With the Galaxy Note 4, Samsung first introduced a Peel app that made it extremely easy to control your TV from your smartphone. Beside controlling your TV, it also provided information about the upcoming shows on various channels. The handy app was also found on the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge, so its not surprising that many consumers who upgraded to the Galaxy S7 were surprised and shocked to find that it is missing from Samsung’s latest flagship. 

The reason behind the missing Peel app on the Galaxy S7 and its edge sibling is pretty simple: both phones lack an IR blaster, so you cannot use Peel on these phones to control your TV or DVR.

It remains unclear why Samsung decided to remove the IR blaster from its latest flagship handsets. After all, its not like IR blaster is a particularly expensive hardware that greatly inflated the bills of material for the Galaxy S7. Perhaps, Samsung noticed that not many Galaxy owners were using the IR blaster, which ultimately led it to take this decision.

Whatever the case might be, the lack of an IR blaster definitely has not gone down well with long time Galaxy users, who were shocked to find about its exclusion after purchasing the handset.