Consider the embarrassment. Samsung released the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone several weeks before Apple was expected to put the iPhone 7 on sale. With rumors that Apple’s new flagship handset might not be a very significant upgrade — something that turned out not to be true — I suppose Samsung was hoping to get a leg up with its new gadget.

So did Samsung’s mobile design team, pressured to deliver the product as soon as possible, cut corners in quality control? Is that why, shortly after it went on sale, reports emerged of overheating batteries that sometimes burst into flame? While I am not at all impressed with the way the media dealt with the issue — a similar problem with Apple would have made worldwide headlines for months — at least the story got out. On September 2nd, Samsung agreed to recall the device, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission also ordered a recall.

In late September, a supposed “fixed” version of the Galaxy Note 7 went on sale. Samsung had apologized appropriately, promising that the new version didn’t have the problem. Or at least that was the promise, but it may be that the South Korean consumer electronics powerhouse has a more persistent problem on its hands.

So there’s a published report that some 75 passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight about to take off from Louisville Airport were evacuated Wednesday. Why? Because of smoke from an alleged replacement Galaxy Note 7 that had overheated. It had been turned off before takeoff.

All passengers were safely evacuated and were evidently booked onto other flights. But I know if I had been on such a flight, if I had to go through the annoying process of finding a way to get to my destination without undue delay, and I learned it was Samsung’s fault, you can bet I’d have a lot to say about it. Yet another published report, from the Verge, indicated that this was definitely a replacement unit that sported the telltale green battery icon that, according to Samsung, was allegedly fixed and safe to use. As you might expect, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating this new episode.

I won’t bother to discuss the fact that this icon supposedly violates Google’s programming guidelines.

In any case, Samsung still has a serious problem. If the fixed phone is no more reliable than the one that was recalled, why should anyone ever buy a Samsung mobile handset? What guarantee is there that other gear doesn’t have the same defect? Sure, I realize Samsung has sold hundreds of millions of smartphones that functioned normally and did not exhibit dangerous defects. But it seems that the Galaxy Note 7 has cast a shadow, and Samsung would be best advised to discontinue it and put it out of its misery.

Perhaps Samsung also needs to put the guilty executives, designers and engineers on the carpet and make them not only explain what happened, but to work overtime to find a way to avoid such a disaster in the future.

If I were in the market for an Android smartphone, you can bet that Samsung would be at the bottom of the list. There are other makers that supposedly produce quality gear. Even though Samsung towers above them in sales, there’s nothing wrong with choosing an HTC or an LG or even a Motorola instead. I haven’t read loads of reports of their handsets overheating.

There are also those new smartphones officially named, “Pixel, Phone by Google,” which are arriving at Verizon Wireless later this month. It may not sport much in the way of state-of-the-art features, other than claims of advanced camera processing software and the promise of 24/7 chat and voice support, but it’s an alternative, particularly if you want a smartphone with a vanilla version of Android, supposedly free of junkware. One hopes Google wants to make a good impression with its new branding, so perhaps it’ll be a reliable product.

Then again, it’s not that Google has developed a reputation as a major manufacturer of mobile gear, so maybe it’s still best to look elsewhere, unless you want to enter a relatively exclusive club, and take the chance there won’t be loads of early-production bugs. Or perhaps wait till the products are reviewed and have been on sale for a while to see what sort of glitches might show up.

While I will probably consider a Pixel for review, I’m really not inclined to ever request another Samsung. In 2014, I had a pair of Galaxy smartphones on hand for several months to experience life without an iPhone. It was all right, I suppose, although it took lots of tweaking to make them run just right. Even then, I occasionally ran into glitches, such as erratic performance with some apps. There was also a persistent bug in Samsung’s email software that, though acknowledged, was never fixed. Perhaps it is fixed now, but I just don’t care.

The battery issues may not seriously impact any model but a Galaxy Note 7, although there are reports online of overheating issues with other Samsung handsets. But I have better things to do than to risk such a hazard, even if the chances of encountering trouble are extremely slim.

It’s not the loss of one reviewer that would matter to Samsung. It’s the loss of customer good will that’s not so easy to reclaim. Samsung should, at the very least, permanently halt sales of the Galaxy Note 7.

So I read an article this week from an Apple fan site that was telling me that Sierra is just wonderful, more or less. But in reading it, I actually felt disappointed at the list of all those terrific features, since most of what was actually shown didn’t strike me as so impressive. If Apple limited its presentation to just these five features (well except for the first one), I wonder how many people would even care.

Of course, it starts with Siri. Siri has been out for five years, after debuting on the iPhone 4s. As I recall, Apple got dinged on that device, since it was the first iPhone to be launched by Tim Cook weeks after he took over as CEO from Steve Jobs. So it was regarded as just a minor refresh, but Siri became a cultural icon, so the attack wasn’t very compelling. What was compelling was the suggestion that Siri could do a lot better, but it was also labeled “Beta” in those days. Would that Apple had done the same with Maps. Lots of bad publicity could have been avoided.

In any case, the blogger’s Sierra list predictably puts Siri at the top. I suppose if you’ve been aching for its arrival on the Mac for five years, you’d feel vindicated. But its presence — and the renaming of OS X to macOS — does appear to demonstrate a serious commitment to the Mac by Apple. So even though new gear is overdue, there’s also a certain email, purportedly from Tim Cook, which promises new Macs.

In any case, the second feature listed is Apple Pay, which merely means that you can use it to buy merchandise online from your Mac. It doesn’t work by itself. You need an iPhone with Touch ID, and your Mac will require Bluetooth LE, since this is a Handoff feature that requires passing data from between the two devices. Specifically it should require a Mac from 2012 or later. That limitation isn’t mentioned in the article.

A related feature is the ability to use your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac. It’s a proximity thing and, again, it will require a Mac new enough to support Handoff. But since the Apple Watch is still not on everyone’s wrist, I wonder how many people will care. But it does demonstrate Apple’s commitment to make its products work together. I do wonder, though, whether the next MacBook Pro will sport Touch ID, which would be the real improvement.

Another feature touted at this unnamed site is Messages, because it inherits some of the fancy formatting and special effects that debuted in iOS 10. This is something that those much younger than I will appreciate.

The only other feature mentioned is the “new look” of iTunes. But when you read the paragraph, you’ll see it’s really about the improved and more user friendly interface for Apple Music, which is never named. So perhaps the blogger is confusing the two. That’s troubling.

But I wonder why there’s not much else. What about the major improvements in face recognition in Photos? That surely counts for something. What about Memories, the ability to automatically generate a video presentation based on a family gathering or special event — or at least what Apple’s AI algorithms determine to be related. All right, these are not features I’m aching to try, but I suspect my son, who an immense photo and video library, would love it.

I could comment about picture-in-picture, which allows you to take a window with a video in it and detach it from Safari into a small window that lives above the other document windows. Alas, it also requires videos that are designed to support the new feature, which is done by implementing a new Apple API. So when I visited The CW’s site in search of one of my favorite super hero shows, I was disappointed to see that none of them displayed the telltale PIP icon, although I’ve read a piece on how to “trick” it to work with YouTube videos where it doesn’t seem to be supported.

Whatever happened to just working?

In any case, other major features I’ve written mostly about require a decent-sized iCloud Drive. Well, maybe not for Universal Clipboard, but as soon as you choose to share your Desktop and Documents folders, you can expect a pretty substantial requirement. In my case, if I wanted to use it, it would mean a 1TB allocation, which is $9.99 per month. That’s because these two folders consume over 250GB on my iMac (next step down is 200GB), and I don’t think my situation is that unusual.

Since I only use a single Mac — most of the time — it’s not something I need. Those folders would have little value on an iPhone or an iPad — at least to me.

One thing not mentioned very often is the fact that pushing large folders to iCloud will take a huge bite out of your ISP’s bandwidth cap. If you’re lucky not to have any limits, it doesn’t matter. But it’s something to consider, because the cost may be more than that of your iCloud Drive if your ISP penalizes you for using too much data.

The best features of Sierra obviously depend on your needs and priorities. But limiting the list so much doesn’t present a realistic picture at all.

During the year in which Windows 10 was offered as a free download, Microsoft got itself in hot water with its overly aggressive behavior to convince people to install it. How so? Well, the installer was first downloaded in the background. Nothing wrong with that, as nothing forced a Windows user to switch.

Where things really went astray was when installers would launch without evident prompting from Windows users and begin to do their thing. It’s not about whether you could stop the install in its tracks. It’s whether Microsoft was doing right by its customers to push a new OS onto them without your permission. Indeed, I heard one radio talk show host describe the nasty consequences of Windows 10 spontaneously installing itself on the show’s main PC. It disrupted the ability to take phone calls from listeners,  a very important feature of the show.

Of course, Microsoft isn’t pulling that stunt anymore, since Windows 10 is no longer free. It’s a retail product, a fairly expensive retail product that starts at $119 for a consumer version. True, most people will simply buy new PCs with Windows 10 preloaded. But it’s also true that growth of Windows 10 has now stalled, perhaps as a result, according to online metrics.

Regular readers of The Tech Night Owl probably know this, but I’m summarizing it here as a means of comparison, after Apple announced that it is making macOS Sierra an automatic download on Macs; the process is being rolled out over the next few days. Once the download is complete, you’ll be notified that it’s ready to install. At this point, you can start the installer, set it aside for later, or delete the file. Nothing stops you from downloading it again in the future from the App Store.

In other words, the installer doesn’t install unless you decide that’s what you want to do. The launch process is not at all intrusive, since you can just quit and go about your business.

But what about the automatic download? Does Apple have the right to send it to you? Yes they do, if you choose an option labeled “Download newly available updates in the background,” in the App Store preference pane. It’s as simple as that, and you can always turn it off and go to the App Store app directly on occasion to check for available updates.

I also understand that Sierra will not be downloaded on any Mac that can’t install it. And, unlike what evidently happened on Windows PCs, if your Mac doesn’t have enough free space to comfortably contain the installer, it won’t download, or the download still stop and delete itself.

Unfortunately, at least one unnamed tech site still feels Apple’s deeds in making Sierra a background download are comparable to Microsoft.

It does appear to me that Apple is moving in the right direction to spread the joy about Sierra, but not go overboard to force that decision on you. I especially like the idea that you won’t have an installer run without your approval, and that it won’t stuff a crowded drive with something that will degrade your Mac’s performance.

Again, there’s a simple preference pane option you can uncheck to prevent background downloads. Fortunately, my iMac’s drive is expansive enough that a few extra files do not bother me. Besides, I’ve been running Sierra since the early betas, although I only switched the main partition to it when the original Golden Master seed was released.

Regardless, if you do opt to install Sierra after the installer is downloaded and launched, please treat such upgrades with respect. What that means is that you should have a full backup, or a Time Machine backup, on hand in case something goes wrong. It probably won’t, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

You should also set aside roughly an hour for the actual installation. I cannot tell you how long it’ll take except that it’ll happen faster on a Mac with an SSD or Fusion Drive. It also depends on whether you’re just upgrading your Mac’s OS, or you are starting from scratch by erasing your drive, installing Sierra, and restoring your stuff from a backup. If you prefer to restore your Mac, you’ll want to devote several hours to the process.

One more thing: Before you install any major OS upgrade, you’ll want to make sure that the mission critical apps you need are compatible. There may be updates, and don’t assume those updates will always or almost always present themselves if an app, not acquired from the App Store, has a Check for Updates option. I ran into an issue of this sort with Sound Studio 4.8.1, which would erroneously report that there were no available updates. One arrived in September, only the update mechanism for that version of the app was non-functional. The publisher, Felt Tip, assures me that, with version 4.8.2, it has been fixed, and I’ll be properly notified of future updates.

That said, it never hurts to take a few extra minutes to check. If the app you need fails to run properly after Sierra is installed, you’ll be forced to stop using it, or to find a temporary substitute. It’s not that it’s easy to roll back a macOS upgrade.

In fact, if I had a wish list for Sierra’s successor, it would be for Apple to add the ability to roll back an unsuccessful upgrade to the former OS version. Apple?

Nearly two weeks in, I continue to find macOS Sierra to be mostly a very satisfactory upgrade. As most of you know, I don’t care so much about Siri. It works, and I realize it’ll have value for those of you who are involved with using Siri on your iOS gear, but that’s not me. I use Siri for directions and for setting alarms on my iPhone. I know I’m missing out on a lot, and maybe I’ll consider that when I grow older.

But not today.

In saying that, I realize that many of you have come to love Apple’s digital assistant, that you might regret that it doesn’t do more things. But one key limitation in Apple’s efforts to expand its use of artificial intelligence is that it will not scrape your personal information from your devices in the fashion of Google or Microsoft. So it has to be smarter, and perhaps, over time, it’ll learn more without touching your privacy.

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