- 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.
Yeah, that’s a fair complaint for sure. I’m using a pixel 4a with a headphone jack and I can’t imagine living without one. I guess I’m not sure what phone I’ll get next.
I just got a Pixel 8 and I’m annoyed there’s no headphone jack. I have BT headphones as well, but my nice, non-BT headphones won’t work.
You can get a dongle though, so that’s an option.
Yeah, the headphone jack thing has been a major sticking point for me. But it seems like it’s becoming increasingly unrealistic to hold that line. Just sucking it up and getting a dongle might be the logical way to go…