“The most frightening part of the recent New York Times article on the background of Samsung’s battery problems with the Galaxy Note 7 is that of the company’s ignorance,” Gene Steinberg writes for The Tech Night Owl. “As of the day that article was written, Samsung, the world’s largest mobile handset maker, had no clue what went wrong, what caused batteries to overheat and sometimes burst into flame.”
MacDailyNews Take: Samsung had no clue what caused their products to explode, yet shipped replacements anyway, assuring their customers the products were safe.
“At first, it was thought the defects could be traced to one of their suppliers, but even when they used batteries from another supplier on the fixed versions, the problems recurred. So it couldn’t be the battery, unless the core design was defective to begin with,” Steinberg writes. “I am especially troubled at Samsung’s apparent flailing when confronted with so serious a defect. It has the real and present danger of destroying the brand…”
MacDailyNews Take: Good and well-deserved.
“Even though the Galaxy Note 7 is dead, will customers flock to the Galaxy Note 8, should there be one, or wait for others to test it first to make sure it’s safe? How does Samsung reassure customers?” Steinberg writes. “What about other models? Is there the danger that the some of the Note 7’s design concepts might find their way into the Galaxy S8? If Samsung doesn’t know the cause of this problem, how do they keep another product from inheriting similar defects?”
