What’s Left Unanswered After Samsung’s Battery Investigation ⇥ wsj.com

Geoffrey Fowler and Joanna Stern, Wall Street Journal (paywalled, but you probably know how to get around that):

Samsung is on an apology tour for the gobsmacking screwup that led to two successive recalls of the Note 7. In interviews with us, Samsung’s mobile chief, DJ Koh, and other executives shared stacks of testing photos, results of its investigation and its plans to improve quality control.

[…]

At this point, we grade those efforts a C. Samsung was clearly serious about investigating the issue with the help of independent experts, but its explanation sometimes left us scratching our heads. While it has developed a new 8-point battery check for future phones, we don’t have a clear sense of whether these tests will raise the bar on safety, or simply catch Samsung up to other premium smartphone makers.

Of Samsung’s supposedly new tests, two — charging and discharging the phone, and simulating real-world usage — seem like the kinds of tests that I would hope all phone manufacturers run.

For what it’s worth, Apple elected not to comment on Fowler and Stern’s article.