Will Exploding Phones Make Manufacturers Life More Difficult?

Smartphones are fascinating! They are more powerful than an average computer 10 yrs back. The number of users across the globe with a smartphone far exceeds any other computer & this number is fast increasing. Add to that the smart watches that some of us wear on our wrists and had the Google Glass gone as expected, we would be wearing eye ware with a battery and OS as well.

The recent case of Samsung’s Note 7 exploding and leading to subsequent recall + billions in write down is a wake up call for consumer companies. While largely a laptop or phone powered by a rechargeable battery is considered very safe, in this age of social media with billions of connected users, every incident gets magnified. It takes 5 secs to make news by tweeting something and we wouldn’t always know if the cause was a manufacturing defect or faulty accessory. The Note 7 has changed consumer perception about exploding gadgets forever. And this wasn’t even a mid range or low range offering (something like the Galaxy J7 Prime would have caused lesser financial and perception damage).

Google Trends

Google already shows a spike in users interested in phones exploding. But that’s hardly the story. Users have always been worried about their phones heating. One of the most popular questions asked online when researching a mobile phone is about “heating issues”. Imagine what happens when you mix the heating paranoia to exploding news that keeps popping up.

Manufactures already have a tough task to balance a portable device that competes on slimness & weight, GPU & CPU capability, RAM, Battery life and display size & density. These are conflicting goals with a huge affect on how many chips are crammed into the tiny plastic or metal housing in your hands. If gone wrong, possibly billions of users are carrying a portable bomb in their pocket or wrist. Of course that’s a far stretched fear, but the Note 7 incident surely makes consumers more worried and that doesn’t help any other smartphone manufacturer in the long run.