Samsung Note 7 battery fire woes triggered by rush to beat Apple's iPhone 7 - report

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in General Discussion
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."
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 68
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Reply 2 of 68
    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."

    And a bigger battery that works
    watto_cobrabig
  • Reply 3 of 68
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    Why does everyone keep demanding something entirely different every year? What's wrong with simply delivering something that just works? People don't realize how difficult (and unnecessary) a total re-design is. Changing a design to meet the frivolous demands of customers and (especially) crazy analysts does not produce a better product only a different looking one.
    redraider11SpamSandwichnetmageronnjbdragonlightknightwatto_cobranolamacguyRayz2016brucemc
  • Reply 4 of 68
    The damage caused by this issue will be hitting Samsung far harder than just replacing phones. I bet many are done with Samsung and will never get another one again. So, unless they want to really stick with Android, that leaves them to get this nice shiny new iPhone 7. For Apple, this couldn't have come at a better time and will hurt Samsung worse than anything in the long run. Plus, if there was any sort of physical damage to either someone, or someone's property because of the battery exploding you can bet there will be a mass amount of lawsuits against them all around the world. I hope the media will continue to hit on this. You know damn well they would if this were Apple. It'd be going on for weeks, hell months! They absolutely do not deserve a pass on this! 

    I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a little shaking of things up in the Samsung Mobile department. 
    edited September 2016 SpamSandwichwatto_cobrapscooter63gilly017redgeminipajony0
  • Reply 5 of 68
    rob53 said:
    Why does everyone keep demanding something entirely different every year? What's wrong with simply delivering something that just works? People don't realize how difficult (and unnecessary) a total re-design is. Changing a design to meet the frivolous demands of customers and (especially) crazy analysts does not produce a better product only a different looking one.
    I want something entirely new, that is crazy better and just works.
  • Reply 6 of 68
    safi said:
    People who bought samsung got what they deserved! I hope more galaxy's blow up and blacken their faces!
    That kind of comment makes you even more ignorant and childish than Android fanbois who so relentlessly lie, twist and distort anything Apple. In fact, it puts you on a level below them. How about you grow up a little and show that those who believe in Apple and their products are smarter, more accomplished and intellectually superior to the Apple hater crowd? Don't you think that would work a little bit better than crawling around in the mud with them and claiming others deserve to have their phones explode and be injured?
    macxpressjbishop1039matrix077stanthemansricefracai46singularitybaconstangpscooter63
  • Reply 7 of 68
    wigbywigby Posts: 692member
    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."
    This story still makes no sense. So Samsung rushed Note 7 release to steal Apple's thunder? But the story says that Apple had no thunder to steal because iPhone 7 has no major improvements. What is the truth?

    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.
    perkedeljony0
  • Reply 8 of 68
    sog35 said:
    berndog said:
    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."

    And a bigger battery that works
    The iPhone 7 is evolutionary as far as form factor but not features.

    They added a ton of features on the 7:

    1. Water Proof
    2. Awesome camera
    3. Crazy fast CPU, GPU
    4. Solid state home button (this is a HUGE plus for anyone who has experience a broken home button)
    5. Major display improvements (brighter, wider color gamut, super accurate color)
    6. Significantly better battery life
    7. Stereo sound, much louder speakers

    Those are massive improvements.

    What were the REVOLUTIONARY features in the iPhone6 from the iPhone 5S?  Just a bigger screen. How is that revolutionary?

    I think we sometimes forget what the word revolutionary means. To me, the only real revolutionary iPhone was the original one. It did something nothing else had done in a complete package. Sure, it didn't work the best, only supported 1 carrier, didn't have apps, etc, but it was a damn fine piece of technology for its time. It was a touchscreen phone which was unheard of in 2007 with multi-touch which was totally and completely awesome again, for 2007 with this new mobile OS that was built from the ground up to support touch. Nobody had ever seen anything like this before on a mobile phone for consumers and it sent manufacturers scrambling to come up with something similar, even as they brushed the iPhone off as something that will never take off. This is what revolutionary means in my opinion. The rest of the iPhones, were simply upgrades to last years phone as the technology advanced. Nothing really stuck out as simply amazing with the rest of the iPhones. Better processors, bigger screens, etc are NOT revolutionary.
    edited September 2016 bsimpsenafrodrinolamacguyai46badmonkbrucemccropruraharatoddzrxkudu
  • Reply 9 of 68
    macxpress said:
    sog35 said:
    berndog said:
    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."

    And a bigger battery that works
    The iPhone 7 is evolutionary as far as form factor but not features.

    They added a ton of features on the 7:

    1. Water Proof
    2. Awesome camera
    3. Crazy fast CPU, GPU
    4. Solid state home button (this is a HUGE plus for anyone who has experience a broken home button)
    5. Major display improvements (brighter, wider color gamut, super accurate color)
    6. Significantly better battery life
    7. Stereo sound, much louder speakers

    Those are massive improvements.

    What were the REVOLUTIONARY features in the iPhone6 from the iPhone 5S?  Just a bigger screen. How is that revolutionary?

    I think we sometimes forget what the word revolutionary means. To me, the only real revolutionary iPhone was the original one. It did something nothing else had done in a complete package. Sure, it didn't work the best, only supported 1 carrier, didn't have apps, etc, but it was a damn fine piece of technology for its time. It was a touchscreen phone which was unheard of in 2007 with multi-touch which was totally and completely awesome again, for 2007 with this new mobile OS that was built from the ground up to support touch. Nobody had ever seen anything like this before on a mobile phone for consumers and it sent manufacturers scrambling to come up with something similar, even as they brushed the iPhone off as something that will never take off. This is what revolutionary means in my opinion. The rest of the iPhones, were simply upgrades to last years phone as the technology advanced. Nothing really stuck out as simply amazing with the rest of the iPhones. Better processors, bigger screens, etc are NOT revolutionary.
    I agree for the most part, but I would say the 64-bit processor Apple put in the 5s was pretty revolutionary as well. It only took Apple less than a decade to incorporate 64-bit architecture into a cell phone whereas the PC market is is struggling to go all 64-bit even to this day. I'm siting at work right now with a Dell laptop that was issued in 2013 with 32-bit Windows 7. 
    netmagehydrogenronnwatto_cobrabadmonkpalomineuraharabaconstangkudubig
  • Reply 10 of 68
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,717member
    macxpress said:

    I think we sometimes forget what the word revolutionary means. To me, the only real revolutionary iPhone was the original one. It did something nothing else had done in a complete package. ... Nothing really stuck out as simply amazing with the rest of the iPhones. Better processors, bigger screens, etc are NOT revolutionary.
    Agreed... and that applies to other manufacturers as well.
  • Reply 11 of 68
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    berndog said:
    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."

    And a bigger battery that works
    1) Wouldn't calling the redesigned casing '7S' go against their naming convention? I would have thought that if they were going to noticeable change the casing structure it would have been this year, and that next year's S-model will have the same casing in terms of exterior design.

    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.
    nolamacguy
  • Reply 12 of 68
    Well, I guess not all of them were due to the rush.
    An older Samsung phone recently blew up in a 6 year old kid's hand in Brooklyn NY.


    edited September 2016 watto_cobrastarwars
  • Reply 13 of 68
    The Bloomberg article has an utterly offensive headline. It's essentially like saying that my stupidity is the result of your smarts. In words, not, you know, my fault.

    As always, it's Apple's fault. Clickbait crap. 
    watto_cobrabigstarwars
  • Reply 14 of 68
    sog35 said:
    berndog said:
    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."

    And a bigger battery that works
    The iPhone 7 is evolutionary as far as form factor but not features.

    They added a ton of features on the 7:

    1. Water Proof
    2. Awesome camera
    3. Crazy fast CPU, GPU
    4. Solid state home button (this is a HUGE plus for anyone who has experience a broken home button)
    5. Major display improvements (brighter, wider color gamut, super accurate color)
    6. Significantly better battery life
    7. Stereo sound, much louder speakers

    Those are massive improvements.

    What were the REVOLUTIONARY features in the iPhone6 from the iPhone 5S?  Just a bigger screen. How is that revolutionary?


    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.
    watto_cobrabig
  • Reply 15 of 68
    SoliSoli Posts: 10,035member
    The Bloomberg article has an utterly offensive headline. It's essentially like saying that my stupidity is the result of your smarts. In words, not, you know, my fault.

    As always, it's Apple's fault. Clickbait crap. 
    I don't want to give them a click; would you mind providing the title?
    watto_cobrabig
  • Reply 16 of 68
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    sog35 said:
    wigby said:
    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."
    This story still makes no sense. So Samsung rushed Note 7 release to steal Apple's thunder? But the story says that Apple had no thunder to steal because iPhone 7 has no major improvements. What is the truth?

    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.
    The story was simply to pass blame to Apple.

    Oh, its all Apple's fault that Samsung had to rush their phone. Poor, poor, small Samsung.

    At the same time they can also make a jab at Apple for making the iPhone 7 dull.

    The really story is Samsung's quality control sucks or they simply ignored quality control. Both cases are horrible.
    Yes, it is completely Samsung's fault. Samsung trying to take advantage of Apple in every aspect.  It even named Note 7 Note 7 and skipped Note 6.  Samsung is little man. In fact most Android users are.  They know Android is simply a theft of Google. 
    perkedelpalominewatto_cobrabig
  • Reply 17 of 68
    jbdragonjbdragon Posts: 2,305member
    rob53 said:
    Why does everyone keep demanding something entirely different every year? What's wrong with simply delivering something that just works? People don't realize how difficult (and unnecessary) a total re-design is. Changing a design to meet the frivolous demands of customers and (especially) crazy analysts does not produce a better product only a different looking one.
    Changing the look for the sake of change does what exactly? When it makes sense, great, but really, how many ways can you make a rectangle phone and be original? I really find it funny that Samesung moved their launch date for the note shortly before the iPhone launched to try and gain sales every year. I'm not sure it works all that well. How many are really going to jump ship to Samesung a month or less for their phone just because they launch their phone shorting before the iPhone? Look what happens, it backfired on them. Not only that, they pushed to launch it even sooner to try and get more sales because of the so called minor iPhone update. I wonder how many people over there are going to be fired. It's a huge costly mistake that if anything will create more people jumping ship from Samesung over to Apple and cost them a huge pile of money!!! They really are just so focused on Apple. Copy Apple, launch before Apple. All they do is pay attention and focus on Apple and then base everything they do (COPY) on Apple!!! It normally works out for them. It's how they became #1 on Android.
    watto_cobrabiggilly017jony0
  • Reply 18 of 68
    misamisa Posts: 827member
    berndog said:
    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."

    And a bigger battery that works
    People keep saying OLED, and People keep being wrong. At this point Apple may as well use quantum dots, but current versions use Cadmium which is toxic.

    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.

    macxpress said:

    I think we sometimes forget what the word revolutionary means. To me, the only real revolutionary iPhone was the original one. It did something nothing else had done in a complete package. Sure, it didn't work the best, only supported 1 carrier, didn't have apps, etc, but it was a damn fine piece of technology for its time. It was a touchscreen phone which was unheard of in 2007 with multi-touch which was totally and completely awesome again, for 2007 with this new mobile OS that was built from the ground up to support touch. Nobody had ever seen anything like this before on a mobile phone for consumers and it sent manufacturers scrambling to come up with something similar, even as they brushed the iPhone off as something that will never take off. This is what revolutionary means in my opinion. The rest of the iPhones, were simply upgrades to last years phone as the technology advanced. Nothing really stuck out as simply amazing with the rest of the iPhones. Better processors, bigger screens, etc are NOT revolutionary.


    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.



    edited September 2016
  • Reply 19 of 68
    tommikele said:
    safi said:
    People who bought samsung got what they deserved! I hope more galaxy's blow up and blacken their faces!
    That kind of comment makes you even more ignorant and childish than Android fanbois who so relentlessly lie, twist and distort anything Apple. In fact, it puts you on a level below them. How about you grow up a little and show that those who believe in Apple and their products are smarter, more accomplished and intellectually superior to the Apple hater crowd? Don't you think that would work a little bit better than crawling around in the mud with them and claiming others deserve to have their phones explode and be injured?
    I haven't met many Apple diehards that lie, distort or twist the truth. Usually it's the non-Apple users making bold and false claims about Apple products.

    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. :) 
    biggilly017jony0
  • Reply 20 of 68
    safi said:
    People who bought samsung got what they deserved! I hope more galaxy's blow up and blacken their faces!
    Evil much?!? Wow, to wish someone harm is a horrible thing!
    singularitybaconstangbigjony0
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