A developer who won two Apple TV 4 development kits on both developer accounts is ebaying one of them, claiming in the ad that a loophole allows them to do so despite Apple’s no-resale clause. The auction has a starting bid of $300, well above the $149/199 retail price when it goes on official sale next month.
It is against the policies of Apple to resell this unit “while it is running Apple pre-release software” according to the terms of service but good news! This unit ships without any OS installed on it. You can just download the firmware update from the developer portal and restore it with iTunes when you get it.
Apple made the kits available to developers by lottery, with winners notified a week ago. Developers paid a token of $1, and are of course meant to use the boxes to create Apple TV apps..
The seller, based in Houston, Texas, says that if the buyer doesn’t have a developer account, they can be directed to a download source after the auction. As with almost all of his or her recent eBay sales, the auction is listed as Private, meaning that neither the buyer nor details of what was sold can be seen once the auction ends.
You can find full details of what Apple announced about the new Apple TV, which came as no surprise after our earlier exclusive reporting.
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“both developer accounts”
“Both” refers to what?
Apparently the two developer accounts which enabled him to win two of these kits. It’s pretty straight forward.
Yeah, the lottery selection process was weird. Both of my developer accounts were picked. I have a personal one and a company account.
I’m not this guy, btw. I’m not that lame, It seems like most people I know with apps on the store received a kit.
Sounds like a pretty imbecilic thing to do. Buy the thing for a 200% markup and possibly run afoul of contract law when the damn thing will show up in a few weeks for its normal price.
No shenanigans required then.
It depends on your perspective. As the auction is currently over $1000, there are at least a few people who believe getting a hold of this tech now is worth it.
Private or not, you can never see who won someone’s auction(s).
Loophole or not, Apple can ask eBay to take the auction down.
A potential buyer shouldn’t be surprised to find their box bricked at some point in the future.
The developer shouldn’t be surprised to find their developer ID revoked in the future if it’s discovered who they are – and this is so easy to do it’s not even worth writing more about.
Texas, land of the patent troll lovers… Isn’t it Ironic?
It’s like ra-i-n…
Possible Scenario: Apple purchases the AppleTV; utilizes the serial number to positively identify the developer, then cancels his developer accounts (along with a lifetime ban) for violating the terms of his developer agreement. Many legitimate developers were unable to obtain these, due to the limited supply. Allowing someone to get away with flagrantly flaunting the system would set a precedent that Apple probably prefers to deter – with prejudice!
Does he actually think the dev kits have no IDs to pinpoint him? The hardware serial number alone will get him blocked.
I really hate scumbags like this guy. He got the hardware for practically free and he pulls this BS.
it saddens me to see the people selling the hardware like this. we were one of many devs that didn’t get the hardware, we have 30 apps + in the app store and we have been working on an app for the apple tv in anticipation of this release. it would have been really useful. we live on an island with no other developers so borrowing locally is not an option.
it saddens me to see the people selling the hardware like this. we were one of many devs that didn’t get the hardware, we have 30 apps + in the app store and we have been working on an app for the apple tv in anticipation of this release. it would have been really useful to have hardware to test on. we live on an island with no other developers so borrowing locally is not an option. i was thrilled to hear apple was giving out hardware to devs, nothing like that has happened ever in my memory and we have been developing since 1998.
it’s not just one a bunch of people who got developer hardware are now selling on eBay.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xapple+tv+gen+4.TRS0&_nkw=apple+tv+gen+4&_sacat=0