Recode’s Ina Fried and Kara Swisher talk with The Verge’s Lauren Goode on Too Embarrassed to Ask.
On a recent episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, The Verge’s Lauren Goode talked with Recode’s Ina Fried and Kara Swisher about Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 “exploding” debacle.
You can read some of the highlights from their discussion at that link, or listen to it in the audio player above. Below, we’ve posted a lightly edited complete transcript of their conversation.
If you like this, be sure to subscribe to Too Embarrassed to Ask on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn or Stitcher.
Transcript by Celia Fogel.
Kara Swisher: We decided to keep Recode senior mobile editor Ina Fried around for this week's episode, and for a good reason. There's a crisis happening across the land, and it's not just the Trump situation.
Lauren Goode: No. Although I guess to put it in perspective, this doesn't seem like so much of a crisis compared to that.
KS: Well, it's similar. There's an explosion going on there. Ina, explain why you're here.
LG: If we're speaking in metaphors, maybe Donald Trump is the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.
Ina Fried: Now, come on. All these phones are is explosive and likely to injure a few people out of a million.
KS: Oh my God, Ina. Very good, well done. So we're talking about batteries. Lauren, why don't you illuminate the people about what the situation is.
LG: Specifically, we're talking about the Samsung Note 7. That whole saga came to a head earlier this week when Samsung said it was going to stop production of the phone. Ina has been covering this closely, so we thought we would give everybody a rundown of what has been happening with this story. Later on, we're going to answer a bunch of reader questions about it.
So let's start from the beginning.
KS: We make jokes about it, but it's actually a very serious issue. These are things you keep with you at all times, and when these consumer electronics devices go haywire, it's not just an inconvenience. In this case, it's a possible danger, so we do take it seriously.
LG: Yes. You can hurt people, people have been getting burned. There have been instances where batteries have exploded on flights, and that is very dangerous. And so we're going to get into all of that.
But first, maybe we should back up a little bit and start from the beginning. Ina, when did these reports of exploding batteries initially start popping up? Can you give us a timeline of the events over the past couple of months?
Sure thing. We started hearing about the first problems right after this went on sale in August. They were isolated at first, and on September 2, Samsung halted sales globally of the first Note 7, the original model. It wasn't a full recall at that time — it became a recall shortly thereafter — but that's when they started saying, "There's a problem with the battery, we're going to replace them, we're building replacements now, we've identified the problem."
Over the last few weeks, they've been in the process of swapping out original models for this supposedly safe replacement model. But shortly after the replacement model started shipping, we also started hearing [that] maybe not quite as many, but still, a number of phones were having problems. This really got widespread attention a couple weeks ago when a Southwest flight had to be canceled because a phone ignited onboard and the owner had very clear evidence that it was a replacement phone.
Our sister site, The Verge — your site, Lauren — talked to that owner, so it really became clear that it wasn't just the originals having problems. At that point, things started to unravel pretty quickly in terms of going from a recall-and-replacement to “This is probably the end of the Note 7.”
KS: I've been on several flights recently, because I fly a lot, and [I’ve] been warned on every flight about the Samsung. They say it several times.
When we start talking about the longer-term damage to the brand — and I wrote this ahead of the actual halting of shipments — they really needed to end the Note 7 and move on, in part because every day, every flight, is an anti-Samsung commercial.
We've never had this. Very few companies have been able to rebound from these kinds of things. I remember Tylenol had a really bad thing with cyanide years and years and years ago, and they managed to come back — but they had a more differentiated product. Samsung isn't the only [company] out there offering Android phones, so they have a less defensible position, which makes it all the more crucial that they work on repairing that brand ASAP.
KS: So what was the cause of the exploding batteries according the Samsung?
Initially, Samsung said it had identified the problem, and it was with the battery itself. Batteries are made by third parties. Companies generally don't make their own batteries and then put them into the phones. Even [in] phones that are sealed, the battery is still a separate component, generally.
In this case, one of Samsung's main suppliers was itself. Samsung has its own subsidiaries, they make many things. They make displays, they make chips, and they make batteries. Samsung never identified themselves specifically as the supplier, but they are one company that makes batteries.
Anyway, they said they'd switched suppliers, and the problem was fixed. It appears the problem wasn't fixed. We're not totally sure at this point and Samsung hasn't said [whether] the problem [was] with the replacement units' second set of faulty batteries, [or whether] it points to something that was actually a design flaw in the phone itself.
Batteries are incredibly complex and combustible components. This has been a problem for the industry, and it's only growing as they're trying to pack more and more battery into a tiny, tiny space. It’s chemistry and physics that it's just hard to do.
LG: One of my colleagues at the Verge, Angela Chen, [and I] had worked on a report together last month about the science behind batteries. She had spoken to an expert who suggested it could have been the fact that the anode and the cathode are supposed to be separated in the battery, and that it's usually up to the manufacturers to create the separation. One suggestion is that maybe, in this case, they weren't. Have you heard anything like that?
I haven't. Again, it is clear that it can't be something that's so widespread. Even though there have been a number of incidents, we are still talking dozens of incidents out of millions of phones, so it's probably not the most glaringly obvious thing. But it could be something where the tolerances are really small, so that if it's just perfect, you have no problem, but if X or Y happens a little too much, there's a problem. It could be something like that.
KS: Well, they have to fix it. Most consumers don't care why. It's the exploding part that's the problem.
Well, yeah. And at this point they're not going to fix it.
KS: So how do you rate Samsung's transparency and responsiveness to this?
I think they got pretty high marks from most people for the early part of the recall. They came out pretty aggressively on September 2nd and said, "We're going to stop, we're going to figure out what's wrong."
They did not get high marks at that point from the U.S. government, because we have an agency, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, that's supposed to handle safety-related recalls, and the feds were not happy that they seemed to be bypassing them in this. They did, later, work with the CPSC.
I think they get relatively low marks for how they handled the second set of problems. They didn't provide much information. At first, they said, "We don't even know if it's a replacement Note 7." There wasn’t a lot of communication until they pulled it off [the shelves] Even after things like a flight having to be canceled and some pretty compelling evidence, I think, given the severity of the problem and given the fact that they already knew they had a problem the first time around, they weren't terribly transparent. And there's some evidence that there were some internal emails that show they weren't being as prompt as they could have [been] and they were trying to delay a little bit. If that comes out, and there could be more than this, that would be especially damaging.
LG: How damaging is the entire thing for Samsung now? Which, I guess, is to ask how important is their mobile lineup, specifically the Note 7, to the company's profits?
Let's talk about the Note 7 first, as a part of the mobile business. So the Note 7 isn't their largest-volume model. The smaller-sized Galaxy S line is. But it is their highest-end product, it is their most loyal users. When the Note 7 came out, and it came out to really good reviews, Samsung was crowing that Note 7 users were its most loyal customers. That model is also particularly profitable. So some analysts I talked to think that we're talking 10 billion in revenue and two to three billion in lost profits already. This was before the second recall.
There's a lot of profit in these devices in addition to being a significant amount of sales, but that really pales in comparison to their overall mobile business. They're the largest maker of smartphones and mobile phones in the world, and the question is: How big an impact is it going to have on their entire mobile business?
KS: And it has a bad halo effect. It could affect other phones. Even if it's just the Note 7 that's dead, it still has a feeling of, "Samsung phones, aren't they dangerous?" kind of thing.
For sure. I mean, the Samsung Note 7 phone isn't the lion's share of their business. But it is one of their most profitable products. The real question is: How does it affect the rest of their mobile line? And consumers don't necessarily go, "Oh, this isn't the one that explodes." Like, it's not good to be the brand whose phones explode, even if it's not the model.
LG: Right. We're pretty nerdy, so we would say, "Well that's not a Note, it's the S7, or maybe an upcoming S8." But a lot of consumers might just think, "Samsung mobile phone."
Yeah, one of the things I heard that certainly seems logical is that we might not see the Note brand itself return. And that seems eminently smart. There's a million words. But Note is something — you know, they had built this from a super-niche product. When it came out, I happened to be in Korea. The head of mobile phone marketing showed it to me and it was the giant phone. And I was thinking to myself, "So this is a niche for nerds." And they're like, "No this is going to be mainstream." And I was really skeptical. And it really did become mainstream. They really led the trend of the fablet and built this Note brand. And this device itself, when it came out, was extremely well reviewed; the Verge called it one of the best big phones ever.
KS: Yeah, people liked it. I think my brother had one.
At the same time, I think it is a really precarious position for Samsung. Look at the types of phones they build. They build high-end Android phones, and they're using essentially off-the-shelf software from Google. There are a ton of companies that can deliver a compelling high-end Android device — the likes of LG, Sony, HTC and now Google with its Pixel phone. So I think Samsung has a huge problem on its hands in terms of creating that halo that they had for themselves. They had spent a fortune in marketing and carved out this idea that Samsung was this premium Android experience when, really, their hardware design was the only way they could differentiate themselves.
KS: So let's be fair, before we go to a break. Talk about other batteries exploding. This is not something that has not happened, or other similar things.
We've had a fair number of safety recalls related to power adaptors, the cords that plug into devices, including PCs. Apple had some stuff, Dell had some stuff around that. Power is one of the challenges. Again, power supplies are often made by other companies.
Batteries are certainly the largest and most widespread problem, but they're inherently dangerous and combustible devices. There's a reason the FAA doesn't want you checking any kind of lithium-ion battery in your checked luggage, and that's because, you know, you touch these wrong, you short-circuit them, and there's a tremendous amount of potential energy in there. That said, one of the risks of being a manufacturer is that you bear the responsibility that these things are safe. And it is unprecedented for a mass market phone like this to be recalled over safety issues, let alone now, when it looks to be recalled twice and ultimately discontinued over safety issues.
LG: So the Note 7 is dead. Samsung has halted production of that. What's next for Samsung?
They've really got to gear up for the next flagship phone, which is the Galaxy S8, presumably — I mean, that's what you would expect it to be called. That's due out, usually it's introduced in February just before the Mobile World Congress. This is their main volume phone, their main source of profits in total. And the key is going to be [that] they have to convince people this is a phone that they want and a phone that they trust. And that second part's going to be particularly tough for them. They also owe the public an explanation of what really did go wrong, especially with the replacement models. And there is the prospect that there's more to come on how this problem occurred: Was it a design flaw? So I think there are questions still to be answered, but I think Samsung as much as possible is going to [need to] figure out, "What is our method for getting trust back?" And I don't think there's a simple answer there.
KS: All right. Lauren Goode and Ina Fried, we have questions and answers. Lauren, why don't you take the first one.
LG: We have a lot of questions this week.
KS: We do.
LG: And also I'll say that we initially had told some of our audience that we'd be talking about drones this week with Recode's fabulous new reporter April Glaser, and we did get some questions from you about drones, but we thought that the Samsung story was more pressing this week. So we'll be addressing your questions about drones in a later episode.
But for this week, the first question is from @the_techgent — that's a good name — on Twitter, Erick Kelly: "Any idea why the Note 7 issue affected so few units compared to the total number of devices with the battery #tooembarrassed?"
Well, companies do test these devices. So if it were a design flaw that affected every unit, you would have found it in early testing. They do go through carrier testing, third party testing, all kinds of testing. If there's going to be a problem with any sort of phone these days, it's probably going to be a problem that affects a minority of units. Again, with batteries, you're dealing with a lot of potential energy there, and so it only takes a small problem or a flaw to create a problem in some number of units. That's my best guess.
KS: The next one is from Just-in, @mrjustinta. "What is the issue Samsung is encountering with the battery that they couldn't get fixed the second time around?" That's really a problem if their replacements are problematic.
We don't know for sure. There's a couple of possibilities. One is [that] they actually had a problem with the initial battery, and then their second battery supplier also had a problem. That's possible. Intellectually, that seems less likely than that the first problem was more complicated and wasn't totally limited to the batteries. They could have had a separate second problem as well.
KS: Which [was] what? They don't know.
We haven't heard.
KS: That would be unlikely, don't you think?
Yeah. I think the most likely scenario is [that] there's some problem with the design of the way the battery and the phone interact. But again, that's speculation. I think there is demand from customers, though. People want to know what went wrong. And I think this listener's question is one that Samsung still needs to answer.
KS: Is there any possibility of tampering? Because it's happened before.
It seems really unlikely. We mentioned Tylenol early on. The Tylenol issue wasn't them putting cyanide in their own product, it was somebody else doing it. But it did result in changes in terms of those tamper-resistant and "don't use this product if the seal has been broken" industry-wide [safety measures] that we've seen. I think, in this case, it's fairly unlikely. I think that was Samsung's concern with the second recall or the second problem, making sure that it wasn't opportunists.
KS: Or a fake.
That people were staging these things or using the older phones. I think that was a realistic concern and explained some of their hesitancy to immediately say, "Okay, we have a second problem."
LG: I mean, I think they're really going to have to come out and give a very clear and full explanation as to what happened in order to think about winning back consumers' trust. It just seems like there's been this weird trickle of information and in some cases this slow move to action around what has become a fairly dangerous situation.
And I think the other thing is just how personal these devices are. It's a reminder of, you know, we're carrying these things in our pockets, I've seen women carry them in their sports bras. And as somebody else brought up, it's a good thing VR hasn't gone more mainstream. This phone, the Note 7, was designed to fit in a new Gear VR headset. Imagine if you had a phone catching fire, burning, while somebody had it six inches from their eyes. So it's a big deal.
LG: That's why Kara doesn't wear face computers.
KS: Next question.
She's wearing Google Glass right now actually.
LG: She really likes them, yeah. She thinks they look great, she loves the experience of living in a virtual world, she just is concerned about face explosions.
KS: I did virtual reality yesterday and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I visited with some gnomes, but let's not go into that. You'll see that.
Visited with some gnomes, sounds interesting.
LG: Sounds like a whole other podcast.
KS: Goblins, gnomes and other creatures of the forest. If you want to hear more about my encounters with gnomes and goblins, you can check that out on my podcast with Jon Favreau, Hollywood writer/director/actor who is also now into VR. That's on Recode Decode. Anyway, go ahead Lauren.
LG: The next question is from Vladislav Perge, he's @Broadcastorm on Twitter. "Why not make double, triple, quadruple sure, and test the batteries rigorously before they enter mass production?" So Ina, I think you already started to say that these were clearly tested, they went through some type of QA, but ...
Yeah, I mean, if you have a couple hundred even, and I don't know that there were that many, problematic devices out of millions, you know, that's not necessarily a flaw that you're going to catch during testing. I think you will see Samsung, as part of their effort to win back the trust, come up with new testing policies and practices. Certainly I think it would be prudent [for] any company that's been through this to try and make sure it doesn't happen again, and it's hard to catch a flaw that affects a small, tiny percentage. But obviously, if the consequences are as high as a phone catching fire, the tolerance isn't for a few hundred phones out of a million catching fire.
KS: All right, next question is from Garry M. Campbell, @GarryMarshall95. "Do you two," or three of us really, "believe the Note brand is dead?" I say yes.
Lauren, what do you think?
LG: Well, the Note is not just the phone. There's also a Note tablet. So I think, in general, people are going to hear the Note name for a long while, and this is going to be the association. Even if Samsung is able to rebound and reuse the Note name, they have to be really smart about repositioning it or explaining things to consumers in a way that just, I don't know, earns trust. The brand is definitely tarnished. I don't know if it's dead, but it's tarnished.
Yeah, I don't see any reason to keep the Note name around. You know, it wasn't all that clear — having a stylus was the main thing that made Note a Note. It was certainly a bigger-screened device, but they had the Galaxy S7 Plus and S7 Edge and different acronyms there. Apple uses the Plus for its larger screen model, I think probably as part of moving forward there's no reason not to push aside a sub-brand that's been tarnished.
LG: All right, so two out of three of us say, "Yes, Note is dead." And I'm kind of on the fence, but I know I wouldn't want to buy the Note brand going forward.
KS: There you have it — you don't want to buy it, right?
Well and they can keep the design …
LG: But it's not just the Note. I mean, knowing what we know about consumer tech and how lithium ion batteries work, you realize this really could happen in any device, not just the Note.
KS: You do shy away from things even for a short time. Like Tylenol — I use Tylenol now, but it took a while. Even if you know it to be safe.
LG: We also got some questions from our listeners not specific to the Note but just about battery tech in general and other use cases. So we want to read some of those questions. One of them is from Miguel Manolo on Twitter, @miguelmanalo, and he asks, "Does using an iPad charger on my iPhone hurt the battery in the long run?" I think what he's referring to is that the voltage of the little accessory, the chargers that they give you, tend to be more powerful for the iPad than the iPhone. Ina, would you happen to know the answer to that?
Yeah. It's designed to be safe, it's designed to regulate based on the device. From what I recall, if you use an iPad charger on a standard size iPhone, it will charge the same way a regular iPhone will charge It's not going to hurt your iPhone, but it's not going to charge extra fast. I do remember reading, and I honestly don't know if this is true, that your iPhone Plus, the larger-screen model, either the 6s or the 7, will charge a little faster with an iPad charger, that it can handle a little more voltage. I'm honestly not sure, but maybe we can check and have an addendum or when this posts we can let you know the answer.
KS: Next question, FrédérickTF, @FrederickTF. "Is there a risk in keeping old electronics due to the battery? I keep all my iPhones, will they explode over time?" Huh, I do too.
LG: That's a good question. I will say I had an instance where my MacBook Pro from 2010 or 2011 MacBook Pro was old. One day I happened to look at it on my desk and I said, "Oh my god my MacBook Pro is pregnant!" And it had a swollen bottom because the battery had started to swell up and I had to take it to the Apple store pretty quickly and get it replaced. But that's my only experience.
But did you have a little iPad? What was the birth?
KS: Oh Lauren, you walked right into that one.
LG: Yeah, it gave birth to the little iPhone that has the battery-case bump on the back. That's what came out.
KS: You missed the joke entirely, Lauren.
No, she got it.
KS: After making so many bed jokes last week, which sadly our Twitter followers liked, sadly.
LG: They love my puns! They love my dad jokes!
April loves puns. You're going to love her when she comes on to talk about drones.
KS: Oh god, I'm going to cry.
LG: I can't wait. Kara's going to be out of town that week. She's going to be on Mars.
KS: I'm going to be in Hungary, I'm sure there's a podcast I could do in Hungary.
Anyhoo, in terms of the question around older devices, it really is interesting. I mean, Kara and I are old enough to remember when you would leave your AA or C batteries in a device over time and you'd go back like two years later and it'd be all corroded and there'd be stuff everywhere. Kara's ignoring me and on her phone, but that's fine. Anyway, so those batteries used to corrode and it was definitely a problem. I really haven't heard, other than Lauren's immaculate conception there, I really haven't heard of a lot of older phones having problems.
KS: Me neither.
It is an interesting question.
KS: I've got them all over my house. I've got them in boxes everywhere.
Yeah me too. I think everyone does. Part of it is you're not charging it, you're not using it a lot.
KS: I have a StarTAC somewhere hidden. And then the old phones that were big like they were on the TV shows in the ’80s.
Palm Treos, Blackberries ...
LG: Oh yeah, Walt has a whole museum of old technology. I'm assuming a lot of the stuff has lithium ion battery technology.
KS: I have a Trash-80 I just found the other day.
Excellent.
LG: But to answer that question, I guess we really don't know what the long-term risk is of keeping old electronics around filled with lithium-ion batteries. I know that you're supposed to dispose of them in an environmentally friendly way. There are services that will take them off your hands and all that. You're not just supposed to throw them out.
And that has to do with the fact that these do really present a fire risk if a battery is mishandled. So definitely, if you are going to keep old devices around, make sure that the batteries stay with the devices. You definitely don't want to keep loose, old batteries around, because as they get jostled, if some metal came in contact, those certainly could short-circuit. So I'd be most careful with loose batteries.
LG: Next question is from @JoseAlanML on Twitter. "Why are even the giant companies having such a hard time making a meaningful upgrade to batteries?" And I think I know the answer to this, which is just limitations around physics and chemistry, but Ina, maybe you can explain it a little bit better.
This is probably one of the biggest questions that constantly gets asked by consumers, users, investors, scientists. Battery is a measure of physics and chemistry and basically there's only so much energy that the industry has found a way to put in. It improves a little bit, but it's only about 10% a year. That small increase in capacity is quickly gobbled up by bigger screens, other features, Pokémon Go, what have you. So we haven't seen a meaningful increase.
Where we have seen the benefit is faster charging. This is the one area where battery technology is getting better; you can now get hours and hours of charge from maybe 10 or 15 minutes of plug-in. So that's really where the industry has been able to deliver a little improvement, and I think from everything I’ve heard, that's as good as we're going to get until there is a real scientific breakthrough.
But when you have things like this Note issue, it kind of makes you a little bit glad they haven't figured out a way to pack even more energy into a smaller space. It's bad enough now in the sense of how much energy is in a small space. If we had more battery life by sheer chemistry and physics, that would mean we have more potential energy in a smaller space.
KS: I'm hoping for nuclear fission in my phone.
It could happen.
KS: I'm kidding.
LG: Solar power.
KS: This is the last question here: "If lithium-ion batteries really are at 90 percent of max battery life, what tech will realistically be the successor?" I'm no expert in battery things, but it's obviously one of the biggest questions of our consumer addiction.
Well, when I talk to venture capitalists, they say, "Let us know and we'll invest in it." I mean, everyone is waiting for this.
LG: Super capacitors.
Flux capacitors, actually, I think. You know, solar energy is interesting. I think certainly it has some benefits just as a means, but it's not going to be a cure-all. The issue is storing electricity.
Again, I think the biggest improvement we have is faster charging. I think if anything, we'll see our society adapt to the fact [that we constantly need to recharge], and we already do in subtle ways. More and more places have plugs. It's not a great answer, but it's the answer they have.
LG: There are also are a lot of improvements being made in processors and on the software side of things. Every year, we see a new bunch of processors coming out from various chip makers that are designed to bring low-power consumption to our gadgets and everything else. And then engineers are doing creative things with software to optimize the experience so that you have the same size battery, the same density battery, but you might be able to squeeze a little bit more out of it. It seems like the real advancements right now are happening there rather than in the battery tech itself.
KS: So to finish up before we go, Ina, what's the next step? What happens next? We just wait for something not to blow up or what?
I don't think that's going to do it. I think they need to do two things. I think they need to explain what actually went wrong, conclusively and definitively. And then the second thing is, they have the big task, before February, of trying to convince consumers that they know what the problem is, that it won't happen again. It's a fairly unprecedented task for an electronics company to have to convince consumers they're safe. When you think about it, car companies have been through this, a lot of car companies have survived recalls, some food safety things come to mind. Chipotle, Jack in the Box, different issues with E. coli or what have you. But when was the last time that you were worried about the safety of your electronics? It really hasn't happened. So it's fairly uncharted territory. I think the one thing Samsung can't afford to do is underestimate the challenge they have in front of them.
KS: I was once scared of my robot vacuum, but otherwise not.
LG: Both of you have been in completely autonomous vehicles. Do you consider those electronic devices, and were you afraid of those?
KS: No, I loved it, it was fun. It was like being in a Disney ride to me, though.
LG: Like the giant teacup.
I was in a Nissan one that was quite scary. It was a prototype and the “driver,” if you will, the engineer who designed the self-driving car, had his hands like two inches from the wheel and had to take over like five times. I wasn't reassured by that at all.
KS: I was in one without any wheel at all.
Yeah, well, that I would feel better about. This was not a good experience. It was a prototype, and they were trying to show how far they'd come. To me, it was really, I mean, it is a huge thing. And I do think, there's two products that come to mind that I think we are going to see a safety backlash at some point: self-driving cars for sure, we're already seeing that a little bit with autopilot in the Tesla. And then, I think, drones.
KS: Yeah, when they fall out of the sky onto your head.
People are going to have real questions about, "Wait, we were allowing flaming flying objects into the sky?" Imagine if the Galaxy Note 7 had wings.
KS: Yeah, true. I just did a podcast with James Corden, the talk show host on the Late Late Show and he was talking about drones flying over his house and him chasing them because they wanted to take pictures of him and his kids. And he mentioned that. He said, "Well what if it fell out and hit my kid on the head?" It was like the first thing he thought of which was interesting. I agree with him.
LG: Did you say you'd shoot it down for him, Kara?
KS: Of course I did, and I would. If a drone comes to my house they better be careful.
Armed and dangerous. Ladies and gentlemen, Kara Swisher.
KS: They better be careful. Possibly the only thing I have in common with Trump supporters that I would shoot drones out of the sky. Anyway, Ina, thank you so much for joining us.
LG: Yes, thank you Ina.
KS: And doing it two weeks in a row, very nice of you to do so. And thank you for your expertise on this serious topic. This has been another great episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask.
LG: It has been great even though you and I are so far away, Kara.
KS: Oh, my God.
LG: I miss you.