iFixit and Samsung part ways. Two years after they collaborated on one of the first direct-to-consumer phone repair programs, says Kyle Wiens, CEO and co-founder of iFixit. the edge The two companies failed to renegotiate the contract, and say Samsung is responsible.
“Samsung doesn’t seem interested in enabling repair at scale,” Wiens tells me, though similar deals are going well with Google, Motorola, and HMD.
He believes Samsung’s drop shouldn’t actually affect iFixit customers too much. Instead of partnering with Samsung for genuine replacement parts and authorized repair guides, iFixit will simply do it on its own, the same way it’s always done with Apple’s iPhones.
While Waynes did not mention who Technically He says price is the biggest reason why the Samsung deal didn’t work out: Samsung’s parts are so expensive, and its phones are still so difficult to repair, that customers don’t buy them.
Most importantly, Samsung only shipped batteries to iFixit that were pre-glued to the entire phone screen – making consumers Pay more than $160 Even if they just want to replace a worn out battery pack. This is something Samsung does not do with other vendors, according to Wiens. Meanwhile, iPhone and Pixel batteries are from iFixit Cost more like $50.
iFixit says the Samsung deal won’t allow it to help local repair shops either, because the contract artificially limits iFixit to selling no more than seven parts per customer during a three-month period. “We couldn’t move parts at the scale needed to move the environmental needle,” Wiens says.
And last but not least, iFixit simply couldn’t do it Gets Official parts for the latest Samsung devices – In fact, the 2022 Galaxy S22 lineup was the last time iFixit added original parts for new Samsung phones. (Although Samsung added the S23, Z Flip 5, and Z Fold 5 to its self-repair program in December, it was with a different provider.) Include; iFixit says it’s been excluded.)
Didn’t iFixit know about these deal restrictions? Yes, Wiens says, and this isn’t the first time the iFixit and Samsung deal has collapsed. He says he can’t tell me if Samsung has promised things will be different this time.
The company still plans to stock aftermarket Samsung parts and publish repair guides, and still has an inventory of original replacement parts in stock. iFixit actually thinks it will sell more Samsung parts finally. But it will no longer work with Samsung directly on repair guides, and as a result iFixit guides may be less detailed.
The partnership between Samsung and iFixit officially ends on June 17, according to Wiens, and he says he doesn’t think Samsung will violate any right-to-repair laws once it’s done. In California, for example, Samsung will legally have to provide repair tools, parts, software and documentation for seven years when the law goes into effect on July 1, 2024, for any device it sells after July 1, 2021.
“We were the ones who released the documents to them,” says Wiens, “but I can see that.” Samsung self-repair services page on Encompass It already has some, if not all, official repair guides. Some of these guides also point to the Samsung Self Repair Assistant app, which strangely isn’t available on Google Play or the Galaxy Store and must be downloaded in the US. Here is the downloadable APK file From the Encompass website.
In a blog post titled “We are ending our cooperation with Samsung” Which iFixit will publish todaythe company did not go so far as to indicate that Samsung is as well “Repair wash” Or pursue any other type of harmful compliance strategy.
We clearly didn’t learn our lesson the first time, and let them convince us that they are serious about adopting reform.
We tried to make this work. Oh my God, we tried. But with these diverging priorities, we can no longer move forward.
Samsung did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
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