
Why Samsung Abandoned Its Galaxy Note 7 Flagship Phone - uladzislau
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/business/international/samsung-galaxy-note7-terminated.html?_r=0
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jimmywanger
This is completely not a technical decision, it's a branding and marketing
decision.

Even though the percentage is vanishingly small, Samsung cannot be associated
with exploding phones.

Even airlines warn against Samsung Note 7s specifically during preflight
briefings. They're amputating part of their business to stop contagion to the
rest of their brand.

~~~
djsumdog
> Even though the percentage is vanishingly small

I thought so too. I meant it's just been three explosions, or so I heard.
However this article claims 97 incidents with breakdowns on overheating vs
burning. It seems pretty significant. I mean, not statically against devices
in the wild, but it takes a relatively few amount of safety incidents to
question an entire product line.

~~~
coldtea
> _I thought so too. I meant it 's just been three explosions, or so I heard._

Far more than 3. It's already more than 3 on the "replacement" "fixed" 7s --
it's dozens for the first version, including in planes, while driving, etc.

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robbiep
I love the image that is conveyed of 'feature overload' being the cause of
explosive devices. As though we may have reached some sort of technological
wall against which all increases in device or feature richness lead to
explosions

~~~
mgiannopoulos
Well it's can be called an overload when you have components interacting with
each other in a tiny space and add to that not giving people enough time to
test the design. Obviously (imho) more time for testing and QA would have
solved the issue.

------
newscracker
The article was interesting and provided some information (on the battery
suppliers, not being able to reproduce the problem) and perspective that I
wasn't aware of before.

But the headline seemed inaccurate though. I read this article twice, and I
still finished with the feeling that it didn't really answer the question in
the headline. None of the interviews with identified or unidentified sources
answered this particular question with any details. So it's a management
decision because even the replacement phones had the same issue. Anybody
following the news could've guessed that.

------
tim333
Have any of the phones actually exploded as in gone bang and ejected stuff
outwards quickly. All the examples I've seen seem to have overheated and
caught fire. I'm guessing exploded just sounds more dramatic in reporting?

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msane
If it's ultimately code that prevents the battery from overheating, in some
architectures, what's to prevent a Stuxnet for batteries?

~~~
colejohnson66
Dedicated ICs for LiPo batteries are supposed to prevent that

~~~
msane
Attacks on the ICs are probably possible if corners are being cut. Purely
speculation but if this was the case I would be glad it was called out so
fast.

~~~
kbart
How? I really doubt it as these ICs have no CPU, flash or anything else that
could be programmed externally. Here's a random example of how one look like:
[http://www.ti.com/product/bq24232ha/datasheet](http://www.ti.com/product/bq24232ha/datasheet)

~~~
gambiting
PSP was hacked through the battery. Basically Sony had a "magic" battery that
would report certain ID, that they could use to flash any firmware they
wanted. Well, someone figured this out, and as it turns out, you could use a
hacked PSP(hacked through one of the existing exploits) to flash a different
ID to the battery - from that point onward it would act as a "magic" battery
and could be used to flash any PSP.

So yeah, the IC in the battery was nothing more than a tiny bit of memory
containing the ID, but ultimately, that was the downfall of the whole PSP
ecosystem, as you could use a hacked battery to reflash any PSP, regardless of
its firmware, so sony had no way of patching this.

~~~
kbart
I' not aware of this particular case, but over-the-shelf charging IC is
definitely not enough to accomplish that. That sounds like a wider, system
problem. Anyway, that's an interesting story, I'll check it - thanks.

~~~
gambiting
There are some links with explanations if you want to read up on it :-)

[http://www.krizka.net/2008/02/10/what-is-pandoras-
battery/](http://www.krizka.net/2008/02/10/what-is-pandoras-battery/)

[http://www.instructables.com/id/PSP-Hacking-
Guide/step2/Pand...](http://www.instructables.com/id/PSP-Hacking-
Guide/step2/Pandora-battery/)

[https://geekindisguise.wordpress.com/tag/psp-pandora-
battery...](https://geekindisguise.wordpress.com/tag/psp-pandora-battery/)

"This is a battery with its serial changed to 0xFFFFFFFF. When a PSP battery
serial number is changed to 0xFFFFFFFF, or unreadable, the PSP boots the IPL
from sector 16 on the physical drive (the Magic Memory Stick). This unlocks
the service mode of the PSP and launches the IPL from the Memory Stick
(instead of from flash0). A regular battery can be made into a JigKick via
hardware or software methods."

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newscracker
Though I despise some of Samsung's shameless tactics in the design copying
department, I feel bad for the company and the employees who worked on this
device. With the pressure of all the media coverage around, not knowing the
reason for the failures would've been a terrible blow to morale and
motivation. Hope the middle and lower level employees don't face the brunt for
what could (still) be an impossible problem to figure out and solve.

------
justinlardinois
> When several Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones spontaneously exploded in
> August, the South Korean company went into overdrive. It urged hundreds of
> employees to quickly diagnose the problem.

> None were able to get a phone to explode.

What exactly does that process look like? I'm imagining a bunch of QA techs in
a warehouse hoping for failure.

~~~
sdrothrock
Maybe lots of extreme cases, like wrapping up the phone to try to overheat it,
lots of testing of wireless charging (which seems to be a link between known
cases), tests with various cables/chargers, maybe trying to get the phone
wet...

~~~
jmkni
I would imagine also writing code to execute on the phone designed to max out
the CPU/GPU for an extended period of time?

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rurban
They didn't explain why Samsung went to this crazy step.

First of all, it's a sign of poor Korean management leadership. Their testing
and engineering departments still couldn't reproduce the errors, but pressure
from upper management was so high that they went berserk, completely
distrusting their engineers.

First of all, you cannot take such a dramatic step, losing face, when you have
no idea what went wrong, and what caused the problems. Apparently it wasn't
the battery supplier. So it's more likely the battery controller. Which would
be trivial to fix once identified and analyzed. Call back, yes. But burn it,
crazy. Typical Korean drama. Managers shouting and going crazy.

~~~
catdog
> First of all, you cannot take such a dramatic step, losing face, when you
> have no idea what went wrong, and what caused the problems.

They already lost face with a bit mismanaged and not so customer friendly
replacement procedure and then again delivering dangerously faulty items. It's
reasonable from a marketing perspective to end the disaster once and for all.
"Oh you own a Note 7? Are you sure it's the really really really not exploding
one?"

> So it's more likely the battery controller. Which would be trivial to fix
> once identified and analyzed.

And if it's not? Is e.g. the possibility of the too dense packaging damaging
the battery completely ruled out?

~~~
rurban
Without knowing the problem, you cannot take such a step killing off your
whole product.

How long does a normal non-korean company need, to take the next step? Longer.
How long did Toyota need to announce the next step for its recall crisis? Did
Toyota kill their flagship products for the floor mat, accelerator pedal or
hybrid anti-lock brake software problems, which killed people?

Dense packaging is also possible. CPU temp. or cooling also. Many possible
reasons. That's why you analyze it first, and then announce a plan to fix it.
Almost everybody had such a phone.

~~~
catdog
> Without knowing the problem, you cannot take such a step killing off your
> whole product.

Maybe they really only killed the name and plan reuse most components in a
specification wise very similar soon to come successor model. If it's not a
software problem but dense packaging or cooling they have to redesign a lot of
things anyways.

> How long did Toyota need to announce the next step for its recall crisis?
> Did Toyota kill their flagship products for the floor mat, accelerator pedal
> or hybrid anti-lock brake software problems, which killed people?

A car is also completely different kind of product, you can change a lot of
things without completely taking it into bits.

------
_pmf_
It's a conundrum: I would absolutely buy a Galaxy Note 7 when it's been out a
while (given that Europe is considered a second class market, this happens
automatically), but I would not want to buy it as an early adopter at the
moment.

However, this mindset now also extends to a potential successor, so I don't
think Samsung's strategy will play out quite as they think. The successor will
have to be rushed even more.

~~~
kefka
Given the amount of Samsung products I've had fail, as well as colleagues who
have had similar experiences, I consider them to be a sub-par brand.

Think Chineseium, but a bit further south.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/09/29...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/09/29/samsungs-exploding-washers-raise-serious-questions-about-
its-quality-control/)

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tuananh
Does this ever happen before?

~~~
Waterluvian
Ayds (pronounced AIDS) appetite suppressant candy. After the renaming of GRIDS
to AIDS.

~~~
robinhowlett
In 2014, Isis, the mobile-payment service built by AT&T, T-Mobile, and
Verizon, changed its name to Softcard for obvious reasons.

~~~
kgwgk
Isis Pharmaceuticals also changed its name recently:
[http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/18/investing/isis-
pharmaceutica...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/18/investing/isis-
pharmaceuticals-name-change/)

------
abysmallyideal
Looks like Samsung has to foot the 5+billion dollar bill to come up with a
solution.

Are these known to just affect the snapdragon US version from whatever samples
Samsung has been able to obtain? I'm reading that some cases are refusing to
allow Samsung to investigate the phone.

My opinion is that putting the radio in the SoC is a big mistake. Qualcomm
kraits are one of the main points Samsung has no control over, and it is not
hard to imagine a scenario that could cause issues if they can't test it.

------
revelation
This sounds like a good strategy for an unethical competitor. <100 devices and
only a few uncorroborated reports but drastic images are enough to trigger
this?

There are presumably plenty of ways to make a LiIon fail dramatically if you
just know where to push or apply some directed heat. Ifixit has that covered I
think.

~~~
kevincox
There were less then that many shark attacks last year. People are still
terrified of sharks.

Not a perfect analogy but people are terrified of things that are incredibly
unlikely. It's legitimately hard for a phone manufacturer. 0.00001% is too
many explosions if you sell a couple million phones.

~~~
simonh
There have been roughly a hundred incidents so far. The phone was out for
about a month. Assuming first year sales would have been quadruple first month
sales and the same rate of burnouts over the year, that's 100 * 4 * 12 = 4,800
incidents in a year.

One of these incidents happened in a car on the road and another happened on a
plane. One happened while a child was holding it and another while the owner
was asleep causing smoke inhalation injuries. Taking those as 'aggravated
circumstances' we could expect to see 4 * 4 * 12 = roughly 200 cases in
aggravated circumstances.

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digi_owl
I wonder if this will in the end be a combo of fast charge, USB-C and after-
market cables/chargers...

~~~
TeMPOraL
Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

I remember testing a wireless charging kit for my S4 while in China. The
charger itself was rated 5V 500mA, but when I put my phone on it, the Ampere
app reported 1900mA charging current and the screen started showing strong,
wave-like distortions. I'm only glad the phone survived the experience.

