After iFixit published its revealing Galaxy Fold teardown, which labeled the device as "alarmingly fragile," Samsung sent a request to have it pulled online.

The reason the South Korean brand is doing this is unclear, and presumably, it isn't willing to say why, leaving everything to speculation.

Samsung Risks The Streisand Effect

The company didn't directly send the request to iFixit to have theGalaxy Fold teardowntaken down. Instead, it contacted the person who supplied the device to the repair outfit, who then removed the publication in good faith.

"We were provided our Galaxy Fold unit by a trusted partner. Samsung has requested, through that partner, that iFixit remove its teardown. We are under no obligation to remove our analysis, legal or otherwise. But out of respect for this partner, whom we consider an ally in making devices more repairable, we are choosing to withdraw our story until we can purchase a Galaxy Fold at retail," iFixit said.

Now the Galaxy Fold breaking in the hands of reviewers has been making the rounds online. That is to say, the device has been a hot topic of late. The recent teardown possibly could've gone under the radar of some users, but any chance of that happening is potentially close to nil now that Samsung is risking theStreisand effect.

Exploring The Possibilities

As The Vergespeculates, Samsung could be revamping the Galaxy Fold and its design, and it simply doesn't want a teardown of one of its devices that's not going to be commercially available in the wild.

The news outlet also says that the smartphone maker could just be enforcing a contract where iFixit's partner isn't allowed to share the device. It's not a stretch to believe that threats with legal repercussions were thrown around either.

In addition, there's a chance that the teardown was just too telling, revealing numerous avoidable flaws and the like, particularly the lack of an ingress protection that let debris to get inside the foldable phone and damage it.

Whatever it is, Samsung wants the teardown to be out of the public's eye.

Teardown Is Still Online

For those who missed it, the Galaxy Fold teardown is stillavailable online, thanks to the Internet Archive. However, as Android Policepoints out, iFixit could eventually request to have it pulled as well to further honor Samsung's request to its partner. At any rate, it's still up at the time of this writing.

Galaxy Fold's Roller-Coaster Ride

For the uninitiated, the whole mess started when some of the Galaxy Fold review units Samsung seeded to tech journalists and influencersbrokeafter a few days of use.

显然,该设备有一个聚合物涂层looks like a normal plastic screen protector, and if it were peeled off, the screen would stop working properly. That was the case in the majority of the reports, but there were at least two that were different, one of which showed that the device developed a bulge on the crease.

Samsung thenpostponedGalaxy Fold launch events in China, and this led topushing backthe shipping date in United States. Next, the companyrecalledthe devices for investigation. To make matters weird, AT&Tannounceda June 13 release date for the foldable phone.

After all that, iFixit then uploaded the teardown in question, and it has now removed it at Samsung's request.