- iFixit and Samsung are ending their partnership on a direct-to-consumer phone repair program.
- iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens says “Samsung does not seem interested in enabling repair at scale” and that the deal is not working due to high parts prices and difficulty of repairs.
- Samsung only ships batteries pre-glued to the phone screen, forcing customers to pay over $160 even for just a battery replacement, unlike with other vendors.
- The contract also limited iFixit to selling no more than 7 parts per customer in a 3-month period, hampering their ability to support local repair shops.
- Additionally, Samsung required iFixit to share customer email addresses and purchase history, which iFixit does not do with other partners.
- iFixit says it will continue to stock aftermarket Samsung parts and publish repair guides, but will no longer work directly with Samsung on official repair manuals.
iFixit says:
We clearly didn’t learn our lesson the first time, and let them convince us they were serious about embracing repair.
We tried to make this work. Gosh, we tried. But with such divergent priorities, we’re no longer able to proceed.
I have to admit, Samsung have some great things in terms of hardware, but this is not one of them - and their anti-consumer practices will continue to keep me away from the brand.
that’s fine but the number of people on the globe who refuse to buy from them is literally a rounding error
Yeah they have some cool gadgets and designs, but this kind of shit + the software side has always kept me away from the brand
Evil megacorp declines to be less evil, news at 11
True. Still I think it is not possible to have too much public attention, when it comes to evil corporate stuff. Keep a light on these mf.
mfw the zaibatsu does zaibatsu things
Chaebol. Zaibatsus are in Glorious Nippon, Chaebols are Korean. But same concept, and just as terrible.
Yeah, forgot the Korean term for it, but it’s basically potato potato
I always hated Samsung for their shitty business practices, and the way they dealt with their customers in terms of device repairability
Did they really say, “We tried to make this work. Gosh, we tried.”?
Well, golly.
Oh God. You are so big. So absolutely huge. Gosh we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell you.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Two years after they teamed up on one of the first direct-to-consumer phone repair programs, iFixit CEO and co-founder Kyle Wiens tells The Verge the two companies have failed to renegotiate a contract — and says Samsung is to blame.
“Samsung does not seem interested in enabling repair at scale,” Wiens tells me, even though similar deals are going well with Google, Motorola, and HMD.
Instead of being Samsung’s partner on genuine parts and approved repair manuals, iFixit will simply go it alone, the same way it’s always done with Apple’s iPhones.
(While Samsung did add the S23, Z Flip 5, and Z Fold 5 to its self-repair program in December, that was with a different provider, Encompass; iFixit says it was left out.)
Some of those guides also mention a Samsung Self Repair Assistant app, which is weirdly not available in either Google Play or the Galaxy Store and has to be sideloaded in the US.
We can’t comment further on partnership details at this time,” reads part of a statement from Samsung head of mobile customer care Mario Renato De Castro to The Verge.
The original article contains 748 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
So if I were to order a battery replacement part from Samsung would it already be paired with a screen? Or could it be future proofed with a bit of DIY engineering? Cause I love my S22 Ultra, and am tired of upgrading every 2-4 years because the battery starts holding less and less charge.
Some newer phones allow you to stop charging at 80% which will essentially extend the life of your battery for as many years as you want it.
Settings->battery->stop charging at 80%
I get a full day out of 80% and I’m nearly always near a charging source so I use it and haven’t found any issues with it.
I am pretty sure this only showed up in Android 14 for me. OnePlus phone.
They really should just make 80 the new 100
It’s nice to have the option for when you’re expecting bad weather or will be out for an extended period.
Man, I’m glad I bought a Murena Fairphone.
I am 1000% asking Lemmy where to buy my next phone. It’ll take some setup but Stallman will be proud.
I don’t think Stallman would be proud of anything Android, and certainly not something that the user can’t update outside of the manufacturer updates. Pretty much everything has a locked down BIOS, and you can’t really modify the OS yourself.
I’m using a Pixel (bad) with GrapheneOS (good), so I think Stallman would be a little happier, but he’d probably still prefer something like a Pinephone, which I think has a project to open up the modem.
Too much fuss about nothing. Samsung just want to be sure that they aren’t getting ripped off on warranty repairs and that they have an accurate idea of the devices repair history. Especially with 4 - 7 years OS support on new models, that phone will likely belong to several owners over the years.
When I worked in Telecoms back in 2005 - 2008, Samsung had the very best repair centres. Out of all the OEM’s their repairs were the fastest and the best quality and if a phone went in for repair more than twice, they would replace it on the third repair with a brand new unit.
Could not say that about Nokia, HTC, Sony Ericsson or Motorola. (There was no iPhone yet in my country at that time)
