Samsung recently issued a software update for the Galaxy Note 3 that came with some unintended consequences. You know that expensive Samsung flip cover for the Note 3 with a plastic cut-out so you can see the time and various notifications at a glance? Third party case makers like Spigen made cheaper versions of said cases, and they used to work perfectly, but now they don’t. The German website All About Samsung asked Samsung what’s going on, and they received the following statement:

“To ensure a pleasant and smooth user experience with Samsung products for our customers, we recommend that only original accessories from Samsung be used. Of course, customers can continue to rely on third-party accessories. The full functionality of our devices and accessories, however, can only be ensured with genuine Samsung components, since only in this way it is ensured that equipment and accessories are perfectly matched. A correlation between the Android version 4.4 and the supposed incompatibility of third-party accessories does not exist.”

Now let me make myself perfectly clear. Samsung is allowed to do whatever they want to their products. All companies are. But that last sentence, which denies that the Android 4.4 update breaks third party cases, is infuriating. It’s pretty obvious what happened here: Samsung puts a little chip in their cases so that they can identify themselves as official Samsung products. Now that the Note 3’s software has been updated, the phone refuses to play nice with any case that isn’t made by Samsung themselves.

Is this the end of the world? No, but you’d think Samsung would want to help expand the ecosystem of accessories for their devices, not artificially limit its growth for short term profit gains.