Nearly two weeks after Samsung recalled the Galaxy Note 7 due to the risk of explosion, the device is still being used just as frequently by its owners. This is according to data from Apteligent, a mobile analytics company that claims “usage rate of the phone among existing users has been almost the exact same since the day of the recall.”
It seems not even exploding batteries can tear users away from their smartphones, but the apparent reticence of users to get rid of their faulty devices is not being helped by Samsung’s mismanagement of the recall process. Swapping 2.5 million smartphones is certainly no easy task, but the South Korean firm has not helped the situation by issuing confusing information to consumers. The longer the situation goes on, the more damage it does to the company’s brand.
A few notes about the Note 7 problems. First, this is no laughing matter. There’s a reason not even Apple made fun of Samsung’s problems during the iPhone event (something Apple normally revels in), because they, too, know that such manufacturing defects in which real people can get hurt can actually happen to anyone. Battery technology effectively comes down to stuffing highly flammable and dangerous liquids and chemicals in pressurised containers in your pockets, and lithium-ion batteries have a long history of catching fire and exploding.
Second, unlike the doom and gloom you read everywhere, this whole story will be out of the media and out of the public’s eye (if it’s even been in the latter’s eye to begin with) a few months from now, and nobody will care. This will do far, far less to damage Samsung’s brand than people think (or hope).
Third, that being said, Samsung is indeed not handling the recall very well. There should’ve been a quicker response, a clearer response, a more pervasive response. These things pose a real danger to people, and should’ve been taken off the street much, much quicker than this.
I hope we won’t have to read about people dying because of this.
I don’t know anything about battery technology. Is there any suggestion that Samsung was pushing out immature technology that wasn’t properly tested? This would definitely put me off ever buying a Samsung product. This is a defect that could kill someone, and that doesn’t seem to have been their number one concern in handling this.
If anyone does die because of this, I think that really will do irreparable damage to their brand – and it should. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen and that the industry as a whole reviews safety management.
Edited 2016-09-16 10:24 UTC
The Verge did an in-depth exploration of why companies like Sony and Samsung have historically had problems with exploding batteries:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/8/12841342/why-do-phone-batteries-ex…
TL;DR: You’re cramming a lot of energy into a tiny space and consumers keep demanding more capacity and faster charging out of a technology that’s already 90% of the way to its theoretical maximum. It’s inherently got a small margin for error in the design and manufacturing.
“consumers keep demanding” – I’ve always found that kind of phrase to be quite Orwellian. “Consumer demand” in economic terms is not quite the same as “consumers keep demanding … some specific thing”.
Maybe it’s reasonable to conclude that if as a phone manufacturer, I make the phone battery last longer people will buy of more of my phones – that’s not the same as “consumers demanded better batteries”.
In fact, if you offer a superior experience, and a crappy batter life, people would still buy your widget – consider the Apple Watch. Better batteries are just one way to make a sale.
The only reason the rapid charge time is necessary to begin with is because these moof milkers won’t let us swap out the damn battery.
Perhaps it’s time for a little bit of common sense to prevail, for once …
We could only wish. But then they wouldn’t be able to claim it’s 0.0000001mm thinner and make you buy a new one every couple years. Something tells me “common” sense isn’t all that common with consumers these days.
No argument. I use an OpenPandora for my mobile computing (with a Pyra planned once they’re released) and “buy multiple batteries for runtime beyond the typical 8-15 hours of active use” is an explicit selling point for both of them.
(In fact, the batteries come in nice-looking protective shells made from the same plastic as the device to ensure that you can easily and safely bring spares along.)
Thom Holwerda,
Yea I understand, but at least the recall means samsung is taking it seriously and not trying to gag the victims, which is terrible IMHO:
http://www.ipodobserver.com/ipo/article/apple_offers_to_trade_gag_f…
I don’t really know how many incidents would be acceptable before a company considers a recall? Anyone having any actual numbers would be very informative…
It appears you don’t understand the difference between one-off problems and a chronic issue that forced a recall.
Edited 2016-09-16 16:47 UTC
leos,
What evidence do you have of this? I already asked explicitly if anyone had any numbers, and I’m still interested in finding that out. If you are accusing me of this without having any numbers yourself, then your accusation is nothing but bias; neither of us knows whether the Samsung fires are actually more significant than apple’s fires.
I’m very big on openness and I believe consumers should always have the facts, so I’m glad this is being covered by the news. It’s good that Samsung issued a recall. However I’m genuinely curious what the standards are for issuing a recall from one company to another.
Apple issued no recalls even after iphone fires put commercial flights at risk. Why?
http://abcnews.go.com/US/alaska-airlines-passengers-phone-catches-f…
http://www.cultofmac.com/291864/iphone-5-catches-fire-mid-flight-ca…
https://9to5mac.com/2016/03/21/iphone-6-fire-flight-hawaii/
https://www.cnet.com/news/cell-phone-battery-catches-fire-burns-hack…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2729656/Could…
I don’t have hard numbers to calculate the failure risks per unit, but clearly apple would have needed to make a cost/benefit analysis between the risks to consumers and their profits, just like samsung did.
What concerns me is that when people are so quick to condemn samsung, even though they did try to do the right thing with the voluntary safety recall, the next company to contemplate a recall might be discouraged from doing so and more inclined to keep consumers at risk.
Thom is very wrong in stating that people will forget.
Your post just demonstrated this fact very well.
Perhaps you were holding your thingy wrongly?
If a handful did, no way. If a lot of people die, probably not. Over 120 people died from bad GM ignition switches, more than twice that in injuries. 30 million cars recalled. $900+ million dollars in fines, and dragged it through the courts. That was just 2 years ago and since then GM has had record sales. That’s not a bad outcome for a company that initially denied and lied about the problem. By comparison, Samsung has handled their situation commendably.
In reality this was a manufacturing error that had potentially dangerous consequences, but it’s being fixed and once the replacements have filtered down to customers hands, everyone will be happy again. People aren’t going to hold this against Samsung because 1) they make great phones, and 2) people have no problem taking risk – just look at the number of dumbf…s who have their faces buried in the cellphones while they driving or blindly walking around (sometimes into traffic or off a pier and into water).
Lithium Batteries should not be part of the phone competitive game. That should be Regulation framed.
Samsung effort is huge and unprecedented. Kudos.
Nowadays, a not quick enough recall could also have a very small probability of unprecedented consequences to the Trademark.
This is an industry wide problem. Spec ‘pushed’ Li Batteries are a mobile fire risk.
Requesting energy-management into the battery could go half way toward easing regulator’s work. [and making batteries a little more expensive].
Who pushed the specifications? Who pushed who for ‘better’ specs? As for the blame game.
This is a regulator’s part of the history still to be heard.
Also, Lithium is not a minor health risk. And still I don’t see a working World recycling industry, as is for Pb batteries.
—-
What is wrong with you? I asked a question because I wanted to know the answer. That’s not “making stuff up,” that’s the complete opposite – trying to find out the facts. What I’ve heard so far is that yes, there are some suspicions that Samsung was pushing too hard.
You come across like a raging Samsung fanatic – it’s bizarre. I don’t think you can simply transpose incidents involving cars to phones. People walk around all day with their phone next to their genitals. People feel like they’re in control of their cars, while a phone is sitting in your pocket or bag most of the time.
If you think Samsung has handled this situation commendably, when hundreds of thousands of people are walking around with phones that might explode in their pockets, oblivious to the dangers, then I don’t know what to tell you. Any person not blinded by Samsung love hearts flashing over their eyes can see that this has been a complete disaster – one that Samsung has handled terribly.
Edited 2016-09-16 15:24 UTC
You do realize the Note 7 was just released Aug. 19 right? We’re not even a month out from the release and Samsung has halted all Note 7 sales, already identified the problem, issued a temporary software fix, fixed the manufacturing problem, and issued an official world-wide recall. No reasonable person, or non-Apple fanboy would consider that a “complete disaster”.
They completely botched it:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsungs-management-of-recall-wounds-co…
As for the software update etc., a large percentage of users don’t install software updates. This phone has been out for weeks, so of course there have been, and still are, hundreds of thousands of people walking around with this phone in their pockets. Your head is buried in the sand. And this is nothing about Apple-vs-Samsung – grow up.
Nobody said it was so are you continuing to have difficulty with comprehension or continuing to make things up?
You seem very “Micro$oft is evil” if you know what I mean – which you probably don’t – and will probably reply with `this isn’t about Microsoft-vs-Samsung` because you’re good at not getting it.
What a strange person you are. A company releases a product so dangerous that they have to recall ~2.5 million units, but then botch the recall so that weeks later people still have exploding phones, and your response to someone who criticises the company is: “you seem very ‘Micro$oft is evil’.” I strongly advise you to get your brain deprogrammed because you clearly have an irrational love of giant corporations. People matter, not companies.
For the sake of keeping this from getting too long, I’ll dump most of the ridiculous nonsense in your post.
For someone who clearly doesn’t even understand the concept of branding, you shouldn’t be so sure of yourself. Especially considering I’ve already provided a recent example of a BRAND that had a _far more damaging_ situation occur, and they not only came out the other side on top of it, their business actually increased to record numbers. That REAL LIFE situation directly contradicts your silly assumptions.
The rest of your post was dumped because it was just more baseless nonsense. If I keep replying to every fraudulent and/or pretend thing you say, this will never stop because your imagination has proven to be healthy and active.
You haven’t made any new points. Everything you’ve said in this most recent reply I’ve already fully addressed, so I think I’m done with this thread now. It’s like banging my head against a wall, except instead of a wall it’s a very dim person, and instead of banging it’s writing as if I’m trying to explain something to a 8 year old. You don’t seem to understand what the word “improper” means, and your debating tactic seems to be to accuse your opponent of making things up. You can do that one-on-one with someone, but I wouldn’t advise doing that in your job, or in life in general as you will be caught out very easily. Unfortunately, this conversation has not taught me anything at all, except that some people will let companies walk all over them, and will put their fingers in their ears when someone says it like it is.
All I got out of this conversation was a reminder that some people let their imagination run wild and confuse it for reality. At least you’re great at getting everything wrong.
Woe, something crawl into a sensitive place and sting? The sentence you’re replying to had a question mark, not a period. Easy there, you might do yourself an injury.
Your response is nonsensical to me. I simply called it how I saw it. Maybe you’re the sensitive one if you read anything more than a simple basic reply from that.
You saw it wrong, and responded like a rude twat. Admit it.
If you think making valid points and citing real world examples in support of them is being rude, sure, ok then… Otherwise, I doubt this is the first time you or he has been on the internet getting it wrong. No biggie, you’ll get over it.
I think this rounds out the discussion nicely:
http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/19/12968206/samsung-note-7-recall-ou…
Nope. Things will be rounded out nicely after the fud spam has subsided, the dust has settled, it’s business as usual, and Samsung’s market share & stocks are still solid (or better). History is on my side whether you like it or not
The Verge:
Unfortunately, Samsung’s rush to produce the Note 7 has been matched by a similar headlong charge into its recall, with the company issuing confusing advice to consumers over the last two weeks and failing to coordinate properly with regulators. Last week, the company confirmed to The Verge that only 130,000 Note 7 units have been returned to date — leaving approximately 90 percent of affected devices still in the hands of consumers. For more details on the internal pressures at Samsung that may have led to this state of affairs, check out the full report from Bloomberg.
Edited 2016-09-19 16:29 UTC
…And everything I said is accurate.
You said most people are oblivious to this problem. FALSE. People are not oblivious, you just can’t complete a recall the same day it’s issued. It takes time. This problem only affects a portion of the total, and of those, only around 40 people have reported problems so it clearly isn’t affecting a large number of people.
You said Samsung is going to incur severe brand damage. Time will tell but based on similar past events with exploding batteries, history easily points to this turning out to be FALSE. Based on past events that were far worse, history easily points to this turning out to be FALSE.
As I said, “Things will be rounded out nicely after the fud spam has subsided, the dust has settled, it’s business as usual, and Samsung’s market share & stocks are still solid (or better). History is on my side whether you like it or not.” The only thing in question is whether or not you’ll be man enough to admit you were wrong and I was right.
I hope those straws you’re clutching are keeping your hands nice and warm (just don’t clutch your Note 7 or you might not have hands for long).
If we completely ignore that I’ve stuck reality while you’ve stuck to your imagination, only .00004% of the Note 7’s sold have even reported a problem. And 0% of the .00004% has had their hands blown off. You’re more likely to slip in the shower and accidentally kill yourself. But hey, by all means keep crapping your pants. The more fud you post now, the more crow you’ll be eating later.
I think he’s had a bit too much of his namesake. It really was just a question from what I can tell, not some oddball attempt at FUD or whatever ilovebeer imagined he read.
Surely the simplest, safest way is for the carriers to not allow a note 7 to connect to their networks, filter on IMEI number so that newer fixed models can. Users can then complain to their network and be provided with a replacement device if the original came from them, or told to return the device to where they did purchase it from.
I agree actually, but in the US at least the CPSC would have to take further action I think…
There are 3 kinds of recalls in the US
Voluntary – The manufacturer acts unilaterally, with no government prompting. This is how the vast majority of recalls are done.
Mandatory – The CPSC issues a formal recall advisement. This effectively bans sales of the product until fixed, but it does not force consumers to comply with the recall. The CPSC generally only steps in and does this if it feels there is a significant safety issue to consumers
Compulsory – The CPSC makes the recall compulsory. At this point consumers can actually be fined (up to $5000) for not following the recall process. This is generally reserved for when the safety issue extends beyond the consumer, i.e. their is a danger to public safety that extends beyond the consumer themselves.
The S7 recall, at this point, is mandatory, but not compulsory. I don’t think carriers could legally block the device unless the recall was compulsory. The argument could certainly be made that this should be a compulsory recall, but afaik it isn’t at this point.
Thanks a lot galvanash. For clearing the legalese of the recall.
Could they not do what MS did and push an OTA update that locks the wallpaper to “you must return this device”?
That’s easier said than done. It’s the carriers who handle the OTA updates, not the manufacturers (with the exception of a couple of odd cases like Nexus phones on Project Fi), the manufacturer only produces the update, they don’t distribute it themselves. Any carrier who pushes such an update is going to have issues as a result of it too, people having to get a new phone runs the risk of them switching to a different carrier, and switching so many accounts will result in people being out of service for far longer than switching phones normally would result in. In essence, it’s in the best interests of the carriers from a purely business perspective to not push such an update out to their users.
So, another reason to stop letting the carriers fsck us all over. Love or hate Apple, but they’ve got the right update method going on.
That being said, forcing an update like this may actually get them into more trouble depending on whose phone is affected. It’d be some damn bad luck to push an OTA update saying return this phone and locking it, only for a person affected to need emergency services a few minutes later, for example. Microsoft and Apple are both damn lucky that didn’t happen to them after their recall and broken 8.0.1 update, respectively.
Edited 2016-09-16 12:39 UTC
Yeah, there’s a reason I switched to Project Fi. It’s run by Google, so you get updates fast (usually, the official Android 7 release for the Nexus 6P didn’t come out until earlier this week, but that’s still significantly before almost any other brand of phone had it), and they just use stock Android, so you don’t have to deal with all the crap most of the other manufacturers put on their phones.
As for the thing about emergency services, Android phones can still make calls even when locked (or at least, ones running stock Android can). You just swipe up like you would to unlock, then click the button labeled ‘Emergency’ or ‘Emergency Call’ (depending on the version of Android). In fact, this is even possible for stock Android on an encrypted phone before the boot-time password is entered (there is be a similar button on the password entry screen).
As far as an OTA update, the correct way to get people’s attention in my opinion would be to force changing the background to show a warning about the recall, and add a persistent notification about it that can’t be hidden or dismissed (like the OTA update notifications on stock Android).
That’s not the kind of lock I meant. I’m describing the hypothetical firmware update that locks all functions of your phone out and just gives you a message, as was described in a previous comment. And as for the broken Apple update (8.0.1), it actually disabled the cellular radio!
I should have clarified that I didn’t mean screen or password lock, but firmware lock. Yes, it would be possible to still permit emergency services even if they did lock every other firmware function for recall purposes, but would you trust them to remember to do so?
I guess Samsung is not particularly keen on replacing the affected devices. They recalled the devices, so they did what the law requires them to do. Now whenever one’s Note 7 explodes, even if it blows the owner’s head off it is not Samsung’s fault. I think they are fine with that. Sure, I have no proof for this “theory” of mine, and it is just as credible as any other conspiracy theory, but sometimes conspiracy theories turn out to be true.
Edited 2016-09-16 12:05 UTC
It’s debatable whether it’s better for Samsung to force the recall or not. From a public safety perspective it’s a pretty obvious choice, but Samsung is a business, not a public safety organization, and forcing people to return broken hardware (and thus be without a phone for potentially quite some time) could be just as bad for their reputation as someone dying as a result of a battery exploding.
They still could get charged for criminal negligence for this if somebody dies, but I don’t think that’s likely to happen (either someone dying or charges being filed).
Well, that was my point: Samsung did exactly what it was required to do, so they are arguably out of trouble already. They are not supposed to babysit their customers.
P.S.: It may seem that I am bashing Samsung. No. Replace “Samsung” with any other tech company (HTC, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Jolla, etc.) and the comment will be just as valid.
Edited 2016-09-16 12:53 UTC
Hi,
For pure (emotionless) economics; if the estimated cost of compensating victims plus the estimated cost to future sales/marketing (due to any damage to reputation) is less than the estimated cost of fixing the flaw; then it’s bad (for $$) to fix the flaw.
For the exact same reason; if the estimated cost of compensating victims plus the estimated cost to future sales/marketing is less than the cost of adequate quality control procedures (e.g. stress testing each phone’s batteries at the factory and only shipping phones that pass); then it’s bad (for $$) to ensure this kind of flaw can never happen in the first place.
– Brendan
I’m one of those Note 7 owners, so I’ve been following this pretty closely.
While I applaud Samsung for moving very quickly (especially for a company of that size) it’s just been a massive ball of confusion at the carriers and retailers in the USA. When the government’s Consumer Product Safety Council got involved, it just made it worse.
Samsung was offering a “loaner” phone if you returned your Note 7, but apparently the word didn’t get down to the folks in the trenches. If you brought your phone back, the carriers were offering to sell you another Samsung phone, with the promise that you could return it within 14 days for a replacement Note 7. Since Samsung was unable to give a definitive date for replacements thanks to the CPSC (the best they could do was tell you that it would be “upon CPSC approval” and neither Samsung nor the CPSC would give an ETA) very few people were willing to get snookered into buying an expensive phone they didn’t want, because nobody expected the replacements to be here in 14 days because bureaucracy.
It seems the replacements are already in people’s hands in places other than the US, but the CPSC (after a week of silence) has now given Samsung their blessing and the replacements should be here next week. I would imagine that this will be a non-issue in a week’s time or so. Once the deal becomes “come in and we’ll give you a non-flammable phone” I’d expect most people to take it.
Yes… but in the short term will you continue to risk injury to yourself and/or others around you? That’s the question I’d like to know from Note 7 owners.
Well, I get in my car every day and am probably just as likely to be injured in a car accident as I am to be injured by my phone. Remember, most Note 7s are probably fine, it’s only a very small percentage that will have an issue.
That being said, I still have my Nexus 6 so I don’t have to use mine, but I can see someone who traded their old phone or otherwise has no backup deciding to risk it.
In the long term, I hope you’re right.
In the short term, I’d sure like a 50%-off priced Note 7.
On a somewhat related note – I find it a bit scary that Apple is encouraging people to put this same battery chemistry IN THEIR EARS. With the removal of the headphone jack on their new phone, I foresee an explosion (pun intended) of cheaply made bluetooth earbuds flooding the market… I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time before some poor souls sustain serious injuries from their earbuds exploding.
Nah. Cheaper to make crappy Lightning earbuds than crappy Bluetooth ones. Still though, one never knows what crazy thing will come down the crap chute.
Note 7’s in the UK were on pre-order for several weeks and Samsung actually halted fulfilling those orders before the actual UK release date of 2nd September.
However, apparently, this wasn’t much of an embargo, because some UK providers actually allowed UK customers to get hold of their Note 7’s before 2nd September, which turned out to be not too wise an idea.
The upshot is that not a huge number of Note 7’s got out into the wild in the UK, but Samsung should have been actively chasing those and telling everyone to turn them off and stop using their Note 7 from day one of the recall.
I don’t like samsung but every news outlet has been “your note 7 batteries will explode please recall”.
I’d mod you up but apparently I recently mod’ed you up…like…I dunno…months ago. So no go on that.
I am more guessing Apple doesn’t want to call attention to themselves on this issue, since they had a similar problem with exploding MacBooks at one point.
They did have such a problemm as you say, in the past.
The question to now ask is…
did Apple putr policies and procedures in place to stop this from happening (rogue manufacturing problems aside) in the future?
If the did then all well and good. If they didn’t then shame on them.
so when will they be forgiven? This year, next or in 2100(never)?
I believe they stopped purchasing batteries from Sony & Samsung and started designing the batteries themselves. Since then, I don’t think there has been an issue with their batteries.
I doubt Apple did anything except send the blame on the battery manufacturers. It was Sony back then, but they are still used, but haven’t had problems since. So you need to ask Sony how they improved their QA.
“…The U.S. recall is in conjunction with the governments in Mexico and Canada.”
“…commission chairman Elliot Kaye told reporters Thursday that company-initiated recalls are less successful in removing a product from the marketplace.”
“…The largest lithium-ion battery recall involved 4.1 million Dell notebook computers in 2006.”
From Todd C. & Hayley Tsukayama; You can find the complete resource at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/09/16/can-you…
This site has become the Apple apologist