47 ms·

We're ending our Samsung collaboration

678 points by skilled 2y ago

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
Well that's disappointing from Samsung. But I'm glad iFixit actually followed through and decided it wasn't working out, rather than just declaring victory and walking away. You've also gotta think that surely they notified Samsung before the announcement and gave them some time to try to salvage the arrangement before ending it. The fact that Samsung didn't suggests it's really not high on their priorities list, even with the expected PR backlash.
- wepple 2y ago
  Unfortunately, I highly doubt there will be any material PR backlash. Ask 100 Samsung owners on the street how the ifixit repair ability relationship impacts them, and 99 will ask what ifixit is, and what repairability means. The other one is too stoned to answer.
santoshalper 2y ago
The Right to Repair people remind me a lot of the Free Software people. Which is to say, fundamentally correct, but struggling to get consumers to care enough to influence purchasing decisions. I don't have the answer to this, but somehow getting consumers to factor in repairability is going to be key to creating the kind of leverage that can drive real change in the industry.
- Gigachad 2y ago
  IMO phones are the area I care about repair the least. By the time the phone is 5~ years old, I’m going to want the new one anyway. Where repairs would be much more useful is general household appliances where the model 20 years ago was just as good if not better than the one today. I’m never going to want to upgrade my blender, but when the plastic parts snap, I want it to be easy to get a replacement.
  - Retric 2y ago
    With a phone from 5 years ago sure it’s feeling its age, but that number keeps going up as the functional differences between each phone generation shrinks. Replacing the battery on year 3 makes a huge difference in how long you would want to keep a phone around for.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      And if the maker offers a free service to replace the battery with the purchase, I'm okay with it. Would it be nice to remove the battery to keep "them" from listening? Probably, but "they" are still listening through the TV, the laptops, and that chip in the back of my mouth so, meh
      - catlikesshrimp 2y ago
        TV (fixed) the laptops (fixed), and that chip in the back of my mouth so (erm...) I still failed because some moron gifted an echo 5 to someone who refuses to let it go.
    - BizarreByte 2y ago
      I have a Windows Phone and it’s a decade old. Very outside the norm to still use it, but phones can last a long time from a hardware perspective if they’re allowed too. My 830’s saving grace has been the ease of changing batteries. If the battery was internal I’d have tossed it years ago.
      - BozeWolf 2y ago
        Does it still get software updates? Not just the apps, but also the operating system. If not, you definitely should not use it anymore. Not only because of security issues in software, but also because of possibly revoked certificates. And newer, safer, web protocols. Also strange if your bank still supports it. Hardware might be fine when it comes to being speedy enough, but may also have issues.A digital device still working is just not good enough anymore.
- sersi 2y ago
  The problem is that to be able to make a purchasing decision toward repairability there must be actual choices that offer better repairability. That doesn't seem to be the case for phones unfortunately.
- realusername 2y ago
  How would consumers know anyways, it's pretty hard to purchase on repairability even us as experts.
- wyldfire 2y ago
  > Which is to say, fundamentally correct, but struggling to get consumers to care enough to influence purchasing decisions. You're right that customers don't care about Free software and yet it won. Free software has moved from a niche to dominating the software marketplace. The linux kernel, GNU coreutils, gcc, binutils - these are amazingly popular and keep getting ported to new platforms. And of course, Open Source software is yet more popular still.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    Free Software won because almost everyone, especially businesses can benefit from it. who is going to benefit from right to repair besides consumers and small repair shops?
    - ornornor 2y ago
      Everyone as well? Lower costs, better looking carbon footprint, longer lifecycles, better secondhand market, more efficient software (if you don’t assume everyone uses a new phone, you design your apps/web apps with a little more care towards performance and battery efficiency), more competition between manufacturers (because it’s not a given that you’ll sell new devices every 2–3 years)…
      - hot_gril 2y ago
        Designing a very small device to be DIY repairable has a cost too.
        ornornor 2y ago
        Probably. I don’t think it’s much more than the cost of shrinking everything down and shaving 1/2 mm off your design or engineering a whole protocol, chips, and software to pair components together and implement “features” at the OS level to disable some things if it detects new parts.
- schrijver 2y ago
  While right to repair is in part about getting consumers to care it is just as much about getting regulators to care. They can do things like force the availability of replacement parts etc. The right to repair movement seems to have its effects in the EU, with a ‘right to repair’ directive adopted by the EU parliament. Of course it still needs to be implemented into national legislations and the devil will be in the details… it shows the impact though. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IPR20590/right-to-repair-making-repair-easier-and-more-appealing-to-consumers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IP...
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    I don't like using the entity that brought us cookie banners as an example of how to regular tech.
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      regulate*
- WheatMillington 2y ago
  I feel alone on HN for not caring about repairability at all on phones. I use a phone for ~3 years and replace it. I'd rather have a phone that's slimmer and smaller, than repairable or user-servicable.
- ledgeditor 2y ago
  This isn't just about persuading consumers - it is also about passing laws to protect consumers from abusive practices. Those might include labeling and disclosure laws/regulations that give consumers the information they need to make smart purchasing decisions. For example: repairability scores, explicit declarations of support lifespans, etc.
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  >Which is to say, fundamentally correct, but struggling to get consumers to care enough to influence purchasing decisions. If history is a guide, people generally take abuse from authority in stride so long as the intensity generally remains below a threshold.
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Maybe it's ok that people don't care about repairable phones, and there isn't a need to force them. Also, the closest consumers got to using free software was Android and Chromebook (i.e. not exactly free) plus using services hosted on Linux servers, cause it actually makes sense there, and GNU/Linux home desktop has still not won.
drcongo 2y ago
Samsung should never be trusted for anything.
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  My S22 is pretty great.
  - ziml77 2y ago
    My S24 was returned in a week. Damn thing couldn't even handle showing the mission selection map in Warcraft Rumble. It lagged noticeably behind my finger when dragged around. The Galaxy Watch 6 I got alongside it was even worse for performance. And the clash between Samsung's ecosystem and Google's ecosystem felt terrible. I still want to try coming back to Android from Apple's ecosystem, but next time it won't be through Samsung.
    - ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
      Sounds like a defective unit.
drpossum 2y ago
Samsung is just consistently frustrating. Their hardware for consumer electronics (not appliances) is generally pretty good in my experience, but the attitudes they take towards their customers via this planned obsolescence and software/dark pattern "shove it down your throat and you better like it" hostile crap. I've fundamentally had to change how I work with my phone because of garbage like "just save all the clipboard history, too bad if you don't want that" and "here you'd better like a dedicated button to Bixby" and now "LOOK WE HAVE AI NOW ON YOUR PHONE" as well as being one of the most egregious in the TV data thieving.
- catlikesshrimp 2y ago
  ›› "just save all the clipboard history, too bad if you don't want that" I feel your pain. If you accept a bandaid: change the samsung keyboard to a FOSS keyboard without internet connectivity. The clipboard still exists, at least you can't see it. A better bandaid would be tasker to flush the keyboard everytime you copy something
  - drpossum 2y ago
    That's mostly what I did, yes. This is helpful advice. Password managers like Android Keepass also have non-clipboard functionality in keyboards they provide.
- spondylosaurus 2y ago
  Do newer models not let you remap the "Bixby button" to something else? On my Note 10 I changed it to open the camera, but... it's a Note 10 from 2020, so that may have changed since.
  - Iulioh 2y ago
    S23 ultra here You can totally remap it You can use another keyboard You have to look very hard to find the AI (the only use i have for it is delete some objects from a photo and that takes a few tries) You can literally solve everything in a few minutes
not_your_vase 2y ago
Sure, Samsung is bad, but not sure why iFixit pretends to be the embodiment of right to repair. In my opinion they have harmed the cause more than anything else: instead of actual repair material (like schematics or low/high level servicing manuals) they are selling half-devices. And whoever supplies those half devices is called the repairability-king of the day. Neither Nokia, nor any other of their partners are any better. Fairy dust all around, without actual repairability :( (But I guess it works for everyone: iFixit gets sales, $BRAND gets positive PR. And the customer gets some feel good news. Not actual repairability, but almost as good, I guess)
- islewis 2y ago
  > In my opinion they have harmed the cause more than anything else: instead of actual repair material (like schematics or low/high level servicing manuals) Not sure I understand this take. $BRAND's role is to sell devices. IFixit's role is to make repairs more accessible to the average Joe. Obviously for more tech-literate device owners this might not be needed, but everyone else it is. The incentives for this dynamic are pretty confusing (understandably). $BRAND and IFixit need to work together for repairability to work, but companies don't really have a strong business incentive to do this outside of regulation. Obviously nothing about this dynamic is perfect, but the claim that IFixit harms the push for more repairable devices just isn't correct.
  - not_your_vase 2y ago
    > IFixit's role is to make repairs more accessible to the average Joe. Which is fine, if they would not pose as right-to-repair champions. They claim that selling a phone in 3 parts somehow helps R-T-R, that it's a great step forward. It is not. It doesn't change anything. The device is not any more repairable than any other device. What they claim basically is that if you buy your TV as separate parts (remote controller, TV and TV stand instead of all of these in one box), that somehow makes the TV repairable. It does not, however.
- advisedwang 2y ago
  Products are simply built in a way that true low level repairs are impractical (ie: more expensive than replacing the device), and replacing bulk components is the only viable option. iFixit advocates for better repairability that would make individual component repair processes viable. iFixit is not really about hobbyists doing tinkering repairs. It's for consumers who want more out of their devices and business in the repair ecosystem. That is the bulk of the community and iFixit doesn't have an obligation leave room in the conversation for others.
cherioo 2y ago
There are several way different groups are viewing right to repair Consumer: right to repair means fixing my broken display will be a DIY job for $50? Sweet! Repair shop: right to repair means I can source a display from lowest bidder, charge $150 for broken screen, and make $120 in profit? Let’s go! Apple: right to repair means you must buy $275 display module to fix a broken display. So we can keep some nice nice profit. Samsung seems to be there with Apple. Looking at the price of display module I am worried iFixit is also there with Apple. And iFixit and Samsung couldn’t find a good split on who gets to keep the profits. It is crazy that an iPhone display module from iFixit appears to cost more than Apple 1st party repair.
- kevingadd 2y ago
  Based on the post, the high price of parts from iFixit was Samsung's fault.
  - Iulioh 2y ago
    And to be fair high end samsung phones have the best display in the market, period. I would really dubt thwt they sell the best stuff to Apple (possible but...)
    - throwaway48476 2y ago
      Apple only uses old cheap technology. They resisted putting OLEDs in the iPhone for many years.
  - epakai 2y ago
    The high price is probably just reality. Samsung's display assemblies have always been expensive. I've seen the real inventory values back in the Note 6 era, and the component cost at repair time. Repair services were probably getting a few dollars from their markup. I'm not even sure the the consumer facing part of their repair operations was profitable. It seemed like most of the focus was on bulk refurbishment where they rebuilt hundreds of $model at once. Building a 500ppi 120Hz AMOLED display with a hole punched in it, and bonded perfectly to fancy glass is just expensive.
rPlayer6554 2y ago
Thank you for standing up to Samsung. I was extremely disappointed that A. Ifixit didn't have even charging ports in stock B. If they did they would be basically the same price as having someone replace it. C. All official and licensed repair spots must replace _all_ components if they even replace one. I have a cracked screen and don't care, but it would have driven the price up to 1/3 or 1/2 the cost of the device. I would have just bought a new one. I ended up having to get it repaired at some sketch mall shop.
- ornornor 2y ago
  > All official and licensed repair spots must replace _all_ components if they even replace one. Didn’t apple invent this one?
  - fransje26 2y ago
    > Didn’t apple invent this one? You should learn from the best..
epakai 2y ago
Samsung had existing repair partnerships. Many were run by other Koreans, and very much had the feeling of a big family run conglomerate. Of course iFixit is going to get the short end of the stick unless they're providing real value to Samsung. For Samsung, repair services are valuable to keep carrier customers happy so that the carriers keep pushing their phones. External repair services don't have that tie in. They probably even reduce sales of new phones. iFixit's partnership just doesn't offer the same value proposition.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
  Then why did Samsung pretend they wanted this to happen?
  - newaccount74 2y ago
    Presumably someone from marketing said "we should make our phones more repairable than the competition" and after the program was announced someone from finance said "making phones repairable is too expensive and selling parts isn't making us money"
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - epakai 2y ago
    Pretend what? Samsung already had the parts infrastructure. They added another parts customer who had less to offer them in return. I looked back at the partnership announcements, and that's really all Samsung was offering: parts and repair guides. It also happened at a time when right to repair was proving pretty popular so there's the obvious PR aspect to it. The iFixit post just makes it sound like Samsung wasn't interested in subsidizing their repair parts, and their construction methods haven't changed much in 2 years.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      > wasn't interested in subsidizing That's a weird way to spell "wasn't interested in overcharging less".
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Ostensible collaboration to frustrate DIY R2R. My friend's independent, non-certified cell phone and laptop repair business is suffering greatly due to the lack of availability of reasonably-priced repair parts or any repair parts, especially screen assemblies for flagship phones.
voidwtf 2y ago
My partner has a Samsung phone with the curved/wrap around edge screen. The screen is cracked. She's been trying to get it replaced for months, but none of the "Samsung approved" repair shops around here can get a screen. Apparently they have screens meant for the same phone in different colors, but do not have the screen for her phone color. Samsung WILL NOT allow them to use a screen from a different color of the same phone, despite being a working part. Samsung has provided no ETA when the part will be available. This is the kind of problem that shouldn't exist. Would love it if our legislators would tell manufacturers to shove it, and if they want to be the exclusive source for parts that the parts must be sold at some limited/reasonable profit percentage and if they're not available they should not be able to limit the availability or function of 3rd party parts.
- will1am 2y ago
  Your frustration with the situation is completely understandable
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  What gets me the most is that the refusal to sell a different color screen is probably the result of some insane delusions about brand representation.
  - LouisSayers 2y ago
    Same with charging an apple mouse - like they can't stand the idea of having a cable sticking out of it while being used.
    - burnte 2y ago
      They're fine with that, but there's no room for the port on the top end of the mouse and they won't alter the design in order to fit a port there, and don't want the cable sticking out of the side, so they just screw the user and hurt the function.
    - tdeck 2y ago
      Apple probably knows that power users are buying non-Apple mice anyway so they can have multiple mouse buttons. Their mics have always been some degree of form over function (remember the puck mouse)?
MeteorMarc 2y ago
"It’s with a heavy wrench that we have decided ..." Nice pun when originating from a repair shop!
unstyledcontent 2y ago
Glad I just had my Samsung repaired last week by ifixit. I replaced the screen which cost $340. Price for the repair felt a bit like extortion but I needed my phone and it was the least painful option. I could have mailed it into Samsung to have the repair done for $200 but who has that kind of flexibility?
RachelF 2y ago
There's a economic reason mobile phone manufacturers don't want you to repair the phone - they prefer you to buy a new one.
speckx 2y ago
My last Samsung monitor was great, and it still is. The new one's screen died about a week after I got it. I had better luck returning it to the local store than dealing with Samsung support. The replacement, however, had the same issue about two weeks later. I feel like Smansung has a monitor quality control issue. I didn't even bother dealing with Samsung support. Instead, I gave up and returned it to the local store for a refund.
cjk2 2y ago
I can’t wait until they end their recently announced Lenovo collaboration on the same grounds. Absolutely fucking awful vendor in the last few years. Shipping dead batteries, not even shipping anything and having little to no parts stock. And at least here the NBD service is worthless.
eth0up 2y ago
I've been 'anti' Samsung for 15 years and generally don't think of the brand. Someone recently gave me a SM-T670 tablet (View) which had lolipop on it. I don't think it ever received a significant update. Well, I tossed LineageOS on it and while it provides some improvements, notably de-ghoulgle and Samsung bloat, the ROM was last updated in 2022 and I'm pretty sure never again. The only thing I say about Samsung positively, is that they are capable of, but not necessarily committed to, building good hardware. Unfortunately they are the epitome of planned obsolescence and however nice their products may or may not be, they prefer the shortest life possible. Samsung sucks.
scott_joe 2y ago
It’s honestly not surprising. Sometimes initiatives from well meaning employees can be given the green light because they’re low enough in the company to avoid attention but high enough to get a director’s sponsorship. But as soon as the employee begins to get Legal or someone at a VP involved and they’ll have to eat the loss on sales, it’s killed. 80% of a company’s money goes to driving “sales or savings”, the rest goes to “keeping the lights on.” Being responsive for anything that impacts sales in the negative is a huge deal for everyone in their chain of command.
scarlehoff 2y ago
I have a Samsung phone because it is the only brand with a stylus in its flagships, but I, too, would like to end my collaboration with them.
fallinditch 2y ago
I had thought that phone manufacturers were coming around to the concept of repairability, so this is bad news. I've had a few Samsung phones and never had any problems. My S22 Ultra is over 3 years old now and still an excellent performer. I thought I'll have to change the battery this year - but after checking the instructions I changed my mind, crazy complicated.
tonetegeatinst 2y ago
Last 2 phones were Samsung. I got sick of the stock apps being put on the phone so I finally got a pixel running grapheme os
makingstuffs 2y ago
My sister broke her curved Samsung screen and the replacement part alone was (last year) £150. This wasn’t even a new model, it’s an (if I remember correctly) an s21. Ended up just buying a used iPhone for not much more.
Zuiii 2y ago
I want to end my collaboration with them too. What is the most open, repairable phone out there that would run my banking app?
- tux2bsd 2y ago
  [dead]
- eimrine 2y ago
  Banking apps require absence of root access, so forget about open.
negative_zero 2y ago
As a hardware engineer: Right to repair is a nice idea and it's heart is in the right place, but won't ever work for something like a consumer phone. Further, IMO, it's really just a band aid for the US's extremely poor consumer protections which manufacturers are hell bent on exporting to the rest of the world. The most effective way to approach this problem is known and proven: mandate long (I think 5 years is fair) 100% repair/replace/refund waranty periods with no cost to the consumer (including shipping). Then the manufacturer themselves will figure out the details on how to meet that. And don't worry they are perfectly capable of it because it's what they do RIGHT NOW. The hardware will become more reliable or it'll be repairable or they'll just refund you or a combination of those. Batteries just need a requirement such as minimum 80% of capacity at 5 years. Overnight they'll become replacable/over-provisioned/better chemistry/better thermals or again a combination of those. I've never had "repairability" raised to me as an engineer. It's a nebulous thing nobody understands or cares about and can be just paid lip service to or effectively ignored. But waranty IS something bean-counters and managers understand. It's: "this thing must work for X time or it costs us money" with the added threat of "lawyers might get involved". It's not perfect, but still far more effective and practical than "right to repair".
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  Maybe adding a fat tax (say, 50% sales tax of endpoint product sale price) on fundamentally unrepairable products. This is a spectrum: if a company could glue a phone and get a thin sleek sexy glass brick OR it could use some small screws and it won't be quite as slender/sexy... Going with the former on average with every a/b choice in design should trigger the tax and effectively kill your product vs more compliant competitors. I've been wanting to see this applied to anything with a universal machine, where it was made to prevent the owner from modifying software/firmware/microcode. As a customer, I want Stallmanism enshrined in law dealing with both computing and product design.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- sambazi 2y ago
justinclift 2y ago
Don't forgot the recent Samsung repairman incident where the guy cut a customers tv with a box cutter, then claimed the customer did it. Just to avoid having to fulfill the customers warranty claim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyWlACuhqNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyWlACuhqNg Pity for them that it was all clearly captured on camera.
- Mashimo 2y ago
  I don't have sound right now, why is Louis Rossmann talking 8 minutes about Tinder?
  - justinclift 2y ago
    No idea. I moved on to other things when that started. :)
jmward01 2y ago
I'm on my 3rd battery on a (used) iPhone 6s. I think it is a feature that I can't get the regular updates anymore. At least now when I turn a 'feature' off it stats off since the os doesn't update and erase my settings every week. I hate apple but nothing in the android world makes me think things there are better. Why is this market so hostile to consumers?
- darknavi 2y ago
  > At least now when I turn a 'feature' off it stats off since the os doesn't update and erase my settings every week. Which iOS settings were being reset? I've had an iPhone for over 10 years and nothing really pops out to me as being re-enabled iOS release over release.
  - sambazi 2y ago
    lock-screen access to homekit is a regular offender for example
  - jmward01 2y ago
    everything icloud was the top offender
- Mashimo 2y ago
  > but nothing in the android world makes me think things there are better. There is the Fairphone. And I think you can get pixel phones with .. 8 years of software updates?
ornornor 2y ago
Samsung makes terrible products anyway. Their phones are bloated with spyware to the gills, their customer service/repairs are poorly done (if at all), and their appliances are some of the least durables I know of. Their TVs are advertisers wet dreams, they are extremely intrusive. Especially after the company a close friend used to work at was swallowed by Samsung, I’ve vowed to never ever buy anything Samsung ever again (ok except semi conductors if they’re part of another product but even then their after sales sucks for these parts). They have a terrible internal culture as well, where quality and security fight each other constantly for least priority. No thanks.
- kazinator 2y ago
  Samsung is shit. Banned in my household also. I bought a Samsung DVD player in 2003. The day after the warranty expired, it booted to a garbage-filled, nonresponsive screen. Brick. I was foolish not to have forever written off Samsung right there and then. Eventually I learned my lesson, though.
grumpyprole 2y ago
I had a power button fail on an S21, only a few places were willing to quote and the cost to replace was over £300, more than the phone was worth. I now use the always on screen, so I can unlock without the power button, hopefully prolonging it's life!
praptak 2y ago
So what's the current non-enshittified phone? Preferably at non-flagship price.
- eloisant 2y ago
  Fairphone 5. Yes it's expensive, although not quite as expensive as a flagship, but it's by far the most consumer friendly phone there is.
walteweiss 2y ago
I just want to say that was very well written.
rldjbpin 2y ago
besides regional support, by and large this has been a core reservation behind these initiatives for me. this goes beyond just parts design being harder to repair. fairly priced first-party components throughout the support lifecycle is yet to be achieved. i can empathize with the supply chain challenges but unless we have regulatory pressures, none of these parties have the incentive to see things through. without any accountability, all the device support promises are only good on paper.
botanical 2y ago
Samsung official repairs are a major ripoff. They offered to repair my tablet for 3/4 the price of a new one. I said no, paid the non-refundable deposit, bought an entire logic board and did it myself. It worked out very cheap.
deleted 2y ago
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spjt 2y ago
FWIW, I have three kids so I've had to repair a fair share of broken phones. Two kids have Galaxy A52's and one has an iPhone 7. The A52's are WAY easier to work on.
jason-phillips 2y ago
I worked for Samsung for ten years and I love the people I worked with. However, as someone with a buy-it-for-life consumer mindset, I would never buy a Samsung product. Support and maintainability never factored into the hyper-development and release cycles of the products.
lucasyvas 2y ago
If you have ever had to try to RMA a Samsung drive you will know to never buy Samsung again. The worst manufacturer I’ve ever dealt with by orders of magnitude - it’s not even remotely close.
stuff4ben 2y ago
Samsung as a whole is a shit company to work with. The mobile startup I worked at a decade ago partnered with them and they were a nightmare. Literally working all hours of the day and night on projects that made little financial sense but looked good to someone's boss in SK. Their appliances are literal garbage as well. Brother's Samdung fridge no longer makes ice (and only did for like a month). My front loader washing machine broke within 5 years. The matching dryer was repaired twice in that timeframe. Fuck Samsung.

678 points by skilled 2y ago

Well that's disappointing from Samsung. But I'm glad iFixit actually followed through and decided it wasn't working out, rather than just declaring victory and walking away. You've also gotta think that surely they notified Samsung before the announcement and gave them some time to try to salvage the arrangement before ending it. The fact that Samsung didn't suggests it's really not high on their priorities list, even with the expected PR backlash.

wepple 2y ago
Unfortunately, I highly doubt there will be any material PR backlash. Ask 100 Samsung owners on the street how the ifixit repair ability relationship impacts them, and 99 will ask what ifixit is, and what repairability means. The other one is too stoned to answer.

santoshalper 2y ago

The Right to Repair people remind me a lot of the Free Software people. Which is to say, fundamentally correct, but struggling to get consumers to care enough to influence purchasing decisions. I don't have the answer to this, but somehow getting consumers to factor in repairability is going to be key to creating the kind of leverage that can drive real change in the industry.

Gigachad 2y ago
IMO phones are the area I care about repair the least. By the time the phone is 5~ years old, I’m going to want the new one anyway. Where repairs would be much more useful is general household appliances where the model 20 years ago was just as good if not better than the one today. I’m never going to want to upgrade my blender, but when the plastic parts snap, I want it to be easy to get a replacement.
- Retric 2y ago
  With a phone from 5 years ago sure it’s feeling its age, but that number keeps going up as the functional differences between each phone generation shrinks. Replacing the battery on year 3 makes a huge difference in how long you would want to keep a phone around for.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    And if the maker offers a free service to replace the battery with the purchase, I'm okay with it. Would it be nice to remove the battery to keep "them" from listening? Probably, but "they" are still listening through the TV, the laptops, and that chip in the back of my mouth so, meh
    - catlikesshrimp 2y ago
      TV (fixed) the laptops (fixed), and that chip in the back of my mouth so (erm...) I still failed because some moron gifted an echo 5 to someone who refuses to let it go.
  - BizarreByte 2y ago
    I have a Windows Phone and it’s a decade old. Very outside the norm to still use it, but phones can last a long time from a hardware perspective if they’re allowed too. My 830’s saving grace has been the ease of changing batteries. If the battery was internal I’d have tossed it years ago.
    - BozeWolf 2y ago
      Does it still get software updates? Not just the apps, but also the operating system. If not, you definitely should not use it anymore. Not only because of security issues in software, but also because of possibly revoked certificates. And newer, safer, web protocols. Also strange if your bank still supports it. Hardware might be fine when it comes to being speedy enough, but may also have issues.A digital device still working is just not good enough anymore.
sersi 2y ago
The problem is that to be able to make a purchasing decision toward repairability there must be actual choices that offer better repairability. That doesn't seem to be the case for phones unfortunately.
realusername 2y ago
How would consumers know anyways, it's pretty hard to purchase on repairability even us as experts.
wyldfire 2y ago
> Which is to say, fundamentally correct, but struggling to get consumers to care enough to influence purchasing decisions. You're right that customers don't care about Free software and yet it won. Free software has moved from a niche to dominating the software marketplace. The linux kernel, GNU coreutils, gcc, binutils - these are amazingly popular and keep getting ported to new platforms. And of course, Open Source software is yet more popular still.
- em-bee 2y ago
  Free Software won because almost everyone, especially businesses can benefit from it. who is going to benefit from right to repair besides consumers and small repair shops?
  - ornornor 2y ago
    Everyone as well? Lower costs, better looking carbon footprint, longer lifecycles, better secondhand market, more efficient software (if you don’t assume everyone uses a new phone, you design your apps/web apps with a little more care towards performance and battery efficiency), more competition between manufacturers (because it’s not a given that you’ll sell new devices every 2–3 years)…
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      Designing a very small device to be DIY repairable has a cost too.
      - ornornor 2y ago
        Probably. I don’t think it’s much more than the cost of shrinking everything down and shaving 1/2 mm off your design or engineering a whole protocol, chips, and software to pair components together and implement “features” at the OS level to disable some things if it detects new parts.
schrijver 2y ago
While right to repair is in part about getting consumers to care it is just as much about getting regulators to care. They can do things like force the availability of replacement parts etc. The right to repair movement seems to have its effects in the EU, with a ‘right to repair’ directive adopted by the EU parliament. Of course it still needs to be implemented into national legislations and the devil will be in the details… it shows the impact though. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IPR20590/right-to-repair-making-repair-easier-and-more-appealing-to-consumers https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20240419IP...
- hot_gril 2y ago
  I don't like using the entity that brought us cookie banners as an example of how to regular tech.
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    regulate*
WheatMillington 2y ago
I feel alone on HN for not caring about repairability at all on phones. I use a phone for ~3 years and replace it. I'd rather have a phone that's slimmer and smaller, than repairable or user-servicable.
ledgeditor 2y ago
This isn't just about persuading consumers - it is also about passing laws to protect consumers from abusive practices. Those might include labeling and disclosure laws/regulations that give consumers the information they need to make smart purchasing decisions. For example: repairability scores, explicit declarations of support lifespans, etc.
rustcleaner 2y ago
>Which is to say, fundamentally correct, but struggling to get consumers to care enough to influence purchasing decisions. If history is a guide, people generally take abuse from authority in stride so long as the intensity generally remains below a threshold.
hot_gril 2y ago
Maybe it's ok that people don't care about repairable phones, and there isn't a need to force them. Also, the closest consumers got to using free software was Android and Chromebook (i.e. not exactly free) plus using services hosted on Linux servers, cause it actually makes sense there, and GNU/Linux home desktop has still not won.

drcongo 2y ago

Samsung should never be trusted for anything.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
My S22 is pretty great.
- ziml77 2y ago
  My S24 was returned in a week. Damn thing couldn't even handle showing the mission selection map in Warcraft Rumble. It lagged noticeably behind my finger when dragged around. The Galaxy Watch 6 I got alongside it was even worse for performance. And the clash between Samsung's ecosystem and Google's ecosystem felt terrible. I still want to try coming back to Android from Apple's ecosystem, but next time it won't be through Samsung.
  - ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
    Sounds like a defective unit.

drpossum 2y ago

Samsung is just consistently frustrating. Their hardware for consumer electronics (not appliances) is generally pretty good in my experience, but the attitudes they take towards their customers via this planned obsolescence and software/dark pattern "shove it down your throat and you better like it" hostile crap. I've fundamentally had to change how I work with my phone because of garbage like "just save all the clipboard history, too bad if you don't want that" and "here you'd better like a dedicated button to Bixby" and now "LOOK WE HAVE AI NOW ON YOUR PHONE" as well as being one of the most egregious in the TV data thieving.

catlikesshrimp 2y ago
›› "just save all the clipboard history, too bad if you don't want that" I feel your pain. If you accept a bandaid: change the samsung keyboard to a FOSS keyboard without internet connectivity. The clipboard still exists, at least you can't see it. A better bandaid would be tasker to flush the keyboard everytime you copy something
- drpossum 2y ago
  That's mostly what I did, yes. This is helpful advice. Password managers like Android Keepass also have non-clipboard functionality in keyboards they provide.
spondylosaurus 2y ago
Do newer models not let you remap the "Bixby button" to something else? On my Note 10 I changed it to open the camera, but... it's a Note 10 from 2020, so that may have changed since.
- Iulioh 2y ago
  S23 ultra here You can totally remap it You can use another keyboard You have to look very hard to find the AI (the only use i have for it is delete some objects from a photo and that takes a few tries) You can literally solve everything in a few minutes

not_your_vase 2y ago

Sure, Samsung is bad, but not sure why iFixit pretends to be the embodiment of right to repair. In my opinion they have harmed the cause more than anything else: instead of actual repair material (like schematics or low/high level servicing manuals) they are selling half-devices. And whoever supplies those half devices is called the repairability-king of the day. Neither Nokia, nor any other of their partners are any better. Fairy dust all around, without actual repairability :( (But I guess it works for everyone: iFixit gets sales, $BRAND gets positive PR. And the customer gets some feel good news. Not actual repairability, but almost as good, I guess)

islewis 2y ago
> In my opinion they have harmed the cause more than anything else: instead of actual repair material (like schematics or low/high level servicing manuals) Not sure I understand this take. $BRAND's role is to sell devices. IFixit's role is to make repairs more accessible to the average Joe. Obviously for more tech-literate device owners this might not be needed, but everyone else it is. The incentives for this dynamic are pretty confusing (understandably). $BRAND and IFixit need to work together for repairability to work, but companies don't really have a strong business incentive to do this outside of regulation. Obviously nothing about this dynamic is perfect, but the claim that IFixit harms the push for more repairable devices just isn't correct.
- not_your_vase 2y ago
  > IFixit's role is to make repairs more accessible to the average Joe. Which is fine, if they would not pose as right-to-repair champions. They claim that selling a phone in 3 parts somehow helps R-T-R, that it's a great step forward. It is not. It doesn't change anything. The device is not any more repairable than any other device. What they claim basically is that if you buy your TV as separate parts (remote controller, TV and TV stand instead of all of these in one box), that somehow makes the TV repairable. It does not, however.
advisedwang 2y ago
Products are simply built in a way that true low level repairs are impractical (ie: more expensive than replacing the device), and replacing bulk components is the only viable option. iFixit advocates for better repairability that would make individual component repair processes viable. iFixit is not really about hobbyists doing tinkering repairs. It's for consumers who want more out of their devices and business in the repair ecosystem. That is the bulk of the community and iFixit doesn't have an obligation leave room in the conversation for others.

cherioo 2y ago

There are several way different groups are viewing right to repair Consumer: right to repair means fixing my broken display will be a DIY job for $50? Sweet! Repair shop: right to repair means I can source a display from lowest bidder, charge $150 for broken screen, and make $120 in profit? Let’s go! Apple: right to repair means you must buy $275 display module to fix a broken display. So we can keep some nice nice profit. Samsung seems to be there with Apple. Looking at the price of display module I am worried iFixit is also there with Apple. And iFixit and Samsung couldn’t find a good split on who gets to keep the profits. It is crazy that an iPhone display module from iFixit appears to cost more than Apple 1st party repair.

kevingadd 2y ago
Based on the post, the high price of parts from iFixit was Samsung's fault.
- Iulioh 2y ago
  And to be fair high end samsung phones have the best display in the market, period. I would really dubt thwt they sell the best stuff to Apple (possible but...)
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    Apple only uses old cheap technology. They resisted putting OLEDs in the iPhone for many years.
- epakai 2y ago
  The high price is probably just reality. Samsung's display assemblies have always been expensive. I've seen the real inventory values back in the Note 6 era, and the component cost at repair time. Repair services were probably getting a few dollars from their markup. I'm not even sure the the consumer facing part of their repair operations was profitable. It seemed like most of the focus was on bulk refurbishment where they rebuilt hundreds of $model at once. Building a 500ppi 120Hz AMOLED display with a hole punched in it, and bonded perfectly to fancy glass is just expensive.

rPlayer6554 2y ago

Thank you for standing up to Samsung. I was extremely disappointed that A. Ifixit didn't have even charging ports in stock B. If they did they would be basically the same price as having someone replace it. C. All official and licensed repair spots must replace _all_ components if they even replace one. I have a cracked screen and don't care, but it would have driven the price up to 1/3 or 1/2 the cost of the device. I would have just bought a new one. I ended up having to get it repaired at some sketch mall shop.

ornornor 2y ago
> All official and licensed repair spots must replace _all_ components if they even replace one. Didn’t apple invent this one?
- fransje26 2y ago
  > Didn’t apple invent this one? You should learn from the best..

epakai 2y ago

Samsung had existing repair partnerships. Many were run by other Koreans, and very much had the feeling of a big family run conglomerate. Of course iFixit is going to get the short end of the stick unless they're providing real value to Samsung. For Samsung, repair services are valuable to keep carrier customers happy so that the carriers keep pushing their phones. External repair services don't have that tie in. They probably even reduce sales of new phones. iFixit's partnership just doesn't offer the same value proposition.

mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
Then why did Samsung pretend they wanted this to happen?
- newaccount74 2y ago
  Presumably someone from marketing said "we should make our phones more repairable than the competition" and after the program was announced someone from finance said "making phones repairable is too expensive and selling parts isn't making us money"
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- epakai 2y ago
  Pretend what? Samsung already had the parts infrastructure. They added another parts customer who had less to offer them in return. I looked back at the partnership announcements, and that's really all Samsung was offering: parts and repair guides. It also happened at a time when right to repair was proving pretty popular so there's the obvious PR aspect to it. The iFixit post just makes it sound like Samsung wasn't interested in subsidizing their repair parts, and their construction methods haven't changed much in 2 years.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    > wasn't interested in subsidizing That's a weird way to spell "wasn't interested in overcharging less".

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

Ostensible collaboration to frustrate DIY R2R. My friend's independent, non-certified cell phone and laptop repair business is suffering greatly due to the lack of availability of reasonably-priced repair parts or any repair parts, especially screen assemblies for flagship phones.

voidwtf 2y ago

My partner has a Samsung phone with the curved/wrap around edge screen. The screen is cracked. She's been trying to get it replaced for months, but none of the "Samsung approved" repair shops around here can get a screen. Apparently they have screens meant for the same phone in different colors, but do not have the screen for her phone color. Samsung WILL NOT allow them to use a screen from a different color of the same phone, despite being a working part. Samsung has provided no ETA when the part will be available. This is the kind of problem that shouldn't exist. Would love it if our legislators would tell manufacturers to shove it, and if they want to be the exclusive source for parts that the parts must be sold at some limited/reasonable profit percentage and if they're not available they should not be able to limit the availability or function of 3rd party parts.

will1am 2y ago
Your frustration with the situation is completely understandable
Workaccount2 2y ago
What gets me the most is that the refusal to sell a different color screen is probably the result of some insane delusions about brand representation.
- LouisSayers 2y ago
  Same with charging an apple mouse - like they can't stand the idea of having a cable sticking out of it while being used.
  - burnte 2y ago
    They're fine with that, but there's no room for the port on the top end of the mouse and they won't alter the design in order to fit a port there, and don't want the cable sticking out of the side, so they just screw the user and hurt the function.
  - tdeck 2y ago
    Apple probably knows that power users are buying non-Apple mice anyway so they can have multiple mouse buttons. Their mics have always been some degree of form over function (remember the puck mouse)?

MeteorMarc 2y ago

"It’s with a heavy wrench that we have decided ..." Nice pun when originating from a repair shop!

unstyledcontent 2y ago

Glad I just had my Samsung repaired last week by ifixit. I replaced the screen which cost $340. Price for the repair felt a bit like extortion but I needed my phone and it was the least painful option. I could have mailed it into Samsung to have the repair done for $200 but who has that kind of flexibility?

RachelF 2y ago

There's a economic reason mobile phone manufacturers don't want you to repair the phone - they prefer you to buy a new one.

speckx 2y ago

My last Samsung monitor was great, and it still is. The new one's screen died about a week after I got it. I had better luck returning it to the local store than dealing with Samsung support. The replacement, however, had the same issue about two weeks later. I feel like Smansung has a monitor quality control issue. I didn't even bother dealing with Samsung support. Instead, I gave up and returned it to the local store for a refund.

cjk2 2y ago

I can’t wait until they end their recently announced Lenovo collaboration on the same grounds. Absolutely fucking awful vendor in the last few years. Shipping dead batteries, not even shipping anything and having little to no parts stock. And at least here the NBD service is worthless.

eth0up 2y ago

I've been 'anti' Samsung for 15 years and generally don't think of the brand. Someone recently gave me a SM-T670 tablet (View) which had lolipop on it. I don't think it ever received a significant update. Well, I tossed LineageOS on it and while it provides some improvements, notably de-ghoulgle and Samsung bloat, the ROM was last updated in 2022 and I'm pretty sure never again. The only thing I say about Samsung positively, is that they are capable of, but not necessarily committed to, building good hardware. Unfortunately they are the epitome of planned obsolescence and however nice their products may or may not be, they prefer the shortest life possible. Samsung sucks.

scott_joe 2y ago

It’s honestly not surprising. Sometimes initiatives from well meaning employees can be given the green light because they’re low enough in the company to avoid attention but high enough to get a director’s sponsorship. But as soon as the employee begins to get Legal or someone at a VP involved and they’ll have to eat the loss on sales, it’s killed. 80% of a company’s money goes to driving “sales or savings”, the rest goes to “keeping the lights on.” Being responsive for anything that impacts sales in the negative is a huge deal for everyone in their chain of command.

scarlehoff 2y ago

I have a Samsung phone because it is the only brand with a stylus in its flagships, but I, too, would like to end my collaboration with them.

fallinditch 2y ago

I had thought that phone manufacturers were coming around to the concept of repairability, so this is bad news. I've had a few Samsung phones and never had any problems. My S22 Ultra is over 3 years old now and still an excellent performer. I thought I'll have to change the battery this year - but after checking the instructions I changed my mind, crazy complicated.

tonetegeatinst 2y ago

Last 2 phones were Samsung. I got sick of the stock apps being put on the phone so I finally got a pixel running grapheme os

makingstuffs 2y ago

My sister broke her curved Samsung screen and the replacement part alone was (last year) £150. This wasn’t even a new model, it’s an (if I remember correctly) an s21. Ended up just buying a used iPhone for not much more.

Zuiii 2y ago

I want to end my collaboration with them too. What is the most open, repairable phone out there that would run my banking app?

tux2bsd 2y ago
[dead]
eimrine 2y ago
Banking apps require absence of root access, so forget about open.

negative_zero 2y ago

As a hardware engineer: Right to repair is a nice idea and it's heart is in the right place, but won't ever work for something like a consumer phone. Further, IMO, it's really just a band aid for the US's extremely poor consumer protections which manufacturers are hell bent on exporting to the rest of the world. The most effective way to approach this problem is known and proven: mandate long (I think 5 years is fair) 100% repair/replace/refund waranty periods with no cost to the consumer (including shipping). Then the manufacturer themselves will figure out the details on how to meet that. And don't worry they are perfectly capable of it because it's what they do RIGHT NOW. The hardware will become more reliable or it'll be repairable or they'll just refund you or a combination of those. Batteries just need a requirement such as minimum 80% of capacity at 5 years. Overnight they'll become replacable/over-provisioned/better chemistry/better thermals or again a combination of those. I've never had "repairability" raised to me as an engineer. It's a nebulous thing nobody understands or cares about and can be just paid lip service to or effectively ignored. But waranty IS something bean-counters and managers understand. It's: "this thing must work for X time or it costs us money" with the added threat of "lawyers might get involved". It's not perfect, but still far more effective and practical than "right to repair".

rustcleaner 2y ago
Maybe adding a fat tax (say, 50% sales tax of endpoint product sale price) on fundamentally unrepairable products. This is a spectrum: if a company could glue a phone and get a thin sleek sexy glass brick OR it could use some small screws and it won't be quite as slender/sexy... Going with the former on average with every a/b choice in design should trigger the tax and effectively kill your product vs more compliant competitors. I've been wanting to see this applied to anything with a universal machine, where it was made to prevent the owner from modifying software/firmware/microcode. As a customer, I want Stallmanism enshrined in law dealing with both computing and product design.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
sambazi 2y ago

justinclift 2y ago

Don't forgot the recent Samsung repairman incident where the guy cut a customers tv with a box cutter, then claimed the customer did it. Just to avoid having to fulfill the customers warranty claim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyWlACuhqNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyWlACuhqNg Pity for them that it was all clearly captured on camera.

Mashimo 2y ago
I don't have sound right now, why is Louis Rossmann talking 8 minutes about Tinder?
- justinclift 2y ago
  No idea. I moved on to other things when that started. :)

jmward01 2y ago

I'm on my 3rd battery on a (used) iPhone 6s. I think it is a feature that I can't get the regular updates anymore. At least now when I turn a 'feature' off it stats off since the os doesn't update and erase my settings every week. I hate apple but nothing in the android world makes me think things there are better. Why is this market so hostile to consumers?

darknavi 2y ago
> At least now when I turn a 'feature' off it stats off since the os doesn't update and erase my settings every week. Which iOS settings were being reset? I've had an iPhone for over 10 years and nothing really pops out to me as being re-enabled iOS release over release.
- sambazi 2y ago
  lock-screen access to homekit is a regular offender for example
- jmward01 2y ago
  everything icloud was the top offender
Mashimo 2y ago
> but nothing in the android world makes me think things there are better. There is the Fairphone. And I think you can get pixel phones with .. 8 years of software updates?

ornornor 2y ago

Samsung makes terrible products anyway. Their phones are bloated with spyware to the gills, their customer service/repairs are poorly done (if at all), and their appliances are some of the least durables I know of. Their TVs are advertisers wet dreams, they are extremely intrusive. Especially after the company a close friend used to work at was swallowed by Samsung, I’ve vowed to never ever buy anything Samsung ever again (ok except semi conductors if they’re part of another product but even then their after sales sucks for these parts). They have a terrible internal culture as well, where quality and security fight each other constantly for least priority. No thanks.

kazinator 2y ago
Samsung is shit. Banned in my household also. I bought a Samsung DVD player in 2003. The day after the warranty expired, it booted to a garbage-filled, nonresponsive screen. Brick. I was foolish not to have forever written off Samsung right there and then. Eventually I learned my lesson, though.

grumpyprole 2y ago

I had a power button fail on an S21, only a few places were willing to quote and the cost to replace was over £300, more than the phone was worth. I now use the always on screen, so I can unlock without the power button, hopefully prolonging it's life!

praptak 2y ago

So what's the current non-enshittified phone? Preferably at non-flagship price.

eloisant 2y ago
Fairphone 5. Yes it's expensive, although not quite as expensive as a flagship, but it's by far the most consumer friendly phone there is.

walteweiss 2y ago

I just want to say that was very well written.

rldjbpin 2y ago

besides regional support, by and large this has been a core reservation behind these initiatives for me. this goes beyond just parts design being harder to repair. fairly priced first-party components throughout the support lifecycle is yet to be achieved. i can empathize with the supply chain challenges but unless we have regulatory pressures, none of these parties have the incentive to see things through. without any accountability, all the device support promises are only good on paper.

botanical 2y ago

Samsung official repairs are a major ripoff. They offered to repair my tablet for 3/4 the price of a new one. I said no, paid the non-refundable deposit, bought an entire logic board and did it myself. It worked out very cheap.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

spjt 2y ago

FWIW, I have three kids so I've had to repair a fair share of broken phones. Two kids have Galaxy A52's and one has an iPhone 7. The A52's are WAY easier to work on.

jason-phillips 2y ago

I worked for Samsung for ten years and I love the people I worked with. However, as someone with a buy-it-for-life consumer mindset, I would never buy a Samsung product. Support and maintainability never factored into the hyper-development and release cycles of the products.

lucasyvas 2y ago

If you have ever had to try to RMA a Samsung drive you will know to never buy Samsung again. The worst manufacturer I’ve ever dealt with by orders of magnitude - it’s not even remotely close.

stuff4ben 2y ago

Samsung as a whole is a shit company to work with. The mobile startup I worked at a decade ago partnered with them and they were a nightmare. Literally working all hours of the day and night on projects that made little financial sense but looked good to someone's boss in SK. Their appliances are literal garbage as well. Brother's Samdung fridge no longer makes ice (and only did for like a month). My front loader washing machine broke within 5 years. The matching dryer was repaired twice in that timeframe. Fuck Samsung.