AdmiralAsshat 2024-05-23 16:45 UTC link

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.

santoshalper 2024-05-23 16:46 UTC link

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.

drpossum 2024-05-23 17:03 UTC link

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.

cherioo 2024-05-23 17:36 UTC link

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.

epakai 2024-05-23 18:19 UTC link

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.

voidwtf 2024-05-23 19:22 UTC link

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.

unstyledcontent 2024-05-23 19:46 UTC link

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?

speckx 2024-05-23 20:57 UTC link

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 2024-05-23 21:34 UTC link

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 2024-05-23 21:36 UTC link

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.

scarlehoff 2024-05-23 22:12 UTC link

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 2024-05-23 22:22 UTC link

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.

negative_zero 2024-05-24 03:07 UTC link

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".

justinclift 2024-05-24 03:25 UTC link

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

Pity for them that it was all clearly captured on camera.

jmward01 2024-05-24 04:44 UTC link

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?

grumpyprole 2024-05-24 05:23 UTC link

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!

spjt 2024-05-24 11:03 UTC link

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 2024-05-24 13:36 UTC link

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 2024-05-24 13:47 UTC link

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 2024-05-24 14:53 UTC link

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.

Gigachad 2024-05-23 16:54 UTC link

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.

wepple 2024-05-23 17:18 UTC link

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.

kevingadd 2024-05-23 17:40 UTC link

Based on the post, the high price of parts from iFixit was Samsung's fault.

wyldfire 2024-05-23 18:13 UTC link

> 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.

schrijver 2024-05-23 18:23 UTC link

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/20240419IP...

bigmattystyles 2024-05-23 18:48 UTC link

Side question, are Samsung Electronics and Samsung Appliances really like 2 different companies under a Samsung umbrella in SK or are they actually the same company with employees being able to be assigned / move from group to group? Same question for LG I suppose.

bildiba 2024-05-23 19:48 UTC link

I switched from Samsung Galaxy (first S, then S3) to OnePlus years back, and I've been a happy camper.

I currently have an OnePlus 9, I've heard no so good (compared to previous) reviews of their newer models, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. My current phone has been running great for multiple years, minimal bloatware, would recommend.

mrgoldenbrown 2024-05-23 19:58 UTC link

Then why did Samsung pretend they wanted this to happen?

newaccount74 2024-05-23 20:13 UTC link

iFixit parts are expensive because they offer top notch service and quality control, at least in my experience. I bought a couple of parts from them, and was always very happy. The fix kits are fantastic. Once a package was lost, they just sent it again (i ended up receiving it twice).

I've bought parts from other websites, and while they were cheaper, they were not always good quality. A battery seemed to have way less capacity than the oem part, screwdriver bits were so soft they broke on first use, etc.

It sucks that spare parts are so expensive. All those supply chain optimisations don't work if you need to keep parts stocked all over the world....

xnyan 2024-05-23 20:16 UTC link

> Looking at the price of display module I am worried iFixit is also there with Apple

They mentioned in the article that one of the reasons they ended the partnership with Samsung was over the high cost of repair parts.

Workaccount2 2024-05-23 20:37 UTC link

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.

utensil4778 2024-05-23 20:48 UTC link

Making the power button a dedicated physical hotkey for Bixby is one of the most egregious things I've ever seen on a phone.

mrlongroots 2024-05-23 21:02 UTC link

I swore to never buy Samsung after an ordeal with their warranty repair. Some of the data pins on its USB port wore out, so my Android Auto and fast charging became extremely flaky. It was still under warranty so I took it to their authorized repair centres. They did not have a fast charger and showed me that the standard charging was working, and refused to admit a problem. Finally I mailed it to Samsung, and they said that the display needed to be replaced because of some water damage (it worked perfectly fine!) as well.

Finally I got some local electronics repair guy to just solder a new USB port onto the circuit board and that fixed everything. But never buying their phones again.

WheatMillington 2024-05-23 22:27 UTC link

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.

jiggawatts 2024-05-23 22:59 UTC link

For people that don’t know about the TV data thing:

Samsung openly admits to taking screenshots of whatever is being displayed on your TV at regular intervals, collecting this to their data centres, and selling this to advertisers.

NEVER use any Samsung consumer electronics device for working with sensitive data such as using a TV as a monitor!

ledgeditor 2024-05-24 00:27 UTC link

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.

nicbou 2024-05-24 00:46 UTC link

I have a total ban on Samsung products due to what you describe plus their complete disregard for user privacy. They are labeled as user hostile the same way Windows is. It will take them years of flawless behavior to convince me to change my mind.

csomar 2024-05-24 03:08 UTC link

Samsung is the perfect example (and failure?) that advertising and lobbying works. They have the worst product I've ever tried and always come with an annoying catch (ie: computer screen with special adapter). But they are huge (and growing). They advertise aggressively and they integrate themselves with local suppliers like nobody else.

darknavi 2024-05-24 05:35 UTC link

> 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.

rustcleaner 2024-05-24 06:13 UTC link

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.

Mashimo 2024-05-24 06:29 UTC link

I don't have sound right now, why is Louis Rossmann talking 8 minutes about Tinder?

Mashimo 2024-05-24 06:34 UTC link

> 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?

follower 2024-05-24 06:50 UTC link

On the subject of replacement parts cost vs total Apple 1st party repair cost, a recent video I watched by UK YouTuber "Mrwhosetheboss" did a comparison of cost, turnaround time and other aspects between three different iPhone repair options and highlighted some of the dynamics at play:

* "Phone repairs are getting ridiculous - Here's why.": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oreZytDYoEU

From my admittedly biased outside perspective, the repair process he experienced (and previous coverage by multiple other outlets about "DIY repair with official Apple tools") certainly strongly suggests that Apple is trying to do as little as possible in terms of pricing & availability to support 3rd party or DIY repairs to meet their legal/PR obligations.

So, if official 1st party parts pricing isn't competitive with total 1st party repair cost I'm going to assume it's intentionally obstinate behaviour and that the blame lies wholly at Apple's feet.

fransje26 2024-05-24 07:14 UTC link

> It is crazy that an iPhone display module from iFixit appears to cost more than Apple 1st party repair.

Probably because Apple is selling it to them with a sizeable markup?

kurito 2024-05-24 07:26 UTC link

> 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.

Why not? Every major phone manufacturer uses numerous techniques to make devices unrepairable and yet people still find ways to fix them. I'm not a hardware engineer, but I have fixed multiple devices, and I have no special skills or equipment besides standard ifixit toolkits. The only hindrances are introduced by manufacturers themselves. Replacing or refunding devices doesn't reduce e-waste, on the contrary.

I can't get behind what you're saying but I am curious to hear your take. Why do you think right to repair "won't ever work"?

pera 2024-05-24 08:46 UTC link

> won't ever work for something like a consumer phone

Fairphone makes great repairable phones - I own one and couldn't be happier.

ossobuco 2024-05-24 09:11 UTC link

I like less and less this system where we can never aim directly for our goal (reparability in this case), but we must instead trigger some side-effect through complex legislation in order to push our corporate overlords to do what we wanted in the first place, through their greed.

blcknight 2024-05-24 11:15 UTC link

I liked my first Galaxy but within a month the phone developed purple vertical lines down the screen. Nowhere local could repair it. Samsung told me to mail it to somewhere in Texas and I’d get it back in 6-8 weeks. When I asked if they offered any faster replacement service even for a fee, they told me no and suggested should’ve bought the insurance from my carrier.

Never bought a Samsung again.

simonh 2024-05-24 15:43 UTC link

If you want to go to some shop somewhere and have some arbitrary part grafted on to your phone, you can do that now. There was an electronics engineer a while back who had a standard audio jack installed in his phone. There's nothing Apple can do o stop you, it's your phone.

What you can't do is do that and expect the original manufacturer to still honour their warranty, and I think that makes perfect sense. The proper remedy for your partner's situation is to get a full refund, or a replacement of the phone.

chriscjcj 2024-05-25 05:10 UTC link

Why five years? I have plenty of consumer electronics including phones, tablets, laptops, and computers that keep on trucking well past five years. Why should anything be turned into junk until it's absolutely necessary?

The point is, I OWN the device. It's mine. If I can find someone with the expertise to keep it running past its intended life, that should be looked at favorably. But Apple, Samsung, and many other companies are actively preventing feasible repairs based on unreasonable and arbitrary cooked-up "company policies." Attaching serial numbers to parts and making them inoperable until they're blessed by the manufacturer is a racket and everyone knows it.

If I can manage to keep my iPad working as a photo frame for another 40 years, how does that hurt anyone?

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