Samsung’s biggest challenge now is Google software, not Apple hardware | Hacker News Reader

Samsung’s biggest challenge now is Google software, not Apple hardware

theverge.com

149 pointsptrptr154 comments

Can anyone speak to success or usefulness of any of this Samsung software? In my experience, these are usually terrible and are in any case always worse than the Google equivalent. The first hour I own a Samsung phone is spent stripping these back as much as allowed.

Do people really use these? Does Samsung really make money from them? Naively it seems like they must if they exist, but I wonder if it's just a continuing bet Samsung is making that has never paid off.

EDIT: To be clear, if experts consider the apps to be worse but consumers still use them, this would explain why Samsung builds them. My question is whether they are actually used and, if not, why Samsung does this.

If you install linageOS, the picture quality of the camera apparently falls dramatically, so the software does something better than stock.

With that being said, I do know people who prefer Samsung to stock android.

> If you install linageOS, the picture quality of the camera apparently falls dramatically, so the software does something better than stock.

Drivers are another matter. But vendor replacement apps seem almost universally worse than the stock versions.

I can't speak about Samsung, but the Moto G4 Plus also suffers from the same limitation, that the stock camera app can't use the hardware's unique features. But there are ways to overcome that. It's pretty easy to find deodex ROMs for just the camera apps. That way, we can run the manufacturers' apps even if they have crippled their software to run on only their ROMs.

I thought it's because they don't release the blobs/binaries for the camera. So when you another ROM, you have to use generic post-processing for the camera

There are a lot of redditors that love samsung's apps. https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/62dmw4/samsungs_bi...

Messenger

Cloud

Pay

Calendar

Calculator

Video

Flow

Secure folder

Health

Internet

Contacts

Camera

All are apps I think are better than thier Google alternative

According to a redditor. Also check out /r/samsung

fwiw VR on Samsung is well ahead of Google.

I have a Note device. I use S Planner that is a better than Google Calendar. Messages for SMS. S Health in stead of google fit (doesn'waste battery). S note works better with pen. Samsung apps all support spen, you can drag and drop content between them.

I'll echo this, I have a Samsung tablet with an S-Pen, and S Note is really good and has improved a lot over the years. S-Pen & S Note were my entire reasons for buying the device. I think I mostly avoid the other Samsung apps though.

You are overthinking it.

Samsung is like Coke, its advertised everywhere and when it comes time to get a new phone consumers subconsciously go for whats familiar.

The apps and what they offer has nothing to do with it.

Right, but the question is why they would even bother with the software. It's a lot of effort maintaining their substantial Android modifications for seemingly not a lot of payoff compared to just producing superior hardware.

Less leverage for Google, more consumer lock in.

They must have some differentiator, so that people buy a Samsung phone instead of an Android phone. If you provide the same software as everyone else you become a commodity provider in the eyes of customers. It's as if Coke had the same recipe as Pepsi.

There would still be intense brand rivalry. Not everyone can tell pepsi and coke apart by taste.

It's enough to know that they taste different, even if you don't notice it yourself. If nobody could tell Pepsi and Coke apart without the label, that would become public knowledge pretty quickly and defeat the branding.

But most know that the store brands are usually re-labelled coke or pepsi, usually without much tweaking to the recipe, if any. But they still buy the main brand.

True, but what if, although I do think the analogy kind of falls apart there, Coke was allowed to dictate any change to the recipe? That's the situation Samsung would be in if they relied on 'stock' Android. Google would have a significant advantage simply because they control both the device and the OS (the latter IMO more important), and Samsung would only be able to compete by device.

And that's even assuming that Google doesn't 'leverage' its ability to control both software and hardware.

on the other hand I'm on the fence for the new galaxy a3, but having a non standard android to be updated only when samsung says so bothers me

but I do understand I'm likely not their reference target

A differentiator explanation only works if buyers believe the differences are neutral or good. Hence the question of whether consumers actually use Samsung software.

If you want to sell something, "worse but different" often makes the sales job easier than being a me too product (reference: David Davidow)

Idk. Loyalty and marketing can only compensate for so much inferiority.

I think the reason coke is pure marketing is because sugar drinks is pretty much a solved problem. No one is ever going to make a drink that is 10x tastier than coke.

As spivak noted, the question I asked isn't why people buy Samsung phones, it's why Samsung bothers with apps.

I'm sure the apps are for leverage when negotiating with Google and/or Samsung harbors intentions to leave the Android ecosystem at some point, go Tizen-only and capture all the value up and down the vertical.

I can understand why Samsung finds the idea alluring, I'm not sure if they can successfully nurture a 3rd mobile OS in a brutally competitive field where Microsoft/Nokia and BlackBerry failed.

This is not why Coke is successful. Coke is successful because of taste lockin, each coke tastes the same as the one before, the taste it's customers have chosen to love.

Every new Samsung offers new features, it's not necessary to buy a new Samsung when your old one craps out. There is little to no lockin. That massive advertising budget is a necessity for Samsung, without it people would forget about it entirely and buy Google, HTC or iPhones.

It used to be like that. Lately a lot of their apps are better than Google's equivalent. For example, the browser is the fastest, smoothest browser on any android phone, just slightly beaten by safari on ios. On the other hand, chrome is a bloated mess on Android, even on pixel phones.

> Can anyone speak to success or usefulness of any of this Samsung software?

I'm one of those people who typically roots their phones and deletes all the carrier crap. My Samsung Tab S 8.4 came with so much crap that I literally spent an entire day uninstalling and disabling apps that it came with and I removed almost 50% of everything installed.

However, I recently got a Samsung S7 and I was really surprised that I actually liked a lot of the built in software. S Health is a really good health app and, in my opinion, better than Google fit.

I just wish Samsung would keep choice available -- it's really hard to use Google now/Assistant on Samsung phones to their full extent and their own S Voice isn't very good.

I went Samsung s2, s3, 3 different nexus phones, back with s7 edge now.

I don't find there is much bloatware now. And they had good multi-window support, long before nougat update to s7.

Based on the users that use our dating web app - about 10% of our revenue comes from the Samsung browser. Which says to me that lay people can't be bothered to use anything but the default "productivity" apps that come pre-installed on the phone. It has "Internet" so installing Chrome doesn't matter to them.

Samsung's browser is complete garbage too. It's the IE of Android and I hate supporting it.

> Samsung's browser is complete garbage too

It's certainly a pain to support ... I get quite a few compatibility / layout issues with web sites. However I use it anyway because it has a bunch simple incredibly obvious features that for my use make it infinitely better than Chrome for simple browsing.

Could you elaborate on what these features are? Personally I'm a fan of FF mobile.

I actually liked when chrome tabs showed up in the app switcher... I don't like FF much at all, but I at least get ublock on it. So FF is my default (so launches from twitter/fb go there), but the sites I go to directly, usually done in Chrome.

The main one is simple but effective bottom navigation functions and quick access bookmarks. Stretching up to reach the navigation bar on a large phone is almost impossible one handed in chrome but easy with the Samsung browser.

Thanks, you're the first person to provide actual data.

I wouldn't be so sure that people who use it don't bother to use anything else. I use the default Samsung browser because it's simple, clean and just tends to work for my better for me than chrome, especially since I don't tend to use it very often. For other apps, I prefer google or third party apps over Samsung any day. I try to stay away and disable most of the Samsung apps that come on my phone since most of them just work poorly and tend to be very annoying.

Is there a way to test for that browser without having to own a Samsung device?

My experience with Samsung software is that it is garbage.

Likewise, and that paticular quality isn't limited to just their phones. Samsung Television UI's suck terribly too.

Samsung apps are used because Samsung makes it hard to avoid using their apps and custom skins without a bit of dedication and persistence of a reasonably technically savvy user. (Think why people used early versions of IE and then imagine if windows had also gone out of the way to automatically reset the default browser to IE if the user changed it.)

I don't bother with Samsung phones after my first, after I found that their custom keyboards started crashing and freezing (Chinese mode), and then started to reappearing over the Google ones I set after each automatic app update. My only regret, is that I didn't pay the Apple tax earlier. (I'm sure there is a more permanent solution to that phone, but why should I sink more time when I'm one update away from fixing some other issue again.)

If it weren't for the manufacturers, I'd like how you can customize an Android phone. Its the best feature of Android vs IOS. However, between the poor quality customizations and the delayed to non-existant updates it leads to, it's also Android's worst feature.

> I don't bother with Samsung phones after my first, after I found that their custom keyboards started crashing and freezing (Chinese mode), and then started to reappearing over the Google ones I set after each automatic app update. My only regret, is that I didn't pay the Apple tax earlier. (I'm sure there is a more permanent solution to that phone, but why should I sink more time when I'm one update away from fixing some other issue again.)

Huh? Replacement keyboards are notoriously[1] buggy[2] and[3] limited[4] on iOS. I'm at my wit's end trying to find even a temporary solution. If Apple doesn't sufficiently improve the keyboard experience by iOS 11 this summer I will have to switch to Android.

[1] https://www.macstories.net/roundups/my-favorite-ios-8-keyboa...

[2] http://www.hanselman.com/blog/iOS83rdPartyKeyboardsReviewsSw...

[3] http://bgr.com/2017/02/07/android-vs-iphone-comparison-stole...

[4] https://www.macstories.net/notes/on-the-limitations-of-ios-c...

The counterpoint is that iOSs keyboards were good!

I think there's still no way to type Japanese in AOSP Android (you have to download a Google keyboard or some third party thing)

The counterpoint to the 'you have to download a google keyboard...' comment is that Google have started pushing more stuff into add-on apps rather than pushing into AOSP is that vendors control OS updates, so pushes to AOSP take a long time to get to consumers.

It's a lot easier to push an app update through the Play store vs. convincing vendors to push out timely OS updates. And Google have been slowly moving non core OS features into updatable apps.

It's arguably a loss to AOSP, but at least in the short term helpful to consumers. I say short-term because the features are no longer open-sourced, which is a shame and a loss in the longer-term.

For me, the main frustration has been that Google has its one keyboard (Gboard) for latin languages and then the Japanese IME as separate keyboards. I use English, French, and Japanese keyboards and switch between pretty often, but it's a bit of a pain.

There's noticable lag when switching keyboards that seem endemic in the model of "multiple app keyboards", whereas a more integrated experience would benefit some

Agreed that the "Play Store" model is better for consumers on phones that don't get updates (been there). I hope they try to pull stuff into the core project as well, though. Kinda sad to see Android becoming what people always thought it would end up (a Google-centric venture)

As much as I preferred the swipe type keyboards on android to the plain IOS one, that doesn't compensate for a keyboard crashing and freezing. It wouldn't have been an issue on my Samsung except they kept updating and reasserting their buggy one over Google's.

Samsung Web Browser is excellent compared to other alternatives. (adblocker, video in floating window...)

Agree with this one. Chrome has a much worse UI (hides commonly used stuff under menus) than Samsung's "Internet" and is just as fast. At least File Browser, Calculator are good. Samsung Smart Switch is just awesome.

I was on Samsung devices (S3, S4, S5, Note) before moving to Pixel, and at that time, I found those apps crap. The Note was a corp phone, so no rooting; I had to live with Old Android + Samsung Crap + AT&T Crap.

I recently got the S Health app to pair with my smartwatch, and it's pretty good. The apps on the watch itself are decent as well.

The reason Samsung bothers with software of their own is that they are a little scared of Google. What if Google started charging a lot for the non-free parts of Android?

My experience as an Android developer is that samsung phones are garbage.

The ones I tested perform so much worse than same generation Google devices that it feels like a joke.

Samsung also does freaky stuff to AOSP, like making some random fields static, leading to some nice samsung bugs.

As far as the OS features and apps, I don't really expect anything better from them. Think of a feature, Samsung has probably already implemented it. It is probably going to be clunky and badly thought out but it will be there.

Sometimes it leads to interesting things though, like larger phones.

There are other shitty OEMs, but since Samsung has such large sales, it makes them all the more annoying to deal with.

Back when I was developing Android apps I grew to dislike Samsung for these very reasons.

At least they are now letting people put the "back" button on the left.

As a user, my experience is the opposite (Note 3). And that's what matters in the long run. The question is more whether they can keep up bringing new stuff into their high-end phones. Apple was not able to do so.

Note 3 here too, currently looking at the S8+ with rational techno lust. I am a samsung fanboy, as I wouldn't buy any other Android phone. I may wait to see what the iPhone 8 looks like before I jump... although the pre-order with GearVR seems like a really good deal.

I'm actually considering just buying a new battery for my Note 3 and S8+ is way out of my price range for maybe two years and the competitors are offering interesting phones at very low price-point. I'm amazed how ahead of time the Note 3 was and is such a perfect phone still. (For example a lot of cores for sharing network connections etc.) It only lacks the fingerprint reader and water-proofing that I'd like. And I'd rather have a phone that allows easily replacing the battery but we'll see.

> they can keep up bringing new stuff into their high-end phones

Please no .. if they could start bringing less features but well integrated and thought out ones, that would be awesome.

Right now they seem to see their products as a collection of random gimmicks without thought or cohesion.

The placement of the sensor of their new phone makes me think that they have not changed their way of thinking just yet ...

As of what matters in the long run, sure they can get away with mediocre products right now. After all, even the worst phone on the planet (and I am not saying that it is necessarily a samsung phone) is still a marvel of technology.

However, it makes them open to competitors bringing better products.. IMO the low margin game is what really protects them and matters right now.

Like in the old days, to differentiate the product.

That is the sin of being an OEM, if everyone sells the same Android image, or back in the day the same MS-DOS, there is zero value going between vendor A or B.

Well, there is value, if they cared about the quality of the hardware, but givne that most use the same factories, it is kind of debatable.

However, back then we could just throw away the tapes, floppies, CD, DVDs that were given away in the Bundle X at shop Y.

Now with ROMs we cannot any longer and those pesky apps take space, memory and CPU time.

Worse, buying a clean Android device means paying Google for something that costs more than a computer in many countries, with mere two years of OS updates.

I bought Samsung only because of the features they offer! I really like TouchWiz and all the hate is overrated. Stock Android feels featureless and pretty boring.

The notes app on my old Galaxy S2 was good. I had to look for a replacement when that phone eventually died and I bought a new one. I'm using Private Notepad now.

Samsung's calendar was also ok. I wasn't syncing anything. I'm using Sony's one now (I got an Xperia X Compact). It's ok but I think that Samsung's was better.

In terms of pre-loaded crapware, I was really infuriated by their Peel Remote Control app recently introducing a custom lockscreen overlay and ads without any warnings.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/29/peel-remote-app-upse...

Even if the software is bad, it can still add stickiness.

Switching away from a Samsung phone would introduce unfamiliarity, so the user might perceive the better vanilla apps as bad.

That said, Samsung's main reason for all of this is probably to gain some leverage against Google's fairly aggressive licensing terms. If they can threaten to release a Google free Android device, they have something to negotiate with.

Background: I'm a computer-nerd, but since Treos and my first HTC G1, I have not been a phone nerd in years, just a semi-power-user. My Android phones have been G1, S2, S5, Xperia X Performance. I've frequently borrowed and used various Nexuses/Nexi though.

Verdict: I love Samsung base apps (messages, phone, etc). I've used Nexus, and now have Xperia [don't ask why], and I miss a million little things about Samsung. Changing font sizes in messages, integration between contacts & phone & logs, the design & usability. Can provide examples and details if interested - all of them are LITTLE things, but make my hourly life easier.

I do not in general use their "bigger" apps - with eventual exception of Fitness/health app, which I found pretty nifty.

I also repeatedly find that I prefer Samsung quick-bar to Google's Quick Bar, as absolutely hate Google's Wi-Fi button and selection.

Oh, and the fact I cannot have a simple button on home screen to start USB Tethering is driving me crazy (trivial on Samsung).

The point of the software isn't to be good. It's to lock people into the Samsung ecosystem and stave off becoming a commodity hardware producer - the real threat proposed by Android.

For 6 years Samsung has been desperately trying to make Touchwiz sufficiently different from stock to make it hard for people to switch to any other kind of android. It seems their focus was on switching costs, rather than making a better product, as most of these differences made touchwiz inferior.

It has worked relatively well; many consumers have Samsung brand recognition. However, every release of Android brings a bit more uniformity.

I met the Samsung team by accident several years ago at TC Disrupt. We were having lunch at the same table.

Being in the mobile health space, I instantly went into my pitching mode and started selling them on the virtues of mobile health and why it would help provide some platform stickiness (if I have a chronic disease and have lots of health data there, I wouldn't want to switch platform and lose my valuable data). This was before Apple Health was launched or was ever mentioned.

Quickly it became clear to me, Samsung was ahead of me and they fully understood the value of health data. And it was very clear how strategic they were about the future of mobile and ways the would be able to keep people on their platform.

It's obvious Samsung understands the value of software. Especially as more Chinese or Taiwanese companies are making competing hardware, it's become very difficult to differentiate or be able to differentiate in the long-run.

It's natural Samsung would want to find ways of differentiating against their competitors. However, they have not been successful yet. I think part of the problem is corporate structure/culture. Will Samsung be able to build an entire consumer software division that is free to operate fast, test things and break things? Or will the team be slowed down having to coordinating with Seoul?

Either way, Samsung will alway be one step behind Google, not having full visibility in Googles updates. And there is a chance that Google may want to put a distance between itself and the other handset makers just to reap more profits from their hardware division.

If I was samsung, I would try to focus on killer apps within the asian market. For example, Yandex (of Russia) until recently (and maybe still) had far better map over google maps in their region. Even for places like Turkey, Yandex had a better map. Can Samsung become the brand for providing far better mapping technology in the region? Can they build much better search technology for asian languages?

"I met the Samsung team" Weirdly worded since the Samsung mobile team is fucking huge and fits in multiple buildings in multiple countries

Less weird when you take into consideration the rest of the sentence: "I met the Samsung team ... at TC Disrupt". So "team" in that context would be the folks that Samsung were sending to TC, not the whole company-wide team.

Will Samsung be able to build an entire consumer software division that is free to operate fast, test things and break things?

I'm hoping that developers, particularly of health software, aren't allowed to break things. All you do is cause pain to your customers. I wish our profession valued stability a whole lot more. I am getting sick of explaining why previously working things don't anymore because of some grand change.

The problem with the "focus on the Asian market" plan is thst the biggest Asian markets are pretty much closed off to Samsung - China due to protectionism and Japan due to nationalism

What about India?

It's still a market, but people usually go for cheaper, Chinese branded phones these days.

Both Google and Apple have recently made strong investments in India - look to Android One and Apple's move to manufacture iPhones in India.

Define their region. South Korea? Unfortunately domestic consumption is not large enough (which in turn fueled their success as an export economy).

China/Japan/India? Remember that "Asia" is not a real region. Each country has different idiosyncrasies. What edge does Samsung have in these disparate markets?

In India they have launched several Tizen-based phones (exclusively for the Indian market) where the edge seems to be better performance on cheaper hardware, with Tizen apps being written in C with the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries.

Samsung do (quietly) own a mapping company: it's called Mapzen and it's building on OpenStreetMap data.

It's part of the Samsung Accelerator, but do they actually own it?

I don't know their corporate structure, but I don't believe they've received any non-Samsung funding nor have any significant sales income. Open to correction as ever.

Samsung had always been scared of google. They developed and are still developing androids replacement OS called TIZEN. It's a total crap OS and never able to catch up with android. Most tizen phones are unsold and are given to its employees as annual gift.Samsung RnD in India is the worst place to work for.My friend worked here It has worst culture in SW industry. They think spending 12-15 hrs bring good software. It's Highly unethical company. They want to transform to a SW company by conducting SW exams to engineers. But they miss the point that it has to change its DNA first from its Factory and copycat mindset to innovation/skill based mindset that lot of western companies like google/Facebook/apple exhibit.

The title could be how Samsung wants to lock you in and call it brand loyalty.

I don't want to use Samsung apps. Neither LG, Sony or HTC apps if they are restricted to certain handsets. I want to be able to switch smartphones without a cognitive overhead. Sure, zoom out a bit and buying into Google ecosystem looks the same, but still, the range of choice is match better.

Want to win me over? Make your samsung app available for my lg phone and next time I am in the market for a new one, I will look more favorably upon you.

Maybe there is something wrong with me as a consumer though, who knows.

This is exactly right. Android is open source and more or less free for vendors who want to use it. If you want to deal with that then make your stuff open source and free, but then you lose competitive advantage and brand loyalty through lock-in and that's the point. You have to compete on other things like features and quality.

> You have to compete on other things like features and quality.

Quality is obvious. People like well made things and are willing to pay for them.

But features? What kind of feature won't require software or software support? Waterproofing? Curved screen?

My biggest challenge with Samsung was the software customizations they put on their phones.

A lot of it is just bonafide bloat -- there's even a Samsung Printing Service on my phone, and some of it is just completely unwanted UI modifications like "TouchWiz". Samsung even acts as an intermediate layer of bureaucracy that further delays receiving OS updates (i.e. first the update has to come from Google, then Samsung takes Google's update and has to take time to make their customizations to it adding in their Printing Service and their completely redundant Samsung Messages app, then the carriers take Samsung's update and apply their own modifications like restricting tethering and adding Verizon Messages, NFL, and VZ Maps Navigation, all with restricted uninstallations). My perfectly-capable Galaxy S6 will likely never see the day when it can run Android N.

I have since switched to the Google Nexus 6P, which has a vanilla Google version of Android, and I am much happier with a cleaner, much more streamlined personal device.

On the other hand, given that Android is open source, I'm curious why Samsung can't just put something like Cyanogenmod on the S8 (or their own forked "custom ROM") and call it a day?

They could, but you would then have something like a Kindle Fire, or the touchscreen thingy in a new car: something that runs the same code as Android, but doesn't run Google apps. As far as a consumer is concerned, this isn't Android at all.

I'm confused, you can download and install Google Apps for Cyanogenmod. Is it a licensing issue?

I think you mean Lineage OS as CyanogenMod is no longer. Google doesn't really care about Lineage OS because their install base is insignificant. There was a time when CyanogenMod started preinstalling Google Apps on their OS, but Google told them to stop doing it so now they just install it separately after installing the OS.

The closed-source Google Play Services and the Google APIs ecosystem is Google's single life-line to stay somewhat in control of Android. They have been moving more and more core Android stuff into these closed source libraries and making sure the convenience offered to developers is too good to refuse. This all happened circa Android 4.x. They must have realized they were giving away the farm for free to OEMs and so almost all new Android innovation is now implemented in the Google APIs SDK + Google Chrome. Good for google, sucks for AOSP OEMs and developers who just like to look at the source code of the libraries&system apps that they interface with. Android developers got lazy and started adding heavy gapi dependencies in almost every app, so much so that OEMs need to support this and the Google Play Store to stay relevant, at least at this moment. If Samsung, for example, started implementing a Google Play Services compatible shim, then there would be a pretty big power shift overnight. Heck, reimplementing other companies' APIs is par for the course on Android (oracle's java cough cough)

My wife's note 4 had split windows long before my 6p got that with nougat and even allows her to play youtube in an off screen floating window.

So they have that going for them.

Samsung's version of Android is forked. That's why only they can update their OS and not Google. In fact, every OEM uses a forked version of Android.

In order for an OEM to use Google Apps and Services the OEM must agree to the terms in the MADA and pass the Android Compatibility Test Suite.

Believe it or not, but, there are people who don't like stock android. They want to be able differentiate themselves. Why do you think companies like Xiaomi, vivo, oppo, etc are a huge success.

In part because you can't use google services in China so you don't get all those parts of Android...

they are huge success not because of software differentiations, they just plain cost less

I could live with the Samsung software customizations (I've been able to switch to use the generic Google apps without much trouble). The real pain was their PC software, Kies, which was so bad it made Nokia PC Suite look good. Fortunately, now it looks I no longer need it at all.

I am glad Samsung is trying instead of just saying "we can't do better than google anyways." Maybe most of this might fail and maybe some even wont teach/contribute in any constructive way. But even with small percent of success they add a healthy competition and an alternative.

That being said, I had no idea Samsung had all this going on before I read this article. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I'll agree that shifting consumer preferences related to software is a major threat to Samsung. I have for several years taken the position that there are only two smartphone options - the latest iPhone or the latest Google Nexus/Pixel.

Probably this is not true everywhere. If you happen to notice is this in India, people here apparently buy Iphone or any budget level Android phone. People used to buy Nexus (very few) and now with Pixel, I havent seen single one sold out. Take it or not, people with money goes for IPhone and budget friendly goes to Xioami Mi or Samsung lower end.

This is about one of the largest mobile phone users country. And apparently same holds for China

Oneplus is also a huge hit especially now that Nexus isn't there. Many people use 20-30k flagship phone of Xiaomi, Oneplus, Moto, lenovo, etc.

That's a ridiculously narrow assumption. There are millions of smartphone users who cannot afford either of these flagships, and people like me who could but refuse to spend the money on what I consider unnecessary features.

I was just stating my position. Certainly others are free to take a different position. I still also have and use a Sanyo Mil-spec flip-phone - because sometimes the only necessary feature is to be able to reliably make and receive phone calls.

Regarding smartphone features - the really don't differ very much. I buy Google phones because a) I want them unlocked, and b) I don't want malware and bloatware, and c) I want regular updates to OS.

And regarding buying phones from carriers, I guess the jury is still out:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/first-horseman-privacy...

I used to take a purist Android view like this. But AOSP 4+ with its mandatory lock-in to Google services and its "always watching you" policy is the definition of lock-in malware. Do you trust the incentive for Google (for whom you are no customer but a product) more than that for your phone manufacturer (with whom you have a regular customer relationship)?

Actually I do

Call me naive, but even as an outspoken critic of many things Google, I trust their phones far more than any other Android phone.

That said, I disagree I would trust even Google branded phones re: malware. Android will likely never have my trust there.

I live in Bangkok. Street sweepers and food cart vendors have either prehistoric iPhones or prehistoric Samsung phones.

Samsung is also flirting with Microsoft, "The Microsoft Edition Android phone appears to be exactly the same as the regular version of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus from a hardware perspective, but it will apparently have some features that make it easier to install and use Microsoft apps that don't already come preinstalled on the device, such as Outlook and Cortana, when users first connect to Wi-Fi. The Galaxy S8 will ship with Office basics such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, as well as OneDrive and Skype"

[1] http://www.windowscentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s8-microsoft-ed...

They've been "flirting" since Windows Phone 8 days.

Also, the "new Microsoft" is using its patent extortion scheme to get "deals" out of manufacturers, where they say they won't extort them anymore with patent royalties if the phone makers accept to put the Microsoft apps on their phones.

http://www.androidauthority.com/microsoft-cuts-patent-fees-f...

http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/23/12599132/lenovo-microsoft-...

I recently purchased a refurbished s6, and it was preloaded with a heap of Microsoft apps (word, excel, pp, OneNote, I think Skype)

Samsung's problems with software are a legacy of how Android was launched: Android had to be launched with the help of hardware OEMs. Hardware OEMs (with the exception of vertically integrated Apple) were, in turn, under the thumb of carriers. Both carriers are hardware OEMs are utter crapulent crap at software AND at product management, and at the time could be quite arrogant about it despite being hopeless.

Now that Android is mature, OEM and carrier modifications should be limited and strictly user uninstallable. Even in the short history of modern smartphones, this has been evident for several years now. But that legacy of carrier dominance of phone specs and crap product management persist.

Google has been unable to get a handle on this problem. If you are in the know, choose a Nexus or Pixel device. But Android Silver, Android One, Google Play Edition, etc. have all gone by the boards as OEMs drift back into "but we need differentiation."

The upshot is that Samsung's biggest challenge is to simply refrain from adding bloat and confusion. Their product management should be asking "Is this SO much better than what Google has that it would dominate the category if we put it on Google Play for everyone to use?" If not, it needs gone.

I kind of almost get why Samsung is doing this, as they have identified that they will be looking at decreased margins as a hardware-only player but...

Is it really viable? What do Samsung offer that Google doesn't already do. Is it possible to compete right now, in a head to head fight?

Do the users care enough to chose Samsung? Those that care at all, are they not inclined to pick Google as the lesser evil of two megacorp? I have no idea if it's the case. I'm worried about Googles panopticon and market dominance, but Samsung's headquarters might be in a volcano, filled with CEOs, swivel chairs and white cats, for all I know. Or they might be run by angels that only wants to give us nice stuff... No idea.

Samsung is basically the Korean government.

Moreover, I rode in Samsung cars, used Samsung refrigerators, and I even saw advertisements for Samsung Life Insurance when I was visiting Seoul. They do everything.

Japan is the same, and so is China. Those countries like conglomerates for coporate structures.

I'd say the Western equivalent would be a holding company.

Obligatory link to Berkshire Hathaway holdings:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Berk...

China is? My impression was that successful buisinesses there were blessed by the government, as more of a top-down thing. I thought in Korea it was more like if Goldman Sachs was also Apple and GE- enormous influence, and politicians succeeded who were blessed by samsung.

Samsung motors is Renault-Nissan really (the group has a stake but no oversight).

The different companies in Samsung group are more loosely coupled that you might think. Samsung Electronics works with Display (which is a recent spin-off), Electro-mechanics, SDI, SDS, maybe Medison these days, but that's about it. And they don't really treat sister companies any better than other suppliers.

> And they don't really treat sister companies any better than other suppliers.

That's simply not true as Samsung Mobile always had dibs on their SAMOLED tech and other phones using SAMOLED displays always used the previous gen panels, as the current gen was always supply constrained. Seems to have gotten a bit better in recent years though.

As I said, Samsung Display is a recent spin-off, and of course it didn't change the fact that their SAMOLED roadmap follows that of flagship phones. And recently you can see that other manufacturers are also getting access to good SAMOLED screens, and you'll probably see a Samsung display in the OLED iPhone this year.

The same thing would happen to the Exynos product line if the rumored Samsung LSI spin-off materializes. It's normal that Electronics benefits from the billions it poured into R&D with higher priority.

However Samsung Electronics sources many other components from sister companies I listed, and they really don't treat them much better than competing suppliers. Electro-Mechanics is always having a hard time vs. STMicroelectronics and Murata. Samsung SDI was put in a tricky position due to the Note 7 debacle, and the S8 probably went back to TDK Amperex and LG Chem batteries. And I know that the relationship with SDS isn't too great either, Samsung Electronics is increasingly using AWS for their online services. Even internally, there's a lot of competition. Flagship phones are still equipped with Qualcomm SoC's in some markets even though there's no technical reason anymore.

I don't claim to know the details of Samsung corp structure as much as hocuspocus does but all this internal competition makes sense. And kinda normal.

Few examples.

There's a lot of friendly and unfriendly competition between different branches of US armed forces.

During World War 2, Japanese Army and Navy absolutely hated each other. It was so bad that Japanese Army built a few naval carriers for their planes, all because Japanese Navy didn't want to cooperate readily with the army.

When an organization is big enough, such fracturing/competition within the organization seems inevitable...

I agree with the premise of the article, that software becomes more important than hardware at some point in the future. The only two phones I have owned are a Galaxy S3 and a Note 4: Samsung makes great hardware, but disabling bloat and waiting for Android updates is not good.

I am almost two years past my trade up date, but the Note 4 keeps satisfying. I had intended to try an iPhone next, since I like my iPad and MacBook, but the S8 definitely has me tempted to stay with Samsung.

The screen, with almost no bezel, is the selling point for me.

Samsung should ship their phones with Tizen instead of Android. In the long term you are dead if you don't control your own software.

They could build a "Android bridge" (an Android runtime for Tizen) and partner with the main app developers (in particular, Facebook) to upload their Android apps on Samsung's own store.

It would be extremely risky but also it would pay off. Otherwise, they will be crushed in the Android phones commoditization race to bottom.

Samsung is terrible with their OS, if they switched phones to a software similar to their TVs, that would instantly kill their mobile division.

Maybe they should look into bringing an AOSP phone without any cloud services (not only without Google, but without any; or at least easily uninstallable, unlike their current offering) and capitalize on recent anti-Google and anti-spying sentiment. That would require renegotiating their contract with Google through.

As far as I understand it, having the right to sell a phone with Google Play Services is an all-or-nothing situation.

> The OHA is a group of companies committed to Android—Google's Android—and members are contractually prohibited from building non-Google approved devices. That's right, joining the OHA requires a company to sign its life away and promise to not build a device that runs a competing Android fork.

(cit. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on...)

Samsung probably has the position of strength to push for a phone without play services.

However that's a lot of stuff that suddenly needs to be replaced and I don't see Samsung able to pull of correctly half of Play Services.

Exactly the reason why Samsung is maintaining software that duplicates functionality already offered by Google.

> Samsung probably has the position of strength to push for a phone without play services.

No they aren't. The first Galaxy Gear ran a non-certified version of Android and Google got really upset about it. Launching a phone would be suicide.

As for the alternative services they already have a lot of stuff for the Chinese market and Tizen phones.

Then just fork Android, but in a way that let them build their own ecosystem. Otherwise they are dead.

ah !

IIRC it was their plan for 2016's Galaxy S.

They have just been too comically bad at software in order to pull it off though.

Tizen is a joke, they seem to want to beat Microsoft in how many times one reboots the SDK.

Latest change of mind is that future Tizen apps will be written in .NET Core with Xamarin Forms for the UI.

They "only" have to offer an Android runtime. Maybe an Android fork would do better.

Sure, because being better at Win32 than Windows really helped OS/2.

Or if you want to stay in Android, offering Android runtimes did wonders for the market issues from BlackBerry and Jolla.

How exactly would that premise be different from the Microsoft/Nokia disaster?

Microsoft never had an ecosystem of applications. Samsung would, if offered an Android runtime and made that developers resubmitted their Android apps to their own store. Samsung has enough market share to force them to do so.

I try using a Samsung phone and always run back to something with a more stock Android package, I don't think Google has anything to worry about on this front.

Give this a read. http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/19/4120208/why-andy-rubin-and...

Andy Rubin, creator of Android, left Google after a decade because Samsung became more closely identified with Android phone than Google, or something to that effect.

"While Samsung got rich off shipping phones built on Android, Google’s brand faded into the background and its influence was chipped away."

Samsung also downplaying Android the OS, that's why they have TouchWiz (like most software, first iterations are crappy, but constantly improving), so when they switch to different OS (say Tizen), people would still feel home.

In Indonesia, there's a competition platform (like Kaggle, but for devs to make apps), and Samsung is one of the regular sponsors, holding competitions to build apps for Tizen, with interesting prizes.

Samsung exit strategy is Tizen. But they forgot to use the exit strategy back when Samsung produced 80-90% of all Android phones about 3 years ago. Now many cheap but equal as good Chinese phones got released. But Samsung might still try it, and partly migrated their users as their SmartTVs and watches run now on Tizen.

Broadly spoken surpassing should be a consequence not the aim. Having a rich feature set, at least as rich as your competitors, is required to offer the same playground. Before you can evaluate two features there have to be two features. In this sense Samsung is already on the right way. If their software will ever surpass Googles, well everything is possible.

This. It's not about the hardware anymore, it's the software, services, and security that matter now. On these fronts Google is light years beyond Samsung or Apple, and the expanse is only going to get greater over the next 10 years, esp with its data resources combined with its advances in AI. Skate to where the puck is going.

Neither Google nor Microsoft (I wouldn't even count Samsung among the top players here) come close to the out-of-the-box experience and integration of services like you get in the Apple orchard.

Read a book on my iPad and have my place, bookmark, notes, automatically show up my Mac. Same with movies and podcasts; they pick up from where I left even when I switch devices. AirPods work with all my devices without cumbersome unpair/re-pairing. Copy/paste across devices. The cloud-synced documents without even having to manually save them.

All of that and more, all so seamless, with no configuration required on my part beyond signing with my Apple ID once on each device. This makes a huge difference to me as a user and Apple aren't under threat from anyone on that side.

On the other hand, Apples lack of support for standards is hurting their users. Metal instead of Vulkan, USB Micro/C vs. Lightning. No Miracast support. Most TV software has built in support for Android (simply show videos and photos on your TV). Better integration into the system. My router supports landline calls via smartphone, but iOS doesn't allow integration into the dialer. Copying non-iTunes music to your iPhone is still a PITA. If you don't live in an exclusively Apple environment, your experience will suck. Honestly, Google and the bad update support is the only reason I won't switch to Android. Definitely not the day-to-day user experience.

Airplay was created because Miracast had sucked for years and still does. Apple always creates proprietary enhancements to make technologies work well in real use for real customers, like they did with Airplay/FaceTime, etc.

And iOS 10 supports custom VOIP in the dialer.

It's not so much about the individual points anyway, but about the mentality in general. I came up with these examples off the top of my head.

First of all, that Apple is the only one providing usable real-world solutions is simply not true. Secondly, it still doesn't invalidate my point. Even if Android works badly with third party products, Apple is often absolutely incompatible.

Disclaimer: I'm an iPhone user, mainly for security/privacy reasons.

> Apples lack of support for standards is hurting their users. Metal instead of Vulkan

No. As a user, Metal gave me games with better graphics than OpenGL would have — I don't know about Vulcan being viable at the time, or now, but I don't think it would be as efficient for Apple-specific hardware than Apple's own API.

> No Miracast support.

Irrelevant; I have AppleTV and AirPlay. Does Miracast allow, say games, to present their UI on the iPhone/iPad while showing the action on the TV, as two distinct displays?

Your answer is irrelevant because you're avoiding my point: No one lives in an exclusively Apple environment.

A tracking and targeted advertising company is light years beyond its competitors on security?

Well, yeah. That's why they bought Joyent.

Pretty UI is not Samsung's problem.

On the contrary. TouchWiz is the antithesis of "pretty UI".

Samsung can be bad at pretty UI (no judgement here on whether or not they are) without that being their problem.

My dad used to have trouble with Enternet Explorer. Mainly, his sister in law would come visit, play a bunch of Flash games, and then his computer wouldn't work right anymore. So, I explained what Chrome was ("what's a browser?), installed an adblocker, removed the shortcut for Enternet Explorer, and replaced it with Chrome. He would say he understood he needed to click the Chrome logo and the internet would still be available like he was used to. When I would return days or weeks later, I would notice that Chrome was still there but IE had crept back somehow and he was using it. I think a similar pattern happens with phones. Whatever is baked in, gets used by the average user, regardless of how bad it sucks to someone in the know.

Samsung could easily fork Android and set up their own app store (just like Amazon). They account for over 50%(!) of the Android market. Hell, I'd like them to become the new Apple: Apple is ditching most of their peripheral hardware suite, they don't sell routers or displays anymore. If Samsung put in some effort they could create the same level of integration with their displays, phones, laptops, TVs etc. that Apple used to have.

> Samsung could easily fork Android and set up their own app store (just like Amazon).

They have had an app store for years without any success

Considering how terribly they behave in TV market (things like not allowing you to push app updated for more than 1 year old TVs!!!) they would just successfuly destroy their own ecosystem instead of being on equal footing with Apple.

Samsung phones are successful due to hardware and DESPITE Samsung doing everything to undermine the experience with their crappy software. Without Google keeping them half sane with Play store limitations, they would already torpedo their whole ecosystem.

What talented engineers would every work for Samsung?

You probably wouldn't say that in front of the Samsung engineers that keep the production lines of their RAM, CPU, displays humming.

They are engineers too, and with the scale they deal with, I'd say they are talented engineers.

Now that google are making their own phones in earnest I think they will start trying to hobble Android on Samsung phones.

They don't really need to. Samsung already happily modifies as much AOSP code as they can get away with.

I have a question does S8 run Tizen? I am guessing it doesn't since it has no mention in the article?

Samsung Pay has not disappointed.

Samsung pay has not disappointed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com