Friday 24 May 2024

The Morning After: Samsung’s secret war on repair

Manufacturers may hate independent repair stores, but Samsung and Apple appeared to accept the direction the political wind was blowing in. Sadly, Samsung’s warm-hearted embrace of third party repair may not have been as loving as had originally been suggested. Details of the contract the Korean giant asks repair stores to sign include some pretty user-unfriendly rules.

That includes sending your details and device identification to HQ, including all of the details of your repair issue. And, if your phone is found to be using an aftermarket, or non-Samsung part, the store has to instantly disassemble it and raise the alarm. That’s quite problematic, and also probably in violation of US laws around the right to use third-party parts for repair.

The repair gurus at iFixit announced that it was ending its partnership with Samsung around the same time. iFixit said there were irreconcilable differences between the pair’s philosophies, like the high price of replacement parts and the mostly-unrepairable nature of Samsung’s phones.

— Dan Cooper

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The Justice Department and 30 state and district attorneys general have slapped a big pile of legal documents down on Ticketmaster owner Live Nation’s desk. They allege the company has the live entertainment industry in a chokehold, harming fans, promoters and artists. And, if this lawsuit really was prompted by the issues people faced while trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift’s Era’s tour, then we all know who to thank if Live Nation gets broken up.

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Image of Spotify's Car Thing
Billy Steele for Engadget

Spotify’s Car Thing, a hardware product bringing streaming audio to less well-equipped cars, will soon be no more. The company announced that the product will stop working on December 9, as an attempt to “streamline” its offerings. If you bought a Car Thing, for the admittedly cheap price of $90, before they were discontinued in 2022, there’s not much you can do about it.

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Image of the Kobo Clara
Amy Skorheim for Engadget

Color e-readers aren’t new, but Kobo has managed to beat Amazon to the punch with its Clara Color. We’ve put this model through its paces and found that it beats the socks off any of its rivals with fast processing and a great display. Unfortunately, the downside is the same as always: It’s not a Kindle, and so you’re losing out on the vastness of Amazon’s library.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/zluSNia

from Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics https://ift.tt/zluSNia

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