- 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.
See that’s an issue.
I came out second in a fight one time on the base, and suffered hearing damage on the one side. Wheee. Wireless phones for me at least are harder to hear on, and speaker phones worse. Battery headphones? No thanks, even if the apple ear pods are fucking magical for ANC on a plane ride or train ride when she sends me hers (I don’t even pair them or play music; just light them up for blissful silence). I do find them expensive and disposable, normally, and that’s irksome to a former poor kid.
I love that I can use a good-fitting earbud set that plugs into everything I need, and each thing doesn’t need its own converter dongle to lose. It’s a huge feature for me.