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Why Samsung Abandoned Its Galaxy Note 7 Flagship Phone
- tuananh 10y agoDoes this ever happen before?
- Waterluvian 10y agoAyds (pronounced AIDS) appetite suppressant candy. After the renaming of GRIDS to AIDS.
- zeroer 10y agoA.i.d.s. Ambulance Service, too. (attitude, integrity, dependability and service) http://articles.latimes.com/1985-11-14/local/me-2370_1_aids-victims http://articles.latimes.com/1985-11-14/local/me-2370_1_aids-...
- robinhowlett 10y agoIn 2014, Isis, the mobile-payment service built by AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon, changed its name to Softcard for obvious reasons.
- kgwgk 10y agoIsis Pharmaceuticals also changed its name recently: http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/18/investing/isis-pharmaceuticals-name-change/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/18/investing/isis-pharmaceutica...
- sdrothrock 10y agoOne of the most high-profile cases I can think of is the Tylenol murders and subsequent recall. The J&J handling of the problem is actually a textbook case of how to handle this kind of thing properly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders Edit: I commented before reading the article and just noticed that this incident was mentioned in the article itself.
- c3534l 10y agoThere's a whole area of business called "crisis management." Some of the more famous case studies are the Tylenol poisoning case, the Ford Pinto controversy and lawsuit, the Valdez oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, the Firestone tire controversy, and it wasn't even that long ago that there was a small case of mass hysteria regarding Toyotas accelerating all on their own that managed to spread to other brands of cars before people realized that these were just careless drivers. As for abandoning a new product, I suppose there's not that many industries where you come out with regular updates like this every couple of years and it's a big deal. I know Microsoft has rebranded a couple of products before. They rolled out Windows 7 instead of trying to convince everyone that Vista was all fixed and not as bad as they say. I suspect this will be a similar case. Hold off until the controversy dies down, then basically just release the current iteration of their phone when people calm down and they can make sure the thing barely runs warm ever.
- jimmywanger 10y agoThis is completely not a technical decision, it's a branding and marketing decision. Even though the percentage is vanishingly small, Samsung cannot be associated with exploding phones. Even airlines warn against Samsung Note 7s specifically during preflight briefings. They're amputating part of their business to stop contagion to the rest of their brand.
- userbinator 10y agoI suppose this could mean the Note 8 (7+?) will come a bit sooner.
- jimmywanger 10y agoI don't know. The brand is so tainted, they might come up with a whole new name. That's what I'd do, but then again I'm not a highly paid marketing executive.
- bdcravens 10y agoProbably rebranded to something like S8 Pro or Stylus or Write or similar.
- djsumdog 10y ago> Even though the percentage is vanishingly small I thought so too. I meant it's just been three explosions, or so I heard. However this article claims 97 incidents with breakdowns on overheating vs burning. It seems pretty significant. I mean, not statically against devices in the wild, but it takes a relatively few amount of safety incidents to question an entire product line.
- msane 10y agoIf it's ultimately code that prevents the battery from overheating, in some architectures, what's to prevent a Stuxnet for batteries?
- colejohnson66 10y agoDedicated ICs for LiPo batteries are supposed to prevent that
- msane 10y agoAttacks on the ICs are probably possible if corners are being cut. Purely speculation but if this was the case I would be glad it was called out so fast.
- r00fus 10y agoWhat do you mean by "attacks on the ICs" - sabotage?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kbart 10y agoHow? I really doubt it as these ICs have no CPU, flash or anything else that could be programmed externally. Here's a random example of how one look like: http://www.ti.com/product/bq24232ha/datasheet http://www.ti.com/product/bq24232ha/datasheet
- gambiting 10y agoPSP was hacked through the battery. Basically Sony had a "magic" battery that would report certain ID, that they could use to flash any firmware they wanted. Well, someone figured this out, and as it turns out, you could use a hacked PSP(hacked through one of the existing exploits) to flash a different ID to the battery - from that point onward it would act as a "magic" battery and could be used to flash any PSP. So yeah, the IC in the battery was nothing more than a tiny bit of memory containing the ID, but ultimately, that was the downfall of the whole PSP ecosystem, as you could use a hacked battery to reflash any PSP, regardless of its firmware, so sony had no way of patching this.
- justinlardinois 10y ago> When several Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones spontaneously exploded in August, the South Korean company went into overdrive. It urged hundreds of employees to quickly diagnose the problem. > None were able to get a phone to explode. What exactly does that process look like? I'm imagining a bunch of QA techs in a warehouse hoping for failure.
- sdrothrock 10y agoMaybe lots of extreme cases, like wrapping up the phone to try to overheat it, lots of testing of wireless charging (which seems to be a link between known cases), tests with various cables/chargers, maybe trying to get the phone wet...
- jmkni 10y agoI would imagine also writing code to execute on the phone designed to max out the CPU/GPU for an extended period of time?
- revelation 10y agoThis sounds like a good strategy for an unethical competitor. <100 devices and only a few uncorroborated reports but drastic images are enough to trigger this? There are presumably plenty of ways to make a LiIon fail dramatically if you just know where to push or apply some directed heat. Ifixit has that covered I think.
- Naomarik 10y agoNot even very expensive or difficult to do. A small group of people could coordinate such a thing pretty easily. You can see a single opinion has taken over the internet where everyone is convinced any Note 7 in existence is a ticking time bomb that can kill you at any moment.
- coldtea 10y ago>You can see a single opinion has taken over the internet where everyone is convinced any Note 7 in existence is a ticking time bomb that can kill you at any moment. Whereas the truth is?
- yread 10y agothat out of 2 million devices 97 burned or exploded?
- nikbackm 10y agoSo far.
- senectus1 10y agoyeah that's the thing, you extrapolate this over time and gets very bad fairly quickly..
- coldtea 10y agoAm I getting this right? We should be OK with 1 in 20,000 odds of a phone exploding in our hands or burning down the house? Because that's what 97 in 2 million amounts to. Besides, that's just in the first couple months of release. Can you guarantee that a device run with a known, faulty, battery issue, wont result in more explosion as it gets used for more time? It's not like "if you switched it on for the first time and it didn't explode it never will". If anything time (and wear on battery etc) could be a compounding factor...
- abysmallyideal 10y agoLooks like Samsung has to foot the 5+billion dollar bill to come up with a solution. Are these known to just affect the snapdragon US version from whatever samples Samsung has been able to obtain? I'm reading that some cases are refusing to allow Samsung to investigate the phone. My opinion is that putting the radio in the SoC is a big mistake. Qualcomm kraits are one of the main points Samsung has no control over, and it is not hard to imagine a scenario that could cause issues if they can't test it.
- _pmf_ 10y agoIt's a conundrum: I would absolutely buy a Galaxy Note 7 when it's been out a while (given that Europe is considered a second class market, this happens automatically), but I would not want to buy it as an early adopter at the moment. However, this mindset now also extends to a potential successor, so I don't think Samsung's strategy will play out quite as they think. The successor will have to be rushed even more.
- kefka 10y agoGiven the amount of Samsung products I've had fail, as well as colleagues who have had similar experiences, I consider them to be a sub-par brand. Think Chineseium, but a bit further south. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/09/29/samsungs-exploding-washers-raise-serious-questions-about-its-quality-control/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/09/29...
- robbiep 10y agoI love the image that is conveyed of 'feature overload' being the cause of explosive devices. As though we may have reached some sort of technological wall against which all increases in device or feature richness lead to explosions
- mgiannopoulos 10y agoWell it's can be called an overload when you have components interacting with each other in a tiny space and add to that not giving people enough time to test the design. Obviously (imho) more time for testing and QA would have solved the issue.
- newscracker 10y agoThe article was interesting and provided some information (on the battery suppliers, not being able to reproduce the problem) and perspective that I wasn't aware of before. But the headline seemed inaccurate though. I read this article twice, and I still finished with the feeling that it didn't really answer the question in the headline. None of the interviews with identified or unidentified sources answered this particular question with any details. So it's a management decision because even the replacement phones had the same issue. Anybody following the news could've guessed that.
- newscracker 10y agoThough I despise some of Samsung's shameless tactics in the design copying department, I feel bad for the company and the employees who worked on this device. With the pressure of all the media coverage around, not knowing the reason for the failures would've been a terrible blow to morale and motivation. Hope the middle and lower level employees don't face the brunt for what could (still) be an impossible problem to figure out and solve.
- digi_owl 10y agoI wonder if this will in the end be a combo of fast charge, USB-C and after-market cables/chargers...
- TeMPOraL 10y agoWouldn't surprise me a bit. I remember testing a wireless charging kit for my S4 while in China. The charger itself was rated 5V 500mA, but when I put my phone on it, the Ampere app reported 1900mA charging current and the screen started showing strong, wave-like distortions. I'm only glad the phone survived the experience.
- rurban 10y agoThey didn't explain why Samsung went to this crazy step. First of all, it's a sign of poor Korean management leadership. Their testing and engineering departments still couldn't reproduce the errors, but pressure from upper management was so high that they went berserk, completely distrusting their engineers. First of all, you cannot take such a dramatic step, losing face, when you have no idea what went wrong, and what caused the problems. Apparently it wasn't the battery supplier. So it's more likely the battery controller. Which would be trivial to fix once identified and analyzed. Call back, yes. But burn it, crazy. Typical Korean drama. Managers shouting and going crazy.
- catdog 10y ago> First of all, you cannot take such a dramatic step, losing face, when you have no idea what went wrong, and what caused the problems. They already lost face with a bit mismanaged and not so customer friendly replacement procedure and then again delivering dangerously faulty items. It's reasonable from a marketing perspective to end the disaster once and for all. "Oh you own a Note 7? Are you sure it's the really really really not exploding one?" > So it's more likely the battery controller. Which would be trivial to fix once identified and analyzed. And if it's not? Is e.g. the possibility of the too dense packaging damaging the battery completely ruled out?
- rurban 10y agoWithout knowing the problem, you cannot take such a step killing off your whole product. How long does a normal non-korean company need, to take the next step? Longer. How long did Toyota need to announce the next step for its recall crisis? Did Toyota kill their flagship products for the floor mat, accelerator pedal or hybrid anti-lock brake software problems, which killed people? Dense packaging is also possible. CPU temp. or cooling also. Many possible reasons. That's why you analyze it first, and then announce a plan to fix it. Almost everybody had such a phone.
- TulliusCicero 10y ago> Without knowing the problem, you cannot take such a step killing off your whole product. Sure you can. In fact, they just did.
- tim333 10y agoHave any of the phones actually exploded as in gone bang and ejected stuff outwards quickly. All the examples I've seen seem to have overheated and caught fire. I'm guessing exploded just sounds more dramatic in reporting?