you have voluntarily bound yourself to them (moral, regardless of legal).
astrodust 11y ago
If you think the NDA is unreasonable, don't agree to it and don't take possession of the hardware. If you do accept it and violate it, be prepared for consequences.
- sitkack 11y ago
  How about take possession and then ignore? The world isn't isn't so black and white.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I see little room for shades of gray in a scenario where someone gives you $150 of hardware for free and all they ask in exchange is that you wait two months before talking about it.
  - bmelton 11y ago
    Well, that's what they did. It's called lying (or in legalese, violation of contract) and the repercussions are that their relationship with Apple is damaged. This might well be the last pre-release thing they ever receive from Apple. So, sure, things aren't black and white, but they didn't exactly leave room for Apple to respond positively, especially given Apple's rather well known positions on leaked information.
    - sitkack 11y ago
      I love how a bunch of nerds get super upset over iFixit doing a teardown on prerelease hardware (lying, violation of contract (shrink wrap at that)). So much easier than getting upset about things that matter. I'd say it ranks about as high as jaywalking.
urda 11y ago
> Not necessarily. 100% absolutely "necessarily". Ifixit broke the rules, and got a light punishment for it. It doesn't matter how you feel on the matter, or if the end product is the same as the dev kit. They broke the rules, and saying things like "Not necessarily" is reckless and an uneducated statement, which is simply not acceptable in HN comment sections.

mikeash 11y ago

Why would you assume iFixit didn't violate the NDA? The NDA said you couldn't talk about your Apple TV developer hardware until the final Apple TV shipped. It hasn't shipped yet, and won't for a month or so, while iFixit already posted their teardown a week ago. That's a pretty obvious violation. It's not like iFixit went to a store, bought something, tore it down, and are getting punished for publishing the pictures. They got prerelease hardware for free (technically for a dollar plus sales tax) in exchange for an agreement not to talk about that hardware for a while. Then they talked about it anyway.

tvmalsv 11y ago

To me it doesn't matter if the rules were unreasonable or not. If you accept an offer under specific rules, you have voluntarily bound yourself to them (moral, regardless of legal).

astrodust 11y ago

If you think the NDA is unreasonable, don't agree to it and don't take possession of the hardware. If you do accept it and violate it, be prepared for consequences.

sitkack 11y ago
How about take possession and then ignore? The world isn't isn't so black and white.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I see little room for shades of gray in a scenario where someone gives you $150 of hardware for free and all they ask in exchange is that you wait two months before talking about it.
- bmelton 11y ago
  Well, that's what they did. It's called lying (or in legalese, violation of contract) and the repercussions are that their relationship with Apple is damaged. This might well be the last pre-release thing they ever receive from Apple. So, sure, things aren't black and white, but they didn't exactly leave room for Apple to respond positively, especially given Apple's rather well known positions on leaked information.
  - sitkack 11y ago
    I love how a bunch of nerds get super upset over iFixit doing a teardown on prerelease hardware (lying, violation of contract (shrink wrap at that)). So much easier than getting upset about things that matter. I'd say it ranks about as high as jaywalking.

urda 11y ago

> Not necessarily. 100% absolutely "necessarily". Ifixit broke the rules, and got a light punishment for it. It doesn't matter how you feel on the matter, or if the end product is the same as the dev kit. They broke the rules, and saying things like "Not necessarily" is reckless and an uneducated statement, which is simply not acceptable in HN comment sections.