Coupled with the recent news of Samsung "buying" popular apps (at least one thus far) to be available only on Samsung phones, this is really bad news for Google as they lose control to Samsung.
Of course, I've never even heard of ITV Player until that deal became public and it is a two-star app on the app store, so I'm not sure that matters much in the great scheme of things.
"ITV says it's offering the app exclusively to Samsung "for an initial period while we endeavor to optimize and improve the experience before releasing to other device manufacturers.""
http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/09/samsung-itv-player-androi...
ITV is one of the biggest TV stations in the UK and their mobile player being Samsung only is pretty aggravating:
"Our intention is to extend this supported device list to as many Samsung devices as we can and to that end, we would appreciate your feedback."
Am I now a second-class citizen on android for having an (LG) Nexus device?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.ITVMobileP...
I can't see any significant way that it is worse for Google for people to have their software rather than Samsung's.
Although neither S4 justifies the price jump from a cheap Nexus 4 for me.
And assuming some people want a high end "Nexus Experience" phone, Samsung gets more customers this way, than if Google went with HTC.
Samsung - in-line with their conventional shot-gun "catch-all" product portfolio strategy.
That's exactly why I think it is a bad idea :) Why drive the Android device market towards a monopoly? It ties both Google's business and Android's success to a single player.
Purchase of Motorola was one step. The day Google announces the buy, the next day Samsung announced a big strategic partnership with MS[1] and the CEO clearly said in the press conference they were not aware of the deal.
Samsung realized if they play by Google's rules they will be reduced to Google's puppets and the string could be pulled at any time. Like releasing the code later than others for e.g. their own Motorola.
Another thing was Once the phone was sold, Samsung provided support, updates without any additional income - whereas Google kept on earning money through content alone.
Samsung is too big to be just another OEM, though it will need need a HUUUGE culture (work culture, hierarchy, their senior-junior obedience mechanism) to be a software and content provider success. Because the oldies are not going to make new things.
[1] Can just be co-incidence as well.