this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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iFixit is breaking up with Samsung. ‘Samsung’s approach to repairability does not align with our mission,’ says iFixit’s CEO. (www.theverge.com)
submitted 5 months ago by ForgottenFlux to c/technology
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  • 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.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

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.

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