Q & A, Ahead of the Galaxy Note 7 launch, here's how the S7 came to be!

[Preach2k]

On the heels of the S7 and S7 Edge’s strong sales according to the second-quarter earnings released last week. Samsung plans to keep up the momentum going.

Tomorrow Samsung will announce the Galaxy Note 7. As we all know the Note line usually builds on the Galaxy S series, adding the latest tech to a larger phone; with the S7 and S7 Edge setting the stage for the next in the Note series, expectations are high.

How will Samsung do this? In a sit down Q&A with Kim Gae-youn the head of smartphone planning we get some answers how Samsung plans to do this.

Key takeaways:

Edge is here to stay.

1. Removable batteries are gone for good.
2. Samsung has a ton of data on how customers actually use their phones and that data drives their decisions
3. Camera QUALITY matters, not MP count.

.
Here are some Highlights from the Q & A:

On the S7's design
The S7 and S7 Edge have lots in common with the 6 from last year, whereas the S6 was a really big change from the 5. So first of all, could you tell me about why Samsung made such a big design change from the S5 to S6?

So up to 2013 the smartphone market was really fast-growing. According to our customer research, people thought smartphones were a functional product. And then time goes on and the trends change — by 2014 and 2015 people think it's not only a functional product, it's like a product that comes along with their life. They want to have a more premium design with better aesthetics. So we caught that trend and made a decision to make a big change. We invested heavily for the metal and glass structure.

How did you approach the S7 after the S6?

Actually, if you compare the S7 and S6 designs it's a big change. The S6 Edge design has 3D [curved] glass on the front and 2D [flat] glass on the back, but the S7 Edge has 3D glass on both sides. And there's a strong reason for that — the ergonomic design is much better in the S7. And we adopted waterproof IP68 protection even with the metal and glass blended design. It's a quantum leap, actually. So the S7 looks very similar to the S6, but if you grab it it's a totally different design and feeling.

Why was it not possible to include things like waterproofing and a microSD slot before — what can you do this year that you couldn't do last year?

the Galaxy Round. It curves this way [gestures to show vertical curve in the middle of the screen]. It didn’t sell well. The next one was the Galaxy Note Edge, which has the extra pixels to display more information — you have more functionality there. We sold it globally, but it didn’t sell well either. So we wondered, why did that happen? At the time we were more focused on functionality and features for the Edge screen. Then we realized that, as I mentioned before, people changed. Function is important but aesthetic design is more important. So for the S6 we focused on not only the functionality but also the design. Our priority with the S6 flexible display was design; functionality was our second priority.

"WE THINK THIS IS THE BEST SMARTPHONE WE’VE EVER MADE."

And now we have the S7 Edge, which feels like a more mature application of the technology.

Right, it’s a more streamlined design, and we think this is the best smartphone we’ve ever made.

So why continue with the non-Edge version?

That’s another thing we learned from the S6. So with aesthetic design, there is a preference between the person. With the S6 and S6 Edge we sold about 60 percent and 40 percent [respectively]. The S6 Edge was $100 more expensive with the same screen size. We did a market response survey based on the purchasers of the S6 and S6 Edge, and we realized that there’s a small preference for the curved screen, so we had to have the flat and curved version portfolio set at 5.1- and 5.5-inch.

Why is the Edge version bigger this time?

By using the 3D Edge screen, we can make it compact — even at 5.5 inches. The width of the Edge is 72.6mm, which is the same as competitors with 5-inch or 5.2-inch screens, so the 5.5-inch is still very compact. How can we do that? Because of 3D glass and the flexible display technology.



A few years ago Samsung sold the Galaxy S4 Google Play edition, running a stock version of Android. Is there no market for a product like that today?

a lot of preloaded...

Bloatware.

Right. I think the feeling is that it makes the phone seem less premium — if you’re selling this expensive phone with nice hardware and there’s all this Verizon advertising on it, basically, it compromises the experience. Why not at least sell an unlocked version of the phone in the US?

That’s what we’re trying to do right now. [Note: Samsung recently ended up doing exactly this.] We understand the issue, and if you compare the S6 and S7, the S7 is much more streamlined and cleaner. But we know that we have some way to go. So we’re working on it right now. And one tool is an open-market special edition version, but we’re formulating strategies.



As for things that are more within Samsung’s control, what about Samsung’s own software? These phones come with Google’s apps, so why do you need two email clients, or two browsers, for example? What’s Samsung bringing to the table by developing so many itself?

Actually, we’ve been discussing that issue over more than a year with Google. And if you look at the S7, there’s no Samsung music player there — we eliminated it because it’s redundant. And that discussion is still going on — which email client, which browser, which messaging app — so it’s an ongoing process right now. So what we’re doing is two companies working on it to deliver the best benefit to customers.

I can’t really imagine how that conversation goes. Is it just Google saying "don’t do this" and you saying "yes?" How does that work?

[laughs] It’s like augmentation. We bring all the numbers, and the future plans, and the ingredients of decision making are on the table and we just discuss that, and so that’s why it takes time. So there are strategic reasons for both Google and us.

I think in general if Samsung could make better apps than Google, people would be happy, right? Like there’s a recent example where you can use adblocking software in Samsung’s browser, but you still can’t easily in the Android version of Chrome.

So think about it, as of today certain Google apps are better than certain Samsung apps and vice versa, right? That’s the situation. But some companies have a very strategic roadmap to announce their apps or services, and that’s another issue.

SOFTWARE IS "VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY, VERY IMPORTANT" TO SAMSUNG

How important is software to Samsung overall?

It’s very, very, very, very, very, very, very important.

That’s a lot of verys. Well, how important can it be, should I say, when the core operating system is not developed by Samsung? To a large extent the power lies with Google. So what can Samsung offer?

Samsung Pay. And Knox security. Those are our strong services. Even though the OS is Android, we can differentiate our product with services and at the app level. Recently last year we changed our organization — there used to be one development organization, but now we have two. One team is for hardware and one is for software, so we think software is equal to hardware. It’s very important.

Source