iFixit has already announced it will be ending its collaboration with Samsung, which allowed it to distribute official parts and create repair guides for Samsung smartphones.
Last week, we reported that iFixit, stepping back from its collaboration with Samsung, has tried to advance the right-to-repair movement by partnering with big tech manufacturers and announced that it is ending its collaboration with Samsung. The merger allowed iFixit to distribute official parts and create repair guides for Samsung devices. However, iFixit cut off the deal, saying that Samsung’s “approach to repairability does not align with our mission.”
iFixit is known for reliable parts and repair guides; they stopped working with Samsung, but the report suggests that the Korean giant didn’t fully support the partnership’s goal. However, at the moment, it is yet to be clear who’s primarily at fault. iFixit will not create repair guides for Samsung devices anymore.
Despite everything, there’s an uninvolved party that is sitting pretty through all the drama, named Google. Samsung is not interested in Right to Repair, as is quite clear from the failed partnership with iFixit. However, Google partners with iFixit for parts and guides, supports Right to Repair legislation, and makes repairing Pixel phones easier. At the moment, it’s not clear how the collaboration between iFixit and Samsung fell apart. iFixit shared some of its side of the story in a blog post and a subsequent interview between the company’s CEO and one of our colleagues, The Verge.
The reason behind the failure of the Samsung Repair Hub partnership was that Samsung made it difficult for people to fix their devices affordably; for instance, Samsung limited iFixit from selling more than 7 parts per customer in 3 months, hurting repair shops. These limitations made repairs quite expensive for consumers who didn’t have a high budget. Also, it only sold batteries pre-attached to new screens, forcing customers to buy unnecessary parts. So these are a few basic reasons behind the failure of this program.
