Rush to Take Advantage of a Dull iPhone Started Samsung's Battery Crisis [Bloomberg]

[WalkingHorse]

Great read.
Rush to Take Advantage of a Dull iPhone Started Samsung's Battery Crisis

 

[rushmore]

Yep and makes sense. They compromised quality control procedures and failed to sample production with test runs each time a batch was produced- this would shave several days for that many batteries. That is the only way something so basic and standard procedure can fail like this. Pressing layers too much it compromise the chemical field integrity of the anode and cathode layers (they Smashburgered' them) and not correct it.

On top of that, they ran the production teams ragged. Another red flag that is a No-No with critical component production.

 

[BlackZeppelin]

This seems to be the general consensus amongst analysts that the Note 7 was rushed to be released before iPhone 7. There was something in that article also starting how battery capacity was increased with almost no increase in physical size, pushing the engineering to its limits.

I still cannot believe the shortsighted nature of this release. The Note 7 was going to be Samsung's most successful phone ever. Preorders were double of the S7. Ironically, the massive sales was a curse as it meant massive numbers of phones to be recalled.

Live and learn Samsung. But even without the battery issue, there were so many inconsistencies such as software performance, battery life, signal strength.

The iris scanner was 5 yrs in development and most reports said it worked fast and reliably. That same level of testing and development was not applied to other aspects of the phone.

 

[rushmore]

Signal "strength" and the "Note 7" is sadly an oxymoron.

 

[Carlo Villa]

Still the Note7 is far better than Apple's latest iPhone.

 

[French]

Yep and makes sense. They compromised quality control procedures and failed to sample production with test runs each time a batch was produced- this would shave several days for that many batteries. That is the only way something so basic and standard procedure can fail like this. Pressing layers too much it compromise the chemical field integrity of the anode and cathode layers (they Smashburgered' them) and not correct it.

On top of that, they ran the production teams ragged. Another red flag that is a No-No with critical component production.

The first time I read that I thought it said "SAMburgered" them.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

I don't buy it.

It was, what, 10 days earlier than the Note 5?

I'm sure it wasn't "well, let's take a chance with these bad batteries. we have to ship before the iPhone!" Indications are that all the "normal parties" had the same amount of testing time as they would for any other device.

This was, unfortunately, just a case of a major issue not being caught during normal testing. There is no way to say that having three more months of testing would have caught the issue either. After all, a million users of the phone put exponentially more "testing time" into the phone than Samsung could put in in a year.

 

[dpham00]

I don't buy it.

It was, what, 10 days earlier than the Note 5?

I'm sure it wasn't "well, let's take a chance with these bad batteries. we have to ship before the iPhone!" Indications are that all the "normal parties" had the same amount of testing time as they would for any other device.

This was, unfortunately, just a case of a major issue not being caught during normal testing. There is no way to say that having three more months of testing would have caught the issue either. After all, a million users of the phone put exponentially more "testing time" into the phone than Samsung could put in in a year.

Who cares what launch say is...what matters is release day.

The release date of the Note 7 was august 19th. Note 5 august 21st. This year the 21st falls on a Sunday...unless bloomberg is faulting Samsung for not delivering on a Sunday? Otherwise there's a "zero" business day difference. If you are picky,at worst it is a two calendar day jump. personally,I would call it the same time frame.

Bloomberg is making a big deal over ten days,but...the Note 5 was released like TWO MONTHS before the note 4.

The rest of the article sounds all doom and gloom but no real new information, just rehashing stuff

 

[From A Buick 8]

Who cares what launch say is...what matters is release day.

The release date of the Note 7 was august 19th. Note 5 august 21st. This year the 21st falls on a Sunday...unless bloomberg is faulting Samsung for not delivering on a Sunday? Otherwise there's a "zero" business day difference. If you are picky,at worst it is a two calendar day jump. personally,I would call it the same time frame.

Bloomberg is making a big deal over ten days,but...the Note 5 was released like TWO MONTHS before the note 4.

The rest of the article sounds all doom and gloom but no real new information, just rehashing stuff

SOP for Bloomberg, the USA today of business publications.

 

[LeoRex]

Another thing to keep in mind.... this is all wild speculation based on some confirmed data and some unconfirmed 'unnamed source' data. Without any official report from Samsung, it's hard to say. Was the phone rushed out the door? Yep.... of course it was. They are ALL rushed out the door. Anyone who has worked on any significant piece of hardware or software knows the absolute lunacy that leads right up to release. One company that I worked for did combined HW/SW telecom solutions and there was one time where one of the engineers was loading the most up to date firmware build while the gear was sitting on the ramp of the truck.

But every phone is under that same pressure and they never get launched in a state that makes the R&D organization feel comfortable. Was the new battery pack design fully tested? Did they cut a few corners here or there to make sure that the release date wouldn't slip? Did they knowingly release a phone that had a potentially faulty battery? The only party that knows all the answers is Samsung...

But the phone was announced around the same time the Notes have been announced.. not early, not late.

 

[donm527]

Well, it sounds like they were pressured to MAKE the date. Of course there's always going to be pressure to make target dates. Anyways, the ball was dropped.