Samsung’s Galaxy S21 is one of the models currently supported in the company’s self-repair program. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Samsung seems to be working on a new self-repair app to aid customers looking to fix their own devices. The company’s submission at the US Patent and Trademark Office for “Self Repair Assistant” includes a blue Samsung-style Android app icon that has a gear and a wrench within it (via SamMobile).
Samsung’s application describes the Self Repair Assistant as a “computer application software for mobile phones” for self-repair, self-maintenance, and self-installation of devices including smartphones, smart watches, tablet computers, and earbuds. The Trademark Office is currently waiting to examine the application.
Image: Samsung
The icon for Samsung’s purported “Self Repair Assistant” app.
From the description, the app could provide users with repair guides and part information on a variety of Samsung Galaxy devices. This comes after Samsung announced its collaboration with iFixit earlier this year, providing the online repair resource site with OEM parts and repair guides. The program currently has a small library of supported products and their parts that went live in August, including the Samsung S21, S21 Plus, S21 Ultra, S20, S20 Plus, S20 Ultra, and Tab S7 Plus.
That’s about the same amount of supported smartphones Apple is offering DIY repair help for. The rival tech company launched its own self-service repair program this year as well, though it has an oddly de-branded customer-facing website listing the parts and guides for iPhones and MacBooks. This is where an app developed by the device manufacturer could be useful.
In March, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens told The Verge that his company is working to improve Samsung’s repair guide and DIY parts offerings. We reached out again to see if the collaboration could now include this app, but Wiens didn’t have anything to share at the moment.
Whether this app is part of a collaboration with iFixit or not (or if it even sees the light of day), it shows that tech companies have an increasing interest in providing customers with resources to repair their devices. Hopefully, it will coincide with the ability to do battery swaps as well; currently, the only Samsung-sanctioned way to do this is to replace the whole display and battery assembly, whether the screen is broken or not. Battery replacements will be important, especially since folks have noticed Samsung’s phone batteries have an annoying tendency to outgrow their Galaxy hosts.
Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge
This Samsung Galaxy Note 5 from The Verge’s tech archives has a swollen battery and could definitely use some self-repair love.