Exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phablets recalled immediately Samsung Electronics has recalled its exploding new phablet model after an increasing number of miniature blasts – and their internal investigation discovered a "battery cell issue". Samsung had halted shipments of the Galaxy Note 7 earlier this week after a number of reports regarding the phablets catching fire. In a …
Since checking for updates either for the firmware or the Samsungs apps defaults to auto, would it not make more sense for Samsung to to an over the air update to all customers which displays a warning message? Sounds like an obvious and comprehensive way to get to as many customers as possible in the shortest possible timeframe.
"Mr President, while on the hot line you may hear a high pitched squeal. That will be the phone melting at the other end."
"Sweet Jesus Christ! Our bomber got through their defenses? They are about to be nuked?"
"No, sir. Our bomber finally got the recall order thirty five minutes ago and turned for home."
"Then ... you mean ..."
"Yes! The Russian Premier is using a state of the art smart phone with a dodgy Russian-made Lithium battery."
"Then there's only one hope for World Peace. Bring me ... my Galaxy Note 7."
That explanation never really made sense to me in the first place. From what I understand, Samsung didn't ship a USB-C cable with the phone - knowing that almost no one has anything with a USB-C connector into which the plug the other end. Instead they shipped it with a USB-C to mini converter.
So then the story was "everyone who had this happen was using a USB mini cable with a mini to USB-C converter". Well duh, if that's all Samsung provided, of course that's what almost everyone would be using, including both those with exploding and non-exploding phones.
Samsung obviously scheduled this launch with the iPhone's standard September launch in mind, hoping to garner a lot of positive press in the meantime and assuming the iPhone 7 is basically a 6SS with the real update coming next year hope to get some people who were hoping for a bigger change. Instead they're taking a big black eye that makes antennagate look very minor by comparison.
If this happened to Apple it would be far worse, simply because of the number of phones they ship - over 10 million launch weekend alone. If the problem was discovered two weeks later like this they'd probably be well over 20 million. There would be 10x as many exploding phones, with greater likelihood someone might actually die from it (imagine the size of that lawsuit) and the recall would cost them 10x more as well.
That explanation never really made sense to me in the first place. From what I understand, Samsung didn't ship a USB-C cable with the phone - knowing that almost no one has anything with a USB-C connector into which the plug the other end. Instead they shipped it with a USB-C to mini converter.
Samsung did ship the phones with Type-A to Type-C cable as the charger it ships with has Type-A connector.
They also included Type-A to Micro-USB adapter as well as Micro-USB to Type-C adapter.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. We know you're an Apple shareholder and fan but so what?
There is no doubt that this is an expensive mess up for Samsung but at this point it would seem to me that the most important question is: are they handling it well? I think they are. Whenever you make a mistake in business the most important thing to do is to admit it and show you're doing something about this. All Lithium batteries are a fire risk, which is why they come with hazard warnings printed on them. This maybe the most profile incident the mobile phone industry but the same problem has affected other companies (Sony, I think) in the past as well as notebook manufacturers and plane makers (Boeing's 787).
Samsung have apparently sold over 2 million devices and there are reports off less than 100 incidents but they are still doing a full recall. To me this is kaizen in practice and shows that they care and is a very different response to a failure than Steve Jobs "you're holding it wrong" when Apple engineers fucked up on the antenna build. So, while people's faith in Samsung make be a little shaken, they're taking the best action to restore it, though this will take time. As for the timing with respect to the next I-Phone, I don't think it matters that much and if customers are happy with the way replacements are handled, could yet be good PR. Apple will be hoping that they don't have anything similar in their kit.
Most importantly: what does this tell us about fixed batteries? If the problem is with the batteries then the recall action would be a whole lot quicker, cheaper and easier to run. I wonder if Samsung will learn from this and revert to offering phones with removable batteries. I even wonder if this shouldn't be regulated for devices for all rechargeable batteries bigger than say 500 mAh.
...Apple's Irish tax returns, and that is why the EU (Bureaucrats in Brussels) is harping on Ireland to get the pound of flesh from the i-company.
Seems similar to the excuse "The dog ate my homework".
Then again my shares of Apple stock will probably go up on the news...
Samsung is seen by many to be the plucky underdog, sued by the nasty rotten fruit.
This means that Samsung is good, Apple is Bad, rotten to the core etc etc
The truth is closer to a pint of cloudy scrumpy than a clear filtered Strongbow.
I had a Samsung Mobile once. Never got an update and Touchwiz was useless. Went back to my nokia
I had some Samsung HDD's. All went bad within the 1st year.
So for me, I won't ever have anything with a Samsung label on the outside ever again.
I have a 4th Gen iPod bought from a Pawn shop. It works but I'm not inclined to buy anything new from Apple.
No company is perfect. some are clearly worse than others.Up to you to decide and vote with your money.
"I had a Samsung Mobile once. Never got an update"
FYI - my Galaxy S5 Mini received an update this very weekend, all 350MiB of it. This is the fourth update since I got the phone.
By contrast, my other phones are Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Sony and they are ALL running Android 2.x (the latter two shipping with that after 4.x was released) and they never once got any update of any kind.
Perhaps before blaming Samsung it might be worth noting what an awful mess the update process is/was that implied actions from the carriers and exactly how many of them could be bothered?
>Perhaps before blaming Samsung it might be worth noting what an awful mess the update process is/was that implied actions from the carriers and exactly how many of them could be bothered?
Motorola phone running Android 2.x and never got an update, which model ?
I had a Sony Xperia, one of the first models - cannot remember exact model - shipped with outdated Android from day 1 (Android version over 12 months old), never got an update. The Xperia M I have has had updates, but still on 4.3, iirc. With 2Gb internal storage, not sure what I could put on it, though.
None of these phones were from a carrier ... because, carriers suck just as much as HP, Lenovo, Dell & co ... crapware pre-installed. And, you have to wait for updates to be released from google, to be adapted by phone maker, to be adapted by carrier ... if you are into Android, get a Nexus or Blackberry. I still do not understand why Moto failed when under Google's helm ... but then again, I did not quite follow their models back then ...
Koh Dong-jin, the president of Samsung’s mobile arm, told the press today that there was "a tiny problem in the manufacturing process" which caused the issue.
Koh Dong-jin, the president of Samsung’s mobile arm, told the press today that there would have been "a tiny loss of profit by using higher quality cells" which caused the issue.
TFTFY
.
If it is true the batteries were manufactured by a third party and Samsung's supplier was screwed down to the last cent, who did the screwing? Er, Samsung.
Try as I might I cannot fathom why this suggestion received a downvote, although to be fair it is possible that a third party battery manufacturer decided to cut a few corners in an attempt to squeeze a little more profit.
Thinking about it didn't some phone manufacturer try to patent cut corners?
This isn't ballsy or even a change from the norm, it's the bare minimum any corporation would be expected to do if they came to know about a health and safety risk like this. They investigated and obviously quite quickly identified that the problem was real and likely to result in many more fires if not put right, at which point the recall becomes very cheap next to the cost of the many inevitable lawsuits that would otherwise come there way,
They had no choice in other words, legally or financially.
It's only because they explode. They have sold phones with bulging batteries and offered a replacement if they bulge, but the replacements, the batteries sold separately, and the batteries that came with new phones, all continued to suffer the same problem and you had to go back yet again.
"This isn't ballsy or even a change from the norm, it's the bare minimum any corporation would be expected to do if they came to know about a health and safety risk like this."
Depends on the situation. Most will make every effort to try to limit the damage to a batch and then issue a recall for that batch only. There could be any of a number of reasons why Samsung have not done this is this. Anything from being "good" and issuing the recall across the board for PR and safety reasons to not being able to identify if it is a batch fault in a short enough time frame to having already discovered that the affected devices are from a wide range of batches. We may or may not ever know the reason for such a wide ranging recall.
Yeah the main reason they have to take this seriously is because it would only be a matter of time before someone is severely injured or dies. If Samsung was sued, and an email trail could be produced that showed they knew about the problem but decided to ignore it based on a cost/benefit analysis, the punitive damages could be massive. Given how many explosions happened with the phone only being out a week or two, there wasn't going to be any ignoring this anyway.
Look at Takata for an example of what happens to companies that try to sweep life/safety issues under the rug. They will not survive as a company. Car companies can sweep stuff under the rug when they have problems that are outside that realm, like misapplied rustproofing in the wheel wells or a Nav system that cuts out randomly but it is inadvisable for things that can injure or kill people.
My wife needed a replacement for her much-loved much-used Asus Transformer 101 which, at 5½ years old, was fading fast.
Windows 10 showed just how deep is the contempt in which Microsoft holds all its customers so we've happily reciprocated by resolving never to buy anything from Redmond again. Asus has gotten into bed with Microsoft and in any event nowadays appears to be competing for a worldwide record in lousy-at-best, non-existent-most-often, customer service. So. Nix Asus. Sampling Samsung's and Sony's tablets left us mildly interested but nothing more. Finally, then, we decided on Google's "own" product, the Pixel C.
If you read the rave reviews of a tech media so far up Mountain View's hindquarters that it can barely see to write, you'll realise that the Pixel C is not merely the best thing since sliced bread, but the best thing since the creation of dough. If, however, you appreciate that you are a consumer and not a freebie-laden meeja hack, then you'll check Google's own forums to discover just how good the Pixel C is . . . and when you've done that, browse the ether for further news of its distinctive wifi capability. Or rather, distinctive incapability. And then harken to Google's . . . silence.
Kudos, then, to Samsung for reacting to a PR disaster in the best way possible . . . and none at all to Google for doing nothing in hope that its own bad news will just go away when it's actually potential customers who go away. Goodbye Google, hello Apple. The wife's iPad Pro is just the Jobs, thank you.
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