Samsung is in currently trying to put the issue cause by faulty Galaxy Note 7 batteries which are prone to catching fire or exploding while charging to bed. While recent reports suggested that the South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer is considering including a green battery icon to safe Galaxy Note 7 units, a better look at Google’s Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) revealed that Samsung would be breaking the rules Google made for manufacturers of Android devices. Namely, CDD states that all Android devices “MUST use white for system status icons”.
Regardless of that, Samsung proceeded with the plan to denote safe Galaxy Note 7 models as they now display green battery icons on the status bar, the Power Off screen, and the Always On Display screen. Given the fact that Google inspects each and every one of OEM software upgrades, there was some confusion as to how the Mountain View-based tech giant managed to miss such a blatant violation of its own rules. Some industry experts speculated that nothing was missed and that Google made an exception for Samsung which actually turned out to be the truth. Well, kind of. Namely, Hiroshi Lockheimer, senior vice president of Android took to Twitter to confirm that Google was aware of the fact that new Galaxy Note 7 units feature green battery icons when allowing their software version to hit the market. However, Lockheimer claims that this design choice doesn’t violate the CDD because all of the green icons feature white borders.
The wording of the document itself doesn’t exactly imply there’s room for such liberal implementation of the rules and this definitely sets a precedent for all of the other Android OEMs but it’s not surprising Google decided to bend its own rules a little bit just to help Samsung bring the Galaxy Note 7 back to the market as soon as possible. After all, it’s in Google’s best interest to have a the Android flagship back on shelves as soon as possible. Especially when we consider that the Galaxy Note 7 can easily compete with Apple’s latest iPhone models which launched recently so it really wouldn’t make sense for the tech giant to complicate an already complicated situation even further.