Normally late August is when we quietly enjoy our last lazy days of barbeques and margaritas before buckling down and actually doing something for a change. Well, if you think your life is about to get busy, count yourself lucky that you don’t work for Samsung Mobile. Unless you do, then… sorry?
Fortune is calling this incident “How Samsung Tripped on Quality Control in Its Rush to Beat Apple,” and the ramifications are far from over.
In case you missed it, just before the holiday weekend, Samsung announced that it would be recalling its Galaxy Note 7 model smartphone, which had been on the market for only a matter of weeks, because of reports of batteries exploding or starting on fire.
Well, isn’t that embarrassing.
But if the cost of a recall of 2.5 million devices weren’t bad enough, Gizmodo is reporting that the FAA is in discussions over potentially banning the Samsung devices on airplane flights. But it’s still up in the air.
The plot of this is a little messy, but basically Samsung has issued a voluntary recall, but has not involved the US Consumer Products Safety Commission to issue an “official” recall. Basically, they just said send us your phones back. But if the device were recalled by the manufacturer, the FAA said in an email to Gizmodo, then airline crew and passengers would not be able to bring them on board, or check them in their luggage. So if you have a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, you may soon have the hover board of phones – cool, but nobody lets you use it anywhere.
Anyway, Samsung – if you’re feeling bad about your week, just know that one person has had a worse one: Elon Musk. The Daily Beast is reporting that the explosion of a rocket in last week’s SpaceX test will cost him hundreds of millions of dollars.
