Google paid $8B to make its apps default on Samsung phones | Hacker News Reader

Google paid $8B to make its apps default on Samsung phones

thehill.com

201 pointsmy12parsecs225 comments

I still am confused as to whether or not Google would be happier if these types of payments were banned for everyone.

It seems like the only reason Google paid 8B, is because another company would have paid 7B otherwise. If Samsung was told "You can't let anyone pay you - have to show a screen with four competitors and let the user pick which one they want as default" I assume the vast majority of people would just pick Google?

Would one selection screen do or how many would you need? It seems like no other single competitor offers everything people want on their Android phone (app store, browser, calendar, cloud storage, contacts, payment, maps, mails, translation, ...).

Perhaps more - but the point being it seems like most people would pick Google if there was no default/they were given options of default.

I feel like the manufacturers are the one holding Google hostage, threatening to give users a different/less popular default option if Google doesn't pay up.

> I assume the vast majority of people would just pick Google?

The vast majority would pick Google because Google has been paying to be the default for years.

That consumer preference isn’t exactly 100% organic.

Right, Google has already bought the current generation of users, it's the future they have to worry about. If they don't pay for the next crop of users they have very little to offer that users can't get else where.

Seems like then rather than an above board monetary transaction you'll just have some other quid pro quo and Google will end up at the top of the list of four choices. It would also introduce a lot of friction into onboarding if you have to choose provider for the several different categories of default app. People already pick iPhone (at least partially) because of the simple and "it just works" perception.

> Seems like then rather than an above board monetary transaction you'll just have some other quid pro quo and Google will end up at the top of the list of four choices.

In the EU, android phones ask the user to pick a search engine from a list on startup. The list order is randomized [1].

[1] https://www.android.com/choicescreen/

> I still am confused as to whether or not Google would be happier if these types of payments were banned for everyone.

Then Samsung would just use its own apps more than they already do. Banning payments doesn't get the outcome you're suggesting of a mandatory set of multiple apps from multiple companies.

I suppose I mean the "banning defaults" would include Samsung itself here.

Microsoft was stopped from playing favorite with its own Internet Explorer. Samsung is playing favorites here under both these scenarios (having itself as the default or having Google as the default)

> Microsoft was stopped from playing favorite with its own Internet Explorer.

And how's that working out?

Samsung doesn't have a monopoly with its Android devices, and doesn't stop alternative apps from being installed.

Stopping device makers from installing whatever the hell they want, on the devices they produce, is nuts.

I’m sure most normal people would be very happy if there were no default apps preinstalled on their new phones.

Also where do you draw a line? e.g. can you have a preinstalled camera app (with custom features) or is that also not fair.

I think exactly the opposite. No one cares. This is important because most people accept the default.

True, that it was supposed to be sarcasm. But now that I’m reading it I did not really make it that clear..

> If Samsung was told "You can't let anyone pay you - have to show a screen with four competitors and let the user pick which one they want as default"

People would just start paying Samsung for being one of the four competitors. Otherwise who gets to decide who those four are?

In some spectrum, that's arguably better than the current system.

Doesn't the EU require a selection screen? And the manufacturers hold auctions to win space on the selection screen instead? Because listing 100+ options wouldn't be good UX either.

> Doesn't the EU require a selection screen?

No, that was for Microsoft, in the past.

No, it is required for Search in EU.

https://www.android.com/choicescreen/

Interesting. Thanks for the correction.

This is a good general point: it sometimes makes sense to be against X, while simultaneously participating in X. For example: in a country where you need to bribe people to carry on a normal life, you can do so while advocating for anti-bribery laws. It doesn't make you a hypocrite.

That is the definition of a hypocrite. Reasonable hypocrisy remains hypocrisy.

From Oxford Languages:

> the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform

Sure, call it "reasonable hypocrisy", so long as we don't castigate people doing it.

How about wanting to legally abolish tips, because it's unfair and leads to subminimum wages for workers? Must you refuse to tip a waiter, lest you be called a hypocrite?

> because it's unfair and leads to subminimum wages for workers?

That’s generally not really true though? Especially in many states like CA, NY etc. where there is (almost) no tipped minimum wage.

Anyway, sounds like a hypocritical position because in general consumers would benefit more from abolishing tips than waiters/other tipped workers.

This is a strawman. OPs example was someone who held a belief that it isn't beneficial to the worker.

There are far too many people who doesn't even think about the concept of a default app, let alone know how to change the default app. If you showed 4 apps all named "Calendar" with slightly different icons to someone like my dad, he wouldn't know what to pick or the fact that Google made one of it and Samsung made the other one. Google probably has data on what percentage of smartphone users are like this and determined that $8B is worth it.

I always explain this puzzle by asking which is the best linux distro.

Isn't it more efficient to just say Slackware? ;)

That bitch: but he hasn't thought of the EFFICIENCY!?!

I'm reminded of a scene in a movie where a guy obsesses over efficiency in a workshop where a guy reaches out full extension, and ends up destroying the place by moving the box of parts closer.

Sounds about right. I wonder if there's a correlation between outrageous efficiency obsession and lack of sexual release...not even, like, just sex, anything really...

This happened in South Park with Randy's obsession with the Food Channel or whatever it is. At the end, Sharon gives him an "ol'-fashioned" and by the end, he's like, "screw all this, imma sleep now"

Google is more profitable in ads and search than anyone else so they can rationally bid higher for access to users. It's part of the moat.

Banning these payments is bad for Google because then Apple and Samsung will ship their own apps.

You just made the point things should not be changed, at least for Android. Samsung apps are absolute garbage.

My point is that Google benefits from the status quo. What's better for the consumer is a different topic

> If Samsung was told "You can't let anyone pay you - have to show a screen with four competitors and let the user pick which one they want as default"

What if I’m the 5th messaging app? How do I get a place over the first 4? How does Samsung decide?

What if I’m the 20th or 50th? Do I deserve a shot? If not where is the cut off? How do I become a winner and not a loser in this situation as the first N shown will have a huge growth advantage

That’s an unfairly over complicated thing to ask an EU bureaucrat to think about. They are much to busy thinking about much more important things like finding ways to snoop on their citizens private messaging.

There must be a cutoff somewhere. If you're the 5th... Well that's how the cookie crumbles.

It's a whole lot easier to transfer a mountain of money than actually compete, if you can afford it. Google can afford it.

Why four? How about mine as the fifth, I wrote it back in college, it almost works.

But then Apple, e.g., is testifying it chooses Google not because of payment, or its amount, but because Google is the "best". As such, this analysis falls short.

Assuming Google really does provide a valuable service, then why aren't Apple and Samsung paying for it. Instead, they are getting paid to use it.

Between this and the payments to Apple, I wonder where Google would be if they invested another $30b into competing more aggressively... I guess these payments make sense if you believe you can't effectively deliver something good with that money.

I believe what's holding google back isn't lack of cash, but lack of innovation. It's full to the brim with highly paid engineers that aren't really invested in change.

So let's see what happens when they are threatened for the first time by Microsoft and OpenAI if Google can afford to spend even more money to prevent the likes of Apple, Samsung and Mozilla from moving from Google to use Bing with GPT 4.

Well, the big difference between ChatGPT and Google is that one of them is profitable. ChatGPT does not make money, and Bing's usage of GPT-4 is almost certainly not covered by ad revenue (even at-cost).

Even from a technical perspective, I'd argue Google outpaces OpenAI. BERT beat GPT-2 and GPT-Neo, T5 and t5-flan bench well against GPT-3, and GPT-4 is so large and wasteful that it's not worth competing against. Relative to the rest of FAANG, Google honestly seems like the only company that actually knows how to use and deploy AI practically. Everyone else is trying to play catch-up with a proprietary competitor and/or pay an unsustainable sum to be king-for-a-day.

> pay an unsustainable sum to be king-for-a-day.

I bet Microsoft can afford to spent unsuspecting amounts for way long than ‘a day’. At a certain point due to cheaper hardware and improved optimization GPT-N might become sustainable, by then their competitors might have issues closing the mile wide gap they have to MS/OpenAI.

It becomes exponentially harder to find an innovation that moves the revenue needle perceptibly, when you are Google's size.

Or one that doesn't upset the search cash cow. Open AI for example. They seem to be inhibited by moat thinking too.

Yea this is the point, all roads lead back to the lack of innovation at Google.

They have capital, they have free cash flow, they can attract talent, but often they completely fail to compete effectively in new categories they enter.

To be fair, Google enters so many categories that some of them are bound to fail. Neither Apple, Meta or Microsoft really tries as many things as Google, so perhaps Googles issue is a lack of focus and vision.

One problem that Google might have is that their criteria for success has become to high. Products has to make billions within a short time frame, but they aren't willing to make the same kind of investments in ensuring that success as a company like Apple is. The AppleTV, or even the Apple Watch would have been killed or sold off had they been Google products. Why they keep the Pixel I have no idea, maybe it is in fact part of some larger plan.

And the funny thing is that they bought HTC mobile, which has always been a competitive and innovative player, and I seriously doubt Taiwan based engineers are paid anywhere close to the ones in Mountain View.

I've had many Nexus and two Pixels (the 5, and 8 now), with an Essential Phone in the middle, hard to beat during the last $220 fire sale.

To me, Google never had a serious hardware strategy. It's improved and keeps improving though, the features getting a lot of focus (like the camera performance) are good, they finally committed to 5 and now 7 years of software updates, the Pixel lineup is sold in an increasing number of countries (Google could still do a much better job here, just sell your hardware ffs). Eventually they'll move to their own in-house SoC, and hopefully Samsung modems won't suck forever.

But when I see something like the Pixel tablet sold at such ridiculous price in most countries, I truly wonder what's going on, it's like some people at Google explicitly want to fail.

> I guess these payments make sense if you believe you can't effectively deliver something good with that money.

Or, if you believe that your product is already as good as money can buy (i.e. the brightest and highest paid engineers, with an unlimited R&D budget, and the law of the Mythical Man-Month as an upper constraint on team size), then the money is better used elsewhere to help the product. I don't know if this is what they believe, but it seems quite plausible to me.

> you believe that your product is already as good as money can buy (i.e. the brightest and highest paid engineers,

I don't think for one second that this is what Google believes, as evidenced by their collusion to suppress wages[0]

[0] https://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsu...

This is the point right? I do think it's fair to say that resources/$$$s aren't the thing holding back something like the Pixel Phone from being the number one smart phone, but at the end of the day it just isn't still.

Therefore putting cash into this kind of thing makes sense, but the bigger question is still, why isn't Google just doing better in these non-search categories it's competing in?

Yes agreed, if we are talking about more than just search. The Apple payment was about Search, but the Samsung payment is about more so really they are kind of apples/oranges (no pun intended!).

They could and should absolutely be putting more into Android. Android has historically been about choice, but it's more and more becoming a clone of iOS. I recently had a need to record phone calls, something I did with ease ten years ago when I was battling with car insurance people, and it is damn near impossible now in 2023. Root in general is a pain in the ass. If I was terrified of the possibility of poweruser options, and wanted to be locked down and led by the nose to use my device in the exact way prescribed by the overlords, I'd be using iOS! I'm guessing they consider the market pretty saturated and aren't very motivated. Some good old fashioned competition would do wonders.

Right! Other than the most used browser, the most used operating system, the most used mapping application, the second most used office suite, the most used online storage, the most used video platform, the second highest revenue app store, the most used email client, and a $30B / year cloud, what have they ever succeeded at?

But more seriously, this is such a bizarre take. All these megacorps have effectively infinite resources to play with, they can't all win at everything. Apple and Samsung have the leading phones, and have lot of money, expertise and brand loyalty to help them maintain that lead. Conversely, Microsoft poured tens of billions and like a decade into phones and didn't even get past "viable". You've probably even forgotten Amazon's and Facebook's mobile phone forays.

Appreciate this perspective, Google certainly doesn't seem to get enough credit for it's wins. Ultimately I think this is because of the inability to take those successes and convert them into a number in their financials that investors care about.

Maybe it all boils down to a failure in comms though, Apple is just as much 'the iPhone' company as Google is 'the search company' when it comes to profits, yet Google can't shake the stigma that they can't innovate and deliver.

I see your point, arguably the iPhones keep getter better, maybe only marginally, but Google search has clearly degraded in quality massively. I get why people treat them differently.

>> Other than the most used browser, the most used operating system, the most used mapping application, the second most used office suite, the most used online storage, the most used video platform, the second highest revenue app store, the most used email client, and a $30B / year cloud, what have they ever succeeded at?

Would they have so many "most used" if they did not pay to be the default in so many places?

How much of their success is due to merit of the application, service, system, etc. versus "stacking the deck" by paying to be default or preventing competition?

The competitors are also "stacking the deck"

It's probably worth noting that many of those products you listed were acquisitions. It's entirely possible they wouldn't be #1 without Google backing them, but I'd argue they're still in a different category than a completely home-grown solution like search.

My understanding is that this is an example of last mile costs increasing non-linearly i.e. Google has something like 95% of the mobile search market and profits $30b from it, and the cost to acquire that last 5% is >$30b.

Google has about a 120B cash on hand. If they could spend 30B to make a Pixel that everyone wants to buy, they would.

Search result quality has been declining on Google since 2019. The web is increasingly turning into closed platform unindexable silos.

These payments aren't towards being the default, it's to ensure that search itself does not get replaced by a different paradigm.

You could argue that it is not a coincidence that the likes of Siri stagnated for so long, while we saw the rise of LLMs effectively resurrecting it elsewhere.

Started declining in 2006 or so with the creative social ranking, removal of boolean search and I could go on for ages. Its my last choice these days.

What's your first and second choices?

> The web is increasingly turning into closed platform unindexable silos.

So it is the quality of the open web itself that has been declining, and search is just reflection of that. LLM doesn't solve that, unless the LLM has access across the silos.

LLM training is difficult to audit, and as such good-faith barriers such as robots.txt or API endpoint scraping are all easily ignored. Even ignoring the query side, and just from an indexing perspecrive, you see a considerable advantage.

LLMs (at runtime) and LLM mills (during training) have nothing to gain from restricting themselves to the open web. This is in contrast to Google, who is in the business of selling links to information and not information in itself.

Or you could believe that the $30 B spent unlocked $150 B of revenue, more than $30 B of which could be spent on development and aggressive competition.

I personally don't believe that at all (that the extra gains will be spent on development) but the possibility exists.

Obviously Google figures they're getting back more than $30B in revenue otherwise the payments make no sense.

Funny that the way to compete with Apple seems to line up with copying their strategy for making more money. I used to be able to buy eBooks direct through the Kindle and other apps until Google decided to force all payments through them. That was a great feature of Android I liked.

Very much agree. That was so blatantly and obviously a copy of Apple's strategy, and was very un-Googley, and it has very negatively affected UX. Not only that but it's stupid, because they torched a very real long-term competitive advantage for a short-term cash grab. They should reverse that immediately.

Related Pro-tip: You can sideload the Audible app version 3.18.0 from right before they removed the purchase option, and Audible keeps things stable enough that it still works perfectly. If you can't find a copy, let me know

Really wish some manufacturer would copy Apple's strategy of providing long term software support for their phones.

Samsung has been offering four or five years on a bunch of their devices since 2019. Google is offering 7 for the Pixel 8.

Just security updates (on Samsung), and for some flagship products. Eventually some WhatsApp or banking application will change so much, that it wants later Android version and refuses to work. (has happened already)

While Apple has provided full software updates for at least 6 years.

Not just security updates and not just flagship products. Plenty of lower end devices on that list like the A series.

WhatsApp will also run on Android 5 from 2014. The latest version of WhatsApp. It's not the only Android app to do that. Many big popular Android apps only require versions 5 or 6. With iOS you have to be much closer to the latest version of iOS to run anything. A Samsung Galaxy S4 from 2013 can run the latest version of WhatsApp. An iPhone 5S cannot despite all those years of updates.

Security updates are just useful for security updates. A device has to be really old before it's typically dropped.

Actually the support for Android 5 just ended: https://www.sammobile.com/news/whatsapp-stop-working-some-ga...

But WhatsApp maybe was bad example. Banking applications are bigger pain, since they even force users to mobile over web page these days.

> With iOS you have to be much closer to the latest version of iOS to run anything.

Which does not actually matter, since you have usually the possibility to update to the latest version.

I think it actually went from 4.1 to 5.0. Google Play Store lists 5.0 and so does the official WhatsApp website and that change supposedly happened a few weeks ago.

https://www.whatsapp.com/android

It's four years of updates and four years of security patches for flagships:

https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-android-updates-114...

That article is from last month, not from 2019, if we stay on the context.

Default? More like burned into the metal. It's not easy to remove or replace it on Samsung.

Not sure what the folks at Epic are smoking, but Android devices without Google Play are failures, and it's how Google forced their other apps on device makers as well.

Google may have paid $8B to Samsung, but I wonder what the effects were, as I own multiple Samsung devices, and the Google apps are not defaults. Except for Google Play, I don't remember any others.

Was it something like "here's $8B so you don't feel bad about us coercing you?"

Just goes to show the modern tech game is completely exploited. It’s not even worth it to try.

It just shows that the browser game is controlled by Google and aided by Apple.

It is also why Mozilla is on life support and is kept alive by Google's money.

In tech, large successful companies very rarely never lose their existing market. They generally falter when they fail to compete in a new, bigger market that makes their existing market relatively insignificant.

IBM didn't lose the main frame market. The Microsoft/Intel PC market just made it pale in comparison.

Microsoft never lost the PC OS and apps market. The size of the smartphone market just made the PC market pale by comparison.

Well... Samsung phones are mostly compatible with LineageOS. Only reason, why I buy used Samsung phones. Build quality and AMOLED screens are perfect.

With LineageOS I can use Android completely degoogled, which I have about 4 years now.

Maybe stupid question, but.....

Would/could this be seen from google's financial statements? My naive understanding is that if the answer is no, then google must've made a conscious effort in financial engineering to hide it.

I'm not an accountant, but I've been on the company side before. You do have to disclose a lot of stuff when you're a public company, but you don't have to itemize in detail. They could probably have simple classified all that money as "Search" or "Search promotion" or something very broad.

It's blended into their cost of revenue number with all their other revenue sharing programs (Admob, Adsense, Youtube Creators, etc). From their SEC filings

"Cost of revenues is comprised of TAC and other costs of revenues.

•TAC includes:

◦Amounts paid to our distribution partners who make available our search access points and services. Our distribution partners include browser providers, mobile carriers, original equipment manufacturers, and software developers.

◦Amounts paid to Google Network partners primarily for ads displayed on their properties.

TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Network properties are significantly higher than TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Search & other properties, because most of the advertiser revenues from ads served on Google Network properties are paid as TAC to our Google Network partners."

Now this cute application button doesn't look that innocent anymore, does it?

YaCy, being a distributed search engine gets results from many sources. Since you cant trust anyone it crawls each result looking for the keywords (if I remembered correctly)

Thus, we can have multiple search providers (and multiple gui's) Subscription based ones with free indexing, free ones with subscription based indexing, ones with a subscription for results and for indexing and ones with free indexing and results for free.

Providers can still insert spam into their result but it will have to be marked as advertisement and will quite appropriately be moved to the spam tab or removed entirely.

Since the cell phone market is competitive, such payments should be partially passed on to consumers in the form of lower cell phone prices.

One negative is that it likely leads to consolidation - Samsung/Apple are able to extract much higher payments than mid-tier companies. If you are small niche producer, Google is unlikely to even talk to you. Deals are secret and opaque.

We've officially replaced trickle down economy with trickle up economy. Sustaining certain standard of living on private islands in Hawaii, Bahamas, and Fiji is expensive. The phones will be larger though, that's for certain.

Surely this will happen at any point in the next 50 years. Even more degenerate society will elect even better and more competent people into office and they will surely look out for the common people. The outlook makes me sad.

If public corporations existed to benefit their customers yes, but they don't they exist to benefit their shareholders. This money will go towards stock buy backs and higher dividends.

I'm sad that the little guys can't compete. I thought for a moment though that maybe this is less bad than Apple saying "nobody can even touch ios?" Does anyone think Apple is being more evil? I mean at least Google lets other people use it's OS and then pays them to get on it. Am I making sense or is this just crazy talk? I feel like copyright is the worst form of big corp. Why don't governments get rid of it, then we are all equals. I mean yeah, you can't become a billionaire without it, but isn't that kind of the goal - everybody treated fairly? I know this is a hot topic, and I don't mean to cause a war, but I don't get why Apple is considered great when at least Google is sharing their code and paying to still be on the platform.

Surprised this is legal (in spirit of law) as it’s clearly anti competitive towards new entrants

It's only illegal if you get caught and it's not as anyone goes to jail. Just pay the fine and continue operations.

For corporations the fine will always be less than the money you made breaking the law anyway so really you'd be foolish not to break the law. The justice department doesn't even care if you do, they just occasionally show up to take their cut of action and put out some feel-good press releases.

its actually about a government agent man being able to sit down and look on any phone that has google on it. than it is for anything else. 8b is chump change when its not your money.

Here we can see, what Google thinks such things are worth. Next time we see an anti-trust case or other case that touches this matter, we can conclude an appropriate height of a fine for Google to pay.

I recently installed Windows on my machine and in attempting to download chrome and make Google the default search engine, the OS tried to persuade me not to do it at least 2-3 different ways.

I think we can and should be upset at these deals but Google is not the only person pushing their own stuff.

GNU and GNU/Linux are the only systems which respect user privacy and freedoms, this is a classic and practical precedent where adherence to ideology and principles (of commons) clearly demonstrate a resistance to crony capitalism (of big tech, et al). Society, in general, should start moving away from proprietary systems to Linux distros like Debian, Ubuntu, etc. and this change should start from the OEM or manufacturers themselves.

Please don't forget that there are other, non GNU, operating systems which respect user privacy and choice. The first examples that come to mind are OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

But sadly, the permissive ones don't have this ideological defense mechanism built into them. That's why Apple was able to eat FreeBSD for a lunch.

But there are few exceptions where permissive projects can also sustain and defend themselves provided they're people powered and well organized. Apache Foundation is a great example here. Despite being permissively licensed, they're able to build projects and products with meritocracy which is apparently untainted by big tech influence so far.

Mozilla is a another example though their acceptance of Google's royalty is an influence of taint which is pretty much visible in their end product, Firefox.

FreeBSD is not worse because Apple used some of its code.

Lets put it this way, in an alternative universe where Linux did not happen, after BSD had won the lawsuit against AT&T, there would be UNIX as usual with everyone taking the bit and pieces they liked from BSD into their own UNIXes.

To be honest I wouldn't mind, I always liked SGI, Solaris, HP-UX and Aix better than plain GNU/Linux.

Ubuntu literally feeds you adverts from Amazon.

Sure you can opt out, but that’s not respecting user’s privacy.

Fork it, or use somebody else’s fork. And wasn’t that years ago? Didn’t they stop?

There’s a bunch of Ubuntu forks, I think.

OP just mentioned Ubuntu specifically when making a case for software that respects privacy

They're also obsessed with pushing Snaps down the user's throat these days. The height of their attitude happened when they made firefox available ONLY as a Snap package and took it out of Ubuntu APT repository entirely! That's when I decided to bid them farewell and test out Debian and Mint which are still untainted by Snaps/Flatpaks.

This feature has been opt-in since 2016.[0]

[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/ubunt...

That's Canonical's problem.

The creators and maintainers of Ubuntu

Its not all Linux. The *BSDs are also quite respectful of your privacy.

I fear that it only works out the way it does because overall the distributions are still fairly small. Ubuntu has tried inserting such spyware in the past and if user bases grow enough, the temptation to give in and profit may become too large to ignore.

99.99% of the development of open source distros is done by mega-corps. IBM, Oracle, Google, etc. all have complete control of the Linux ecosystem. The only difference is that they have to play nice with each other, not with you, the user. You also get the worst possible experience because they have no incentive to make the desktop experience better.

Now the Samsung apps make sense: pay us or we'll force android users to use this crap.

I like when it's clear when a commenter has not the slightest idea what they are talking about.

What are you talking about?

It does seem like the simplest explanation for why Samsung both makes their own Android apps and seems to consistently half-ass them, is because they're meant to serve as leverage for negotiating with Google, not something they expect many end users to actually use.

Samsung Notes, Reminder, Calendar, Browser are all much better than Google versions. Edit. And I completely forgot Gallery with OneDrive integration.

? They're shovelware. They're remarkably bad software.

Have you used a recent Samsung phone? They have come a long way from the TouchWiz days.

Samsung Notes and Calendar are way better than the Google versions. It's kind of baffling to see anyone calling them shovelware. That impression only fits if you haven't used a Samsung device in 5+ years.

It's going to be hard to go back to the Google versions after seeing how much better the Samsung versions are.

Has it been that long...? I'll take another look.

I used to be a pretty heavy user of Google Keep, which was functionally most of what I use Samsung Notes for now, but my usage fell off. I don't know what Notes used to be like, but nowadays I find it to be like a better OneNote, and since I prefer to use the pen for note taking of all types, it's become my go to on all platforms.

With Calendar, I've always found Google's UI to be kind of clunky and the flow for adding a new reminder a bit too involved for what ought to be functionally equivalent to circling a date and adding a note on old school calendars. I also expect it to show me a direct overview of the entire month rather than just the day with an additional menu to show a rough overview of the month.

Samsung's app comes pretty close to this smooth flow, by actually just showing the tasks per day for the entire month on most of the screen and by having a textbox right at the bottom where you can just type out the reminder and it'll extract the needed info from that. Google's app IIRC has a similar feature, but having to tap the + icon, then think about which category my task falls in kind of breaks the flow for me.

Edit: I forgot about Samsung Gallery, which I also find to be far superior to the Google version. I love that the image editor has version control without creating duplicates. It feels like it's actually used by the developers, since in most of casual smartphone editing you just want the cropped image (eg with screenshots). I also find the automatic image segmentation and clipping in the Gallery app to be a convenient and cool 'hidden' feature that the Google Photos app lacks.

This isn't to say that there isn't any bloat. There are many apps I don't care for. But that's the same with Google's apps. Overall though, I feel Samsung has come far from the old touchwiz days, when it felt like they were being different for the sake of being different, while nowadays it feels like they actually have a vision for their services with how everything interoperates between devices.

Curious by which metric(s) you consider Samsung Internet Browser superior to Chrome for Android?

Adblocker.

Fair point, looks like they're third party but easy to manage through the browser directly:

https://www.samsung.com/my/support/apps-services/how-to-bloc...

I brought a Samsung device once. It had its own version of each of Googles apps, named something confusingly close and they all sucked.

I have since transitioned to iOS, but since then I have avoided Samsung.

Samsung Browser, Gallery, Email and clock apps are wildly better than the Google equivalents.

I will NEVER buy a samsung phone. They have all these backroom deals to put in Services like additional LocationProvider(the underlying service that can be subscribed to for loc updates) for companies that will pay them to get access to location updates differently than other apps can. Like a social media company or an advert company you get that favor for $$$$$.

With google you know they control the locationProvider and all apps are equal and google still has priveledged access but its only them(as bad as that is)

And remember there is no removing/uninstalling this kind of a service short of wiping the entire OS and installing another Playstore/Open Source alternative.

I might consider a Samsung phone if running third party ROMs on current models were possible/practical, but otherwise I’d agree.

You can but its a pain, and onlty some models

>I will NEVER buy a samsung phone.

Then you're basically out of options for something remotely competitive to Apple in the Android world.

- HTC was great but they threw in the towel long time ago. Same with LG.

- Google makes some nice phones without bloatware but last few generation Pixels seem to constantly suffering from various SW bugs pushed by Google, have sub-par CPUs and GPUs, poor reception in challenging conditions from the Samsung modems compared to Quallcomm, and suffer high battery drain in comparison to Samsung S series with Qualcomm chips. No go for me.

- Sony also makes decent phones on the photography side, but are either overpriced or underpowered, and Sony has a poor track record for supporting their devices more than a few years. No go for me, if I spend big money on a phone I want it to be supported 5+ years at least.

- OnePlus used to be a brand I would trust in the past being very happy with the OP 3, bust I got burned with their OP 7T which saw very short SW update period and every update brough more and more bugs they would ignore. No go for me, avoid this brand today like the plague.

- The Chinese brands are great value HW wise but full of spyware, dark patterns, and offer very short SW update support, so that's a no go from the start.

- Nokia is just selling rebadged Chinese devices with various compromises. Same with Motorola and Blackberry. Nothing worthy of your Euros there.

- ASUS makes a small sized Zenfone which I like but costs more than Samsung's similarly sized and specked S23 while offering less years of SW updates. No go for me.

- Fairphone would be a good alternative on the repairability, ethical and environmental sides, but those phones are large/bulky as hell, while compromising on performance and photo quality compared to 'non-fair' competitors of the same price. No go for me sadly. Make a smaller phone please.

So, who else is left in the race? There seem to be literally no good Android manufacturers left that don't make large compromises or won't screw you in some way down the line eroding your trust post-purchase, as if they're all in a race to the bottom.

That's why so many Android users are fed up with this shit show and moved to paying the "Apple tax" over the years.

ASUS?

They're just as pricy as Samsung's flagships, or even more, while offering fewer years of SW updates. Also no go.

No they aren't (ignoring the nonsense gamer phone category, since those are just a ploy to part a fool from their money).

Yes they are. Their flagship Zenfone costs more than the Samsung S23, while offering fewer years of SW updates. That a very bad value for money and a bad deal in general.

I don't consider Samsung's flagship phone to be their base model S23.

Why not? The S23 is the one who's dimensions and specs are closest to the ASUS Zenfone 10 yet is also cheaper to boot and offers more years of SW updates to the Zefone.

https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=12082&idPhone...

Flagship means "the finest, largest, or most important one of a group of things".

In any case, right now the base model S23 is $659 and the Zenfone 10 is $619.99 (on Amazon US). Maybe you live somewhere where the prices are different.

I don't buy Samsung mostly because I loathe their advertising. They plastered historical monuments (like in Rome, Paris, etc) with billboards, and updated their SSD management software to serve ads. Android is often portrayed as a second-rate phone OS and Samsung makes it worse.

Aside: the S23 doesn't even have a 3.5mm headphone jack; the lack of which negates any and all other features or benefits.

>Flagship means "the finest, largest, or most important one of a group of things".

HN rules also say assume good faith and respond to the strongest interpretation of an argument, not the weakest, [just for a cheap jab].

Yeah sure, if you wanna be pedantic about it, the S23 Ultra is the most flagship of the flagships (the weak argument), but that's an entirely different class of devices to which Asus has no competitor as the S23 Ultra is bigger higher resolution screen and has a pen making it a phablet, so the nearest closest flagship competitor for the Asus is the vanilla S23 in size, specs and price to the Zenfone (the strongest argument)

>Maybe you live somewhere where the prices are different.

Yes they are. In Europe, cheapest prices on Geizhals:

- S23 is ~650 Euros @ 5 years of SW updates

- Zenfone 10 is ~717 Euros @ 3 years(?) of SW updates

S23 wins hands down just for giving you more years of SW updates at a lower price for same specs. Nuff said.

If you enjoy throwing away devices sooner because of ASUS's ridiculous update policy, then go for the Zenfone.

I adhere to the actual definition of the word, and you adhere to the one that fit your narrative. You admit that my use of the word is correct, then accuse me of a cheap jab for using the word correctly?

Like I said before, the S23 doesn't have a headphone jack, so for me it's not even in the running - so its OS updates don't matter. I usually find a reason to get a new phone before SW updates run out anyway.

You value features that don't matter to me, and I value features that don't matter to you. You seem to take a stance ("you're basically out of options for something remotely competitive to Apple") that your values are the ones that should matter to others.

> If you enjoy throwing away devices sooner berceuse of ASUS's shoddy update policy, then go for the Asus.

I hope this was just sarcasm, or more imprecise wording on your part, but if not... you really shouldn't throw away your working devices just because they won't receive future software updates.

p.s., I think the strongest interpretation of an argument is usually the one that most accurately reflects the established meanings and contexts of the terms involved, as well as the underlying facts and logic.

Samsung is light years ahead of everyone else in the Android phone space, and the only manufacturer that can compete with iPhone. It's crazy that it's true, given the opportunity for Google themselves to try to compete, but they don't for whatever reason.

I think it's in part that they don't want to seem to compete with Samsung so they have to define themselves as mid tier.

>Samsung is light years ahead

In what way?

I'm someone who hasn't bought a new phone since 2016, and there are zero occurrences in daily use where I feel it's too slow. I can't imagine being one or two generations behind the bleeding edge in CPU speed to be a hindrance. What are people doing on their phones that need ultimate speed?

Only thing bothering me now is its screen size, but not enough to replace it. Unfortunately Apple wants me to throw a functioning device into a landfill to make more money, so they cut off software updates.

Yeah, seriously... a little more speed and 7b quantized LLMs would be almost usable. I guess that could be nice? :)

But in practice, performance is mostly being wasted on phones right now.

I don't think this is totally true, tbh. The Pixel 8 Pro holds up really well against the S23 Ultra IMO. The camera generally rates higher in blind comparison tests.

Performance is a little lower, but tbh... even my old Pixel 5 was fast enough. Marginal differences in performance don't seem that important to me now in a phone. Battery life might be lower, but I get the feeling that real world performance is really close.

>Battery life might be lower, but I get the feeling that real world performance is really close.

According to users of both, real life battery life of the Pixel 8 is much lower than the benchmarks would suggest, because of the inferior SoC and modem which drains the battery much faster then the Qualcomm powered S23, when you use your phone a lot on data.

The problem is most battery benchmarks are pretty meaningless as they're always done indoor on WiFi which is a lot easier on the battery than when using the modem for data, so they don't reflect the real world use when you're out and about throughout the day roaming between cell towers of varying signal strength.

My biggest torture scenario for a phone's battery is web browsing on the train or in our office building. It literally nukes the battery compared to wifi.

I've heard reports of very high drain on cellular, but tbh it isn't something that I've noticed in real world usage.

Maybe some of that is the difference between the P8 and P8Pro. I'd guess high modem usage isn't as big of an impact on the higher battery P8Pro.

Also if you want a well supported precuse stylus on a phone or tablet, there is not really a choice as far as I can tell.

Asus

OnePlus

Many more from what I read... There's plenty of choice in the Android market, even if Samsung makes it feel like they are Android.

I might buy a Samsung phone myself, but it would have to be a considerable discount. They tend to be overpriced, and as OP noted they load the phone down with laggy bloatware, so I either have to install a custom ROM (and possibly break some security checks apps require) or purge apps through adb as a half measure.

>The Chinese brands are great value HW wise but full of spyware and offer very short SW update support, so that's a no go from the start.

....OnePlus.......

I would bet GP means the plethora of cheap Chinese brands, not literally every brand from China.

Yeah thats kind of how I interpreted it, the flood of "low quality" brands.

I wouldn't be averse to a Chinese brand with a track record (like OnePlus).

Same. I have a bit of a hobby of buying cheap Chinese electronics/gadgets and have found some real badass gems[1], but something running that much software with such deep connections makes me pretty nervous. A brand like OnePlus is an exception to that.

[1]: This is my most recent toy, which has been a ton of fun and turned out to be a great gift for kids! It is sold by a ton of different whitelabel brands so comes and goes, but is essentially the same product: https://www.amazon.com/Player-Hotechs-Memory-Classic-Digital...

I have used Pixels for a long time and never felt the issues you're talking about.

For me Pixels phone are the best overall Android phone you can get.

>I have used Pixels for a long time and never felt the issues you're talking about.

Without specifying exactly which pixels, that statement is largely irrelevant since if one generation of Pixels was good that doesn't translate to the next generations as well.

The problem with Google is that it's not a consistent HW manufacturer across generations like Apple. I've been following the Pixel series since the 6, 7 and now the 8, and they all have tonnes of complaints about HW issues related to signal reception, battery life, glass kracking, which Google refuses to acknowledge, to SW bugs, plus hit or miss services in case of repairs.

Currently, their Samsung modems are still far inferior to Quallcom flagships and call signal reception is the most important thing for me.

I mean, sure, but I've been using Pixel phones since the beginning and the worst thing I've seen is shitty reception in a parking garage.

On the other hand, I could buy two Pixel phones for the price of a new iPhone which has been reported to have overheating issues and won't let me do basic shit like install a different browser or sideload an app.

Yeah, the hardware is better, but it doesn't really matter to me if the phone is too locked down for me to use it.

>I mean, sure, but I've been using Pixel phones since the beginning and the worst thing I've seen is shitty reception in a parking garage.

But that doesn't mean the current Pixel model for sale, is also good just because you had a good older mode in the past. Google is just not consistent at building quality phones over the years and fluctuates a lot between hits and misses in various areas with each model they release. They just suck at building HW and supporting their products.

>the worst thing I've seen is shitty reception in a parking garage

You see, that's a massive problem for me and a lot of people who see our phones as devices that should reliably make calls in all challenging situations as it could mean a matter of life and death, not necessarily in a parking lot, but hiking, camping, traveling, driving, etc, etc.

The fact that my phone has reception issue in some cases, is an instant deal breaker no matter how fancy Google's AI photo tech is.

Oh, and cherry on top, last week I had the immense "pleasure" when I launched the Google phone dialer to make an urgent call to my doctor, instead of being allowed to instantly dial a number, I was greeted by a prompt on top asking me how many start I rate their dialer app before I could dial. I wish I was making this up. Who the F at Google thought this was an acceptable UX to be pushed to production?

For more bad phone UX, I get calls from "potential spam call" with, as far as I can tell, no way at all to get more information. No indication of what "potential spam call" means (bad STIR/SHAKEN data? Google blacklists? Who knows!). I don't know how to turn off their filter either.

Of course they also have those notorious problems with 911 calls not working.

Does Google just do metrics driven development with no user studies or something? And no one there has actually used a phone for phone calls?

> Oh, and cherry on top, last week I had the immense "pleasure" when I launched the Google phone dialer to make an urgent call to my doctor, instead of being allowed to instantly dial a number, I was greeted by a prompt on top asking me how many start I rate their dialer app before I could dial. I wish I was making this up. Who the F at Google thought this was an acceptable UX to be pushed to production?

I find that I rarely ever type a number into the dialpad these days - I start most of my calls by voice command, or by pressing a phone icon on a search result.

It sounds like what you want is the modern version of an old-fashioned "dumb" phone. I value things like "can run browsers other than Safari" and "tries to ID callers using Google's database" over being able to make phone calls from the middle of the wilderness or underground, since I bought my phone for the ~330 days a year when I'm not in a reception-challenging situation.

Yeah, the reception issue is a serious problem, I went from years of the galaxy line to a pixel 6 and then to a pixel 8, and both pixels have terrible reception, though I suspect it's a software issue because for about 8 months into the pixel 6 I had never had a single reception issue, now I have them constantly, even with full bars I'll lose connectivity about a dozen times a day. I'll be going back to a Galaxy for my next phone.

I had a pixel 4a and currently have a 5a and never had any issues

I got a pixel 6a after the 4a's power button started going wonky for no reason (it'd randomly think it was being pressed and bring up the power menu with the emergency call button, which is not great when you're using the phone and might tap that button on accident). The 6a had a bug for the first month or two where the brightness slider control was offset from where it appeared on the screen (so you had to slide your finger somewhere else to get it to work). It also constantly crashes the entire phone with Firefox if you have the URL bar on top, which as far as I know is still not fixed after over a year. There's some multitude of permissions that have to all be set correctly to get e.g. Pagerduty calls to come through during bedtime mode, and even with the permissions + adding PD to contacts, I missed a call. I can't remember whether it was because I hadn't starred them, or whether my volume was set to silent. In any case, you have to search online to have any hope if finding the correct settings to make it work (the app used to max it out and turn off silent mode and everything just worked with 1 slider. I presume that if that stopped working sensibly, it's because of Android changes). Honestly all of the Pixels I've owned have left me pretty unimpressed with Google's engineers, and the UIs get worse each year.

I mean most people live in cities where reception is a none issue no matter what chip you use, now the question is outside of cities is there such a big difference between a Samsung and a Qualcomm one?

I've been buying unlocked Motorolas for years. They're great and priced reasonably. Their manufacturer exclusive features are actually features.. like I can pull my phone out and give it a quick shake to turn the flashlight on.

Wouldn't the best strategy be to buy a cheap Chinese phone and install stock Android?

That's what I did recently. Got a cheap Xiaomi ($120 used) with a 120hz OLED display and a mid-range CPU and flashed PixelExperience on it: it feels like a $800 Pixel phone.

Interesting! I hadn't heard of it, but this looks like a neat project: https://get.pixelexperience.org/

Slightly off topic, but this is why "you can always buy an Android phone" is not a valid argument against allowing side loading on iOS.

FWIW I've owned two OnePlus phones, both bought secondhand - a 7 Pro and a 9 Pro.

The 7 Pro was one of my all time favorite phones, and I am using the 9 Pro now. I really like it. I owned a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra in between, and it was decent but the photos always felt weird to me. Overall I much prefer the 9 Pro to the S21 Ultra.

I do agree that OxygenOS 11 was really rough on the 7 Pro, and I held onto OxygenOS 10.3.8 until 12 came out! That transitional period was rough for them. My 9 Pro has OxygenOS 13.1 and it's been rock solid.

I was (and in some ways still am) a OnePlus fanboi, but I won't buy their phones anymore either, not unless they reverse some decisions. Ceasing to provide factory images alone was a major blow for me as I strongly prefer to root, and without factory images root becomes a risky proposition.

But the awful bugginess on my OP7 Pro was really horrible. Even just the front-facing fingerprint reader was a sad change. I really miss my OP6, but I had to switch carriers and that phone wasn't supported. The Pixel 5a and OP6 are tied for favorite device. I'll be running this 5a until it completely dies.

> Nokia is just selling rebadged Chinese devices with various compromises.

Have you a source for that? Nokia licensed the use of the Nokia brand and designs for mobile phones to HMD (started by an ex Nokia exec) a few years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMD_Global

Spot on. It just blows my mind that there isn't a great Android phone option anymore! We've had so many come and go over the years, and yet it feels like we're always moving backwards.

Samsung consumer electronics are a real shame (TVs and phones come to mind). The hardware is generally pretty good. But the software is crap at best, abusive at worst.

Samsung's version of Android certainly feels bloated compared to stock Android but it has much better features.

What are you favorite features that are exclusive to them?

I agree they have better features than stock Android too. The biggest for me is the customization of the UX. Simple things like allowing for gestures and displaying the bottom navigation bar at the same time. I use both because it's situational. Or separate volume controls. And Multi-tasking windows have more options and gestures, improving the whole experience.

The customization of the OS really opens up when you download their "Good Lock" app. Because phones don't have bezels anymore, I can customize the dead zone around the edges without ruining gestures. I can customize the behavior of the navbar, the notification drop down, the types of gestures, and so much more. I can use their Sound Assistant app to allow more than one app play sounds at the same time.

The downside is having to ADB into the phone and remove a lot of the preloaded bloat. They really do pack too much garbage on it. Some Samsung apps, especially Samsung Pay, started started having ads in them one day. And now I don't trust any of their standalone apps.

All that being said, as much as I love my years of Samsung phones, I doubt I'll be getting another. New devices don't really offer me anything better than what I already have, except for the removal of more features.

I think it's region specific, I wouldn't call my Samsung bloated, I was suprised how little bloatware there was based of previous experience years ago. I used to call Samsung phones Chlamsung and their launcher Touchwiz a Shitwiz.

Some people are silly though and would consider a basic calculator bloatware, though.

Yeah they've definitely gotten better over the years. At one point Samsung felt damn near unusable, but now it's a pretty good experience. I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S-6 Lite tablet that is fantastic! It's remarkably close to convergence as well, something I don't think SS gets enough credit for, and is a really cool feature.

I do worry about the privacy/spyware though. Google and Apple have both shown some attention and love on privacy (Google's data controls are really incredible IMHO), but Samsung still seems to be going old-school vacuum and monetize.

No they are not. You haven't tried a Galaxy phone in recent years. That is apparent by your comment.

Its indeed been a few years since my last galaxy.

0 years to be exact since my S23 ultra, 0.7 years since my S20 ultra, 3 years since my S8+, 5 years since my Galaxy note 4, 8 years since my Galaxy note 2.

"Apparent by my comment", how is my opinion on how bloated the UI feels a fact to you

I was being transparent about my thought process and logic in order for my comment(s) not to seem snarky.

Can't you install stock Android on one? I'm an iPhone user and too lazy to switch now (plus I like iPhones) but Android is the more open platform so I'm assuming it's possible.

Or is it just to avoid supporting them?

There unfortunately is no such thing as stock Android… the closest that exists is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) which is generally considered too bare-bones to be usable on its own and is missing a lot of the things that Android users might expect.

While there are third party Android distros based on AOSP available, they typically only support devices that are a couple gens behind or older, which means they’re not usually an option for anybody buying a current gen device.

I wish Android were more like Windows or Linux where the hardware is somewhat standardized, the OS is the same no matter what it’s installed on, and you could just wipe+reinstall “plain” Android like one does with a PC with Windows to clear away crapware, but that’s not what we got.

That might be the case for the apple-wannabes at Samsung, but for a lot of phones you can get custom roms for current gen phones. Pixel, OnePlus come to mind.

> like one does with a PC with Windows

Maybe in the past, but these days the crapware is coming from inside the OS.

AOSP is not too barebones for someone who is looking for a barebone OS for their mobile phone. Last I tried, it comes with a basic texting app, a basic phone app, a basic web browser, just no Google app store, no Chrome, no Google account synced messages, etc.

Citations?

>for companies that will pay them to get access to location updates differently than other apps can.

Source?

Not sure about location data, but I'd be more concerned that they list "contents of messages and email" among the data that they sell:

"We may share your personal information by allowing certain third parties (such as online advertising services) to collect your personal information via automated technologies and server-to-server connections on the Services for cross-context behavioral advertising. This kind of sharing may be considered a “sale” under the CCPA/CPRA. You have the right to opt out of these types of disclosures of your information, as detailed below."

"We may sell or share for cross-context behavioral advertising purposes (and may have sold or shared during the 12-month period prior to the effective date of this Statement) the following categories of personal information about you to or with online advertising services:"

• Identifiers

• Online Activity

Online Activity is defined as:

"Internet and other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to, browsing history, search history, and information regarding your interaction with or through the Services or other Samsung or third-party websites, applications, or advertisements (for example, health data or contents of messages and emails when you use certain Services)"

Source: https://www.samsung.com/us/account/privacy-policy/california...

Some additional commentary here:

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3514999/samsung-sellin...

I bought Samsung because it's the only cost efficiently choice. The renewed model is insanely cheap. You can get a 1 year old flagship s series for 400 dollars. Pixels were(are?) having both software and hardware quality issue. The specs are also worse than Samsung's. The rest of the brands are just bad.

> Be google

> Make free open source operating system.

> Forget to protect the brand to ensure that people have to include your apps to call it android.

> Pay Samsung to include your apps, which people expect to see in your operating system.

> Get sued for anti-trust violation.

Valid. But am I correct in saying that if instead of Google it was instead Android, Chrome and Google Search acting as three separate companies they wouldn't have this problem?

Chrome wouldn't be viable as a separate company. Android might be at this point with the Play Store, but that's itself a target of the anti-trust suit.

I'm not sure why it would not, just the revenue from the default search engine would be massive.

Post split-up, Google Search could pay Chrome billions to be the default search. Chrome could pay billions to Android to be the default browser. Android could pay billions to the regulators to look the other way. Everyone wins!

That looks like the same thing as now but it isn't, there's a lot of motives outside of just the money flowing.

Chrome doesn't have an incentive to follow every move benefiting Google anymore, projects such has the recent web integrity disaster would not even exist.

Android would have different incentives to diversify its revenue stream and would be more accepting to outsiders.

OK, going to try to be serious for a sec :)

I hear what you're saying, that allowing these newly-formed companies to control their own destinies would allow them to pursue other sources of revenue that's not so user-hostile. I can believe that in the short term.

However, I don't think that can really last over the long term. It seems like every big company eventually trends towards integrated monopoly, and when they get there and get broken up, another one will rise and take its place.

Google today was Microsoft not so long ago, and probably Apple in the not-so-distant future. I don't know who the next upstart monopoly is after them, but it seems like this sort of cohesive, all-encompassing business model has synergies and efficiencies of scale that smaller independent companies just can't match.

Chrome, Android, and the rest of the Google ecosystem all feed into each other, each creating value and lock-in for their peers. It's the same approach used by every major ecosystem vendor, whether that's Google or Apple or MS or Samsung or AWS. And in so doing, they crushed every independent browser vendor, every independent phone vendor, every independent cloud vendor, every independent search engine, every independent smart home vendor, etc. From the business side, all that money helps subsidize upstart business units, all that data and staff helps each unit perform better than their smaller peers, and that name recognition gives them a built-in customer base. Even from the user side, there is a lot of simplicity gained from "one login to do everything I need online". I don't think that fundamental dynamic is going to change, and regulators will never be able to keep up with new monopolies. They can form in half a decade or so, whereas anti-trust enforcement takes decades (and multiple administrations, typically having to wait for a blue cycle).

I'm not much of a capitalist, and it saddens me that this is the reality. The public is always playing catch-up, first enabling these huge mega-corps, then slowly finding they've grown too big, and only then trying to do something about it... but by then, another challenger is already in the works and the cycle begins anew.

I wish there were a "good enough" public alternative for these pieces of fundamental digital infrastructure: a publicly-owned-and-operated messaging network, free email services, social network, online storage, calendar, etc., kinda like how we build roads and bridges. When we depend on huge companies and small volunteer efforts to provide our digital essentials, the huge companies are always going to win. Sigh.

Just thinking out loud...

Oh yeah, I'm not saying that it would solve the problem forever but antitrust breakups aren't there to solve issues forever, they are there to temporarily recreate a market by force until the next big issue comes up.

> Forget to protect the brand to ensure that people have to include your apps to call it android.

LOL, that's such a wrong take I'm surprised it got so many upvotes. Google didn't forget anything.

1. If Google would have forced their own apps on all manufacturers then they would have been 100% hit by antitrust regulators over this obvious breach, plus manufacturers might not have went the Android route back then, so leaving some room for the manufacturers, went a along way to encourage everyone to trust Google and go on board the Android train, instead of feeling they'll be Google's hardware lapdogs

2. Google is already protected enough by forcing Play services on all Android devices thereby getting a cut on all playstore purchases and ad targeting.

They're not stupid. Google is exactly where they wanted to be.

> 1. If Google would force Google apps on all manufacturers then they might not have went the Android route.

What route would they have taken? Symbian? BlackBerry OS?

When we can explore multiverses we could also look into that.

They might have tried to be a social network... or a chat app, I mean _one_ chat app.

Any of them? In 2008, they all had more market share than Android and were all in active development.

Android won because they followed the Windows Mobile model of letting OEMs run the OS with their own hardware and UI flavor. The first successful Android device was the Motorola Droid which had a Blackberry/HTC-like hardware keyboard. Later devices like the Moto Atrix offered a desktop environment inside Android when hooked up to a monitor. This idea was later extended by Samsung with Dex Mode.

That is what OEMs wanted. They didn't want to be an interchangeable manufacturer competing on price, which is what happened to Windows PC makers.

> Any of them? In 2008, they all had more market share than Android and were all in active development.

The marketshare argument does not hold any water as, for some reason, you are considering feature phones alongside smartphones. The two are fundamentally different devices.

To be frank, the main reason why Symbian and other legacy OS failed to compete with Android in this new market is accumulated tech debt and just overall technical and design decisions made over the years to cater to feature phones.

It wouldn't be impossible to overcome that handicap, but why spend more money and even more importantly time, to try to fix something when you (a) have the option of a more modern platform in Android (b) you already are starting from behind and need to catch up to Apple.

Google were generous to give the terms that they did. But even if they didn't, it wouldn't have affected the outcome. Perhaps 1-2 OEMs would've tried to go to market with a retrofitted Symbian and fail within a year or two.

> you are considering feature phones alongside smartphones. The two are fundamentally different devices.

Did Blackberry or Windows Mobile make a feature phone I'm not aware of? The world's best selling smartphone in 2007 was the Nokia N95. Any one of these would have trounced Android in terms of market share until Samsung put out the Galaxy SII in 2011.

I'm guessing GP means "forgot" in scare quotes, i.e. they didn't really forget, they chose to look the other way for strategic reasons.

With additional restrictions maybe it doesn't become the default OS on every non-Apple phone.

>my monopoly face when

What are you quoting?

> not knowing what greentext is

> could have been one of the lucky 10k

> get's obtuse greentext reply instead

yfw

100% should be illegal. And moreover, Google should be required to pay 8B fine for doing this.

Who's pimping who, Chaebol vs. Google.

Everyone else loses.

And this is the real reason they lock the bootloader to stop rooting our phones.

Gapps takes up I don't even know how many gigs of space. Then Samsung decides to put their apps on top of the gapps and all the other garbage they stop us from uninstalling.

We need to own the things we buy. Period.

> And this is the real reason they lock the bootloader to stop rooting our phones.

No it isn't that's a ridiculous position to take. Also every Google phone for the last decade has had an unlockable bootloader. Take it up with Samsung if they refuse to do the same, although a quick internet search suggests many of the recent generations of Samsung devices also have unlockable bootloaders.

What's ridiculous is trusting a PR release from either of thwse companies.

Samsung locks all of their bootloaders citing as always 'security.

I own currently the Samsung s20+ and the Samsung s21 ultra and all the models of both phones have locked bootloaders and Samsung's garbage, unused Knox security. Samsung at one point had a hardware fuse that blew if you tried to bypass it.

I speak from first hand knowledge of working on hardware and rooting phones since they were introduced.

We've known for a decade or more now that was all of this was bullshit to preserve all the pre-loaded bloatware.

Google phones having unlocked bootloaders is besides the point. Google phones aren't being discussed here, Samsung are.

You simply stated my position was ridiculous without offering a single cogent counterpoint.

Samsung devices in non-US locales don't have locked bootloaders. You can import a Galaxy phone from Hong Kong or the EU for example.

The lockdown in the US seems to be driven by carriers

Doesn't change the fact it exists.

Why do people keep trying to derail the conversation. This is about the US market.

> Google phones having unlocked bootloaders is besides the point. Google phones aren't being discussed here, Samsung are.

It's not beside the point when your initial claim was that Google was the reason for locked Samsung bootloaders. But if that were the case, why would their own phones be unlocked?

Because google is paying to force their apps. Obviously google has no reason to lock their own phones.

Samsung gets to have it both ways. They get paid by google to force their apps, and then Samsung can force whatever shovelware they want under the huise of 'security'

Google is forcing a lot of things, but boot loaders to be locked isn't one of them

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