When you take your phone to a service center for repair, it’s standard practice to reset it – otherwise, sensitive data (photos, accounts, etc.) could end up in the wrong hands. This creates the added hassle of backing up and restoring your data first.
Samsung introduced a solution to this problem – maintenance mode. This is accessible through the Battery and Device Care screen in Settings. Once activated, the phone will reboot.
The mode hides all personal data including photos, messages, accounts and apps (only default installed apps will be active). Basically, the phone will be restarted.
After unlocking your phone after repair, you can deactivate repair mode using fingerprint or pattern lock. This will reboot the phone, at which point it will have full access to all your data. Any settings that the technician changed during the repair will be restored.
An additional option allows the phone to record recent issues and create a note of which apps were used when they occurred. This will help diagnose the problem. Of course, no personal information will be recorded in this log and you will have the option to enter maintenance mode without creating a log.
Repair mode is first enabled on the Galaxy S21 series with a software update. Samsung wrote that it “plans to expand to other models in the future.”
As per the press release, the update was posted only on Samsung’s Korea site, so the feature will be limited to Samsung’s home turf at first. This appears to be a dry run to test the new feature before expanding to more regions and phones.
Although it is a universally useful feature because it solves a common problem. We expect it to standardize on a single UI, at least for select models. “Technology is connecting the world more than ever, but the risks are increasing. Samsung’s priority is customers.” Shin Seung-won, managing director of the security group of Samsung Electronics’ MX division, said.
Source (in Korean) | through