I think this blog post is unnecessarily harsh. Whilst I have no love for Samsung due to a very poor user experience a few years ago, I think the new S7 looks beautiful and if you hadn't pointed out the misalignment of the holes, I wouldn't have noticed. Still, I don't think this is a design 'fail'.
The comments on the post by Android and Apple users make me despair for humanity though.
Rene from last year said:
Is it worth the effort? For me, as a customer, knowing that Apple had the consideration and took the time and effort to align their hardware speaks to the overall quality of their work. It reassures me that the same consideration and effort were likely spent making sure not a millimeter nor milliamp of battery space was wasted, not a nanometer of die, not a gap left around the screen, or a dead zone in the capacitive sensor.
Rene, come on. Do you honestly think Samsung just slapped some holes in there without a second's thought and made the device? The S7 is smaller in width and height, yet still packs a 5.5" screen. I reckon that i'm not far off the mark when I say that the holes being where they are are definitely part of design consideration.
You don't like Samsung, I get it. I don't like them either but I do recognise a phone that is a massive upgrade from where Samsung were a few years ago. Trust me, I love my iPhone 6 but I don't like how it looks, I dislike iTunes intensely and i'm not enamoured by the
rumours of the iPhone 7 losing the headphone jack and becoming thinner (as if we need a thinner iPhone, FFS).
I think this blog post smacks a little of desperation.