Apple might be spiting itself by giving the iFixit app the boot from its App Store this week.

iFixit, if you don't know, is a really great site for hands-on people who dare to dive into the innards of their iPhones, tablets and other gear in order to fix them, tweak them or just because they're curious. In fact, the company even issued a manifesto to encourage people to fix their own stuff and prevent so many electronics from filling up landfills. We and other media outlets regularly cover the company's "teardowns" of products from Apple, Google and others.

iFixit provides a ton of free repair manual content, and helps pay for its services by selling tools and parts.

Overall, I find iFixit's reviews of the fixability of Apple and other products to be quite fair, though I'm sure Apple didn't love it when iFixit came up with a workaround for the tricky screws Apple uses in some products to keep customers from opening them up.

Neither apparently was Apple enamored of iFixit's recent teardown of the Apple TV and Siri remote. As iFixit's Kyle Wiens writes in a blog post this week:

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.”

Wiens goes on to explain that iFixit has been bolstering its mobile website, so redoing its Apple app isn't a priority right now. But for those of you with Android or Windows devices, iFixit Repair Manual apps are still at your disposal...