The Pebble Blues: Samsung sheds light on the Galaxy S3 delay that could have been a catastrophe
When the Galaxy S3 launched back in May, it seemed all too familiar to previous major Android releases. Production delays with the handset’s Pebble Blue variant seemed destined to cause stock shortages and shipping delays. But, as Samsung reveals in a recent post to their Tomorrow blog, the dedicated work of a team of product engineers and designers allowed the company to pump out a fix in only three days.
Samsung faced a tough decision when the first run of Pebble Blue battery covers came back. They didn’t replicate the initial design to the standards of Samsung, and the design with its reflective quality and hairline engravings was deemed a “core element of the Galaxy S3 design.”
The Korean company could either scrap plans for the alternative color, deliver a product that did not live up to the “promise” represented by pre-release models, or bust their tail to revamp the manufacturing process to produce a better result. Feeling a sense of duty to the customer, Samsung went with the latter option.
And so for nearly 72 hours straight, the design and development teams went to work, starting from scratch to create a method of reproducing the exact finish Samsung was going for without sacrificing productivity. An excess stock of Marble White devices afforded some leeway.
The end result was Samsung’s triumph over the shortcomings of their initial Pebble Blue design. It all amounted to the handset we see today, one that has recently surpassed 40 million in sales and is showing few signs of slowing down.
[via SamsungTomorrow]