Samsung Note 7 battery fire woes triggered by rush to beat Apple's iPhone 7 - report
The battery fires and eventual recall of the Galaxy Note 7 can all be traced to Samsung executives wanting to rush the phone, based on rumors Apple's iPhone 7 wouldn't have any major improvements, according to a report.
To move up the launch of the Note 7 by 10 days and steal more of Apple's thunder, Samsung executives pushed suppliers into meeting faster deadlines despite the phone's significant feature advancements, sources informed Bloomberg. One supplier commented that Samsung was unusually difficult to work with this time, as the company would repeatedly change its mind about specifications and work flow.
One of the upgrades in the Note 7 is a 3,500 milliamp-hour battery, up from the previous Note's 3,000. Until recently the main battery supplier was Samsung SDI, a company 20 percent owned by Samsung Electronics which also makes batteries for clients like Apple, one source said.
Once the fires began, Samsung Mobile blamed SDI, which initially went on the defensive and suggested that the problem could lay elsewhere, whether in the phone's design or in insulation. Officially Samsung Mobile has since claimed responsibility for the situation. The decision to do a full recall is said to have been instigated by a Samsung engineer asking for one on an internal BBS post, which quickly gained support.
In reports to the governments of Korea, China, and the U.S., Samsung has indicated that a production error resulted in pressure on plates within the batteries, bringing positive and negative poles into contact -- in turn generating excess heat. U.S. regulators have specifically suggested that the battery was too big for its compartment.
New Note 7 models will have a battery from Amperex Technology, a subsidiary of Japan's TDK.
The iPhone 7 is generally considered an evolutionary advancement like the iPhone 6s, above all featuring a better processor, water resistance, and new camera technology, including a dual-lens camera on the 7 Plus. Apple is thought to be saving a major redesign for next year's model, which could have an edge-to-edge OLED display with an embedded "virtual button."
To move up the launch of the Note 7 by 10 days and steal more of Apple's thunder, Samsung executives pushed suppliers into meeting faster deadlines despite the phone's significant feature advancements, sources informed Bloomberg. One supplier commented that Samsung was unusually difficult to work with this time, as the company would repeatedly change its mind about specifications and work flow.
One of the upgrades in the Note 7 is a 3,500 milliamp-hour battery, up from the previous Note's 3,000. Until recently the main battery supplier was Samsung SDI, a company 20 percent owned by Samsung Electronics which also makes batteries for clients like Apple, one source said.
Once the fires began, Samsung Mobile blamed SDI, which initially went on the defensive and suggested that the problem could lay elsewhere, whether in the phone's design or in insulation. Officially Samsung Mobile has since claimed responsibility for the situation. The decision to do a full recall is said to have been instigated by a Samsung engineer asking for one on an internal BBS post, which quickly gained support.
In reports to the governments of Korea, China, and the U.S., Samsung has indicated that a production error resulted in pressure on plates within the batteries, bringing positive and negative poles into contact -- in turn generating excess heat. U.S. regulators have specifically suggested that the battery was too big for its compartment.
New Note 7 models will have a battery from Amperex Technology, a subsidiary of Japan's TDK.
The iPhone 7 is generally considered an evolutionary advancement like the iPhone 6s, above all featuring a better processor, water resistance, and new camera technology, including a dual-lens camera on the 7 Plus. Apple is thought to be saving a major redesign for next year's model, which could have an edge-to-edge OLED display with an embedded "virtual button."
Comments
And a bigger battery that works
I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a little shaking of things up in the Samsung Mobile department.
To me, this story is more about Samsung racing to beat Apple to market and not doing their homework. Maybe some of the blame lies with rumor sites like these that feed Samsung's needless race to market too.
Even though it's less extreme than in previous years, this year's camera housing is now part of the body casing so it does make it easy to spot. It's in its 9th iteration, and it's all revolves around a display so I can't say I understand the desire for a radical change for change sake.
2) I have concerns with the edge-to-edge display and a virtual Home button. How does this affect the impending bend tests and how does one find the button without looking, respectively. It's a consideration of pros and cons, not what looks cool.
PS: It's all evolutionary, even the original. The difference is that the original was also revolutionary.
An older Samsung phone recently blew up in a 6 year old kid's hand in Brooklyn NY.
As always, it's Apple's fault. Clickbait crap.
I think I only had issues with my iPhone 5 home button. All the others worked great. The solid home button will definitely take some getting used to but I agree it is a positive step.
OLED's have low brightness, burn in, decay/damage problems that don't exist with the current wide-gamut IPS LED backlit screens. Right now OLED's are better used in televisions that aren't persistently on.
The original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS were not even feature parity with dumb phones of the era. 5MPixel cameras and Music playback were available on high-end dumb phones that cost less, so what was revolutionary was that it removed the most failure points that dumb phones have. The physical keypad is a huge waste of space on dumb phones. So the touch screen was an improvement for everyone except blind people. That's where Siri solved a serious problem.
So the first "good" iPhone would have been the 4S. Despite that, people do love bleeding edge technology. Likewise with the iPad, the first good model was the iPad 3("The new iPad") which is also of the A5 generation like the 4S. These devices don't get the iOS 10 update because they aren't 64-bit chips.
That said, I agree with you that the comment your responded to was distasteful. We should not wish harm on any person, but Samsung as a company can die a slow painful death.