Forget Apple: Samsung Could Be Google's Next Big Rival

Nerval's Lobster writes "The idea of Samsung as a Google rival isn't unprecedented. For the past several quarters, Samsung has progressively molded Android to its own vision: layered with TouchWiz and sprinkled with all sorts of Samsung-centric apps, the software interface on Samsung devices is deviating rapidly away from the 'stock' Android that runs on other manufacturers' devices. During this year's unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4 at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, Samsung executives onstage barely mentioned the word 'Android,' and played up features designed specifically for the device. Establishing its own brand identity by moving away from 'stock' Android has done Samsung a lot of good: its smartphones and tablets not only stand out from the flood of Android devices on the market, but it's given the company an opportunity to position itself as the one true rival to iOS. While other Android manufacturers struggle, Samsung has profited. If Samsung continues to gain strength, it could become a huge issue for Google, which has its own eye on the hardware segment. Although Google purchased Motorola in 2011 for $12.5 billion, it hasn't yet remolded the brand in its own image, claiming that the subsidiary's existing pipeline of products first needs to be flushed into the ecosystem. But that reluctance could be coming to an end: reports suggest that Google will pump $500 million into marketing the Moto X, an upcoming 'hero' smartphone meant to reestablish Motorola's dominance of the Android space. If the Moto X succeeds, and Google decides to push aggressively into the branded hardware space, it could drive Samsung even further away from core Android. Never mind issuing TouchWiz updates until the original Android interface is virtually unrecognizable—with its industry heft, Samsung could potentially boot Google Play from the home-screen and substitute it with an apps-and-content hub of its own design. That would take a lot of work, of course: first, Samsung would need to build a substantial developer ecosystem, and then it would need to score great deals with movie studios and other content providers. But as Amazon and Apple have shown, such things aren't impossible. The only questions are whether (a) Samsung has the will to devote the necessary time and resources to such a project, and (b) if it's willing to transform its symbiotic relationship with Google into an antagonistic one."

Comments

this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Samsung Galaxy S4. I purchased it because it is the industry-leader. I do not use any of the samsung-specific features, and do not have a samsung account. It is a solid android phone, running the latest release, and is compatible with third party keyboards, facebook messenger (I can't get off facebook no matter how hard I try), and also mightytext and google voice. Like any computer, there are instabilities, but I report them, and samsung and at&t collaborate on updates. these instabilities are few and far between and do not appear to be related to touchwiz.

I did have to remove an at&t address book backup app, but that was at&t's fault.

They are also successful because they sell phones with styli which is very important in asian countries where the pen is used to write letters of the alphabet.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Like any computer, there are instabilities, but I report them, and samsung and at&t collaborate on updates.

Um, no. Samsung is one of the worst android vendors for releasing updates.

Re:this is ridiculous

[goombah99]

I agree it's redonculous. Why would samsung want to do that? They make money on hardware, they can't make money on search but google can. If google makes money on search, then it doesn't lower samsungs hardware profits. So it's win win. Even apple cant quit samsungs fabs, so samsung will always have a hardware volume advantage over any other maker including moto X.

Personally, I plan to buy a google nexus not a samsung for precisely the opposite easons given. What I want is a system that if I invest in it, it wil have a path forward. Buying the most stock platform, when it's highly featured, makes a lot more sense to me than buying a flash in the pan setup. Same reason I didn't buy amazons subsidized tablet. For me, my time and effort is worth more than saving $100 on something or having the sexiest screen tweak, only to have it go obsolete or unmaintained in the next gen.

I often bough apple all though the 90s and 2000s for the same reason. It's just not worth my time to screw around with cheaper shit that has problems I didn't plan on.

Re:this is ridiculous

[_merlin]

Well I can counter your anecdote with one of my own. I bought my Galaxy S3 because of the Samsung features. I love multi-window, local SyncML over USB or WiFi so my contacts and calendar don't go through the "cloud", Kies Air for accessing phone data through the browser, the Samsung image gallery application, the ability to easily upgrade/downgrade/crossgrade and even load "frankenfirmware" using Odin3, etc. I never sign in to any Google services from my phone - I've made a point of not entering a Google login or password once.

Re:this is ridiculous

[symbolset]

Congratulations. You bought the pinnacle of modern technology and then deliberately crippled it.

Re:this is ridiculous

[_merlin]

I really don't like Google. Samsung firmware lets me run Android without using Google services. What's your problem?

Re:this is ridiculous

[Zontar The Mindless]

I was sort of with you until I got to this:

They are also successful because they sell phones with styli which is very important in asian countries where the pen is used to write letters of the alphabet.

Why the stylus? Is Google Pinyin banned from the S4 or something? Works great on both my S3 and Tab 2 for writing Chinese characters. (They're not letters, BTW.)

All the Chinese people I know--including my partner--use pinyin input method of some sort for this, not a stylus. The capability has existed for ages on Windows, Android, and Linux (and I would be extremely surprised if MacOSX and iOS didn't provide it also).

So I'm forced to call bullshit.

(I wish they'd hurry up with the Linux port for Google Pinyin because the latest updates to SCIM have broken it horribly and now I can only write Chinese using my phone or tablet.)

Re:this is ridiculous

[Zontar The Mindless]

Please mod parent up. The OP is indeed making shit up--see my response to same.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree,
my wife is jealous of my old nexus s while she's got an s3 mini (better hardware, but samsung crap all aover the place), especially since i put CM 10.1 on it with an adapted kernel (and got the patches for the sec fail almost instantly).
Even more, samsung (and htc) are aware of the fact that a lot of their users are fed up with bulky ressource-hungry skins and features very few use, and (so i heard ) are selling their flagships now also with stock androids (optional but still, if they're keen on their branding, why bother offering stock android)....

Re:this is ridiculous

[iserlohn]

Not everybody uses Pinyin in greater China. People in Hong Kong and Taiwan for example usually use T9, or some other quick input method based on brush strokes. But for some complicated words you can't find, it's just easier to use the pen. Handwriting recognition is very accurate in Chinese as the number and direction of the brush stroke is matched to a database of words. There is a system on how you write each Chinese character in terms of brush strokes and there is usually only one way to write it properly. It is also a natural way of inputting characters if you haven't had previous exposures to computers, for the elderly, for example. Another reason is that not everybody speaks Mandarin (Pinyin is romanization system for Mandarin). Pinyin in Hong Kong will probably never catch on.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Taiwan, I see tons of people using handwriting/stylus input. Zhuyin sucks on most phones and only foreigners know Pinyin. But aside from that, people seem to be really fast at the shorthand system used for handwriting recognition, and much slower at typing in general (on phones).

Styluses are really a big selling point over here, and women carry the oversized phones in their bags that they are obsessed with (the Samsung note is HUGE with this crowd).

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they want to loose trade secrets big time, companies better prohibit their emloyees the use of Google services and similar cloud-based data collection.

That's the sad truth the NSA scandal has revealed.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Zontar The Mindless]

There's pinyin for Cantonese as well. And some folks use bopomofo or whatever it's called, right.

And yes, I know how Chinese characters are written and the stroke-order rules and so forth, since I am working on achieving HSK Level 1 proficiency currently and know a couple hundred of them.

In any case, in my trips to HK/Guangzhou and amongst my Chinese friends here, I've never seen anything being used except the keyboard for text input, and my partner, who's a Guangzhou native and Cantonese speaker, tells me use of the stylus is fairly rare and definitely not an everyday thing. She herself has never even owned one, and got through 2 Uni degrees in China just fine without one.

So I reject the OP's contention that stylus support is a significant factor in adoption, and therefore regard his other assertions as suspect.

Re:this is ridiculous

[dinfinity]

I agree it's redonculous. Why would samsung want to do that?

The title contains the words Apple, Samsung, Google and rival. The summary is a bunch of hypotheticals and the article is non-existent.

There is not a goddamn thing to see here, Slashdot.

Re:this is ridiculous

[St.Creed]

Not where I live. Ever tried to get an update for a Sony Experia or the like? Sony is absolutely the worst provider in terms of software - all over the entire productline, from their TV's, to their mobile devices, to the Playstation.

Samsung may be slow and install a lot of crapware on the phone. But unlike the writer of the article I think that's not an asset but a weakness. I'm buying the phone for the hardware. And Android with regular updates. Nothing else.

Re:this is ridiculous

[St.Creed]

My wife uses Chinese characters on her phone. We bought her an iPhone specifically for the excellent character recognition. No stylus needed - use your finger to draw a character. It works very well. None of her friends use the very slow pinyin method.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Not wanting to argue against you at all as your reasoning is sound, but thought I should mention that Samsung have been quite good at supporting Rooting and unoffical ROM's with most being available for Samsung devices.

Even if you still just want the stock rom there's very little barrier to having the best of both worlds (i.e. getting a samsung then flashing a stcok Android build).

Re:this is ridiculous

[Bill_the_Engineer]

No but it will generate traffic in Slashdot's comment section.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

TFS failed to mention the ace in the hole, Tizen. Samsung is incubating that little nugget for a final fuck-you to google. Me thinks that could come about sometime shortly after the Moto X rollout.

Now imagine if most Samsung users (not you techy types) are use to the Touch Wiz interface and do not understand what Android or iOS really are. Along comes the Galaxy S5 with a better Touch Wiz interface and yet the underside is Tizen? Most of the monkeys will belly up for the new phone without a care in the world as long as they are able to get their apps for Facebook, Twitter, and some other basic shit.

If so, they will have pulled of the fucking hijack of the millennium.

Re:this is ridiculous

[oh_my_080980980]

Like Microsoft and tablets, Microsoft would never get involved in the hardware market...oh wait...

Re:this is ridiculous

[chihowa]

The pinnacle of modern technology depends on sharing all of your private affairs with the town gossip? You can use everything cool that Google offers without signing in and enabling creepy stalker mode.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Agent0013]

Personally, I plan to buy a google nexus not a samsung for precisely the opposite easons given. What I want is a system that if I invest in it, it wil have a path forward. Buying the most stock platform, when it's highly featured, makes a lot more sense to me than buying a flash in the pan setup. Same reason I didn't buy amazons subsidized tablet. For me, my time and effort is worth more than saving $100 on something or having the sexiest screen tweak, only to have it go obsolete or unmaintained in the next gen.

I agree with the stock platform. I don't use the touch-wiz or any Samsung software. I do like their hardware though. My Epic has the slide out keyboard and OLED is just awesome. One thing to consider is the companies feelings towards rooting. Samsung seems to be pretty ambivalent about it, almost even allowing it. I am running Cyanogenmod on my phone and I was surprised at the couple of security updates they came out with for the APK key signing problem. I know Samsung would have taken forever to put out a patch even on a new phone. On my old one, never would be a good guess. I don't know how fast Google puts out their updates, but I would think it should be pretty speedy since they also make the OS.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell modded you up? Google chills?

Is Google the pinnacle of modern technology? A company that drops services randomly is completely unreliable, and reliability is something I want for my phone.

On the other hand, AT&T sucks at providing updates anyways, so the so called "pinnacle of technology" is probably running an old version anyways.

Re:this is ridiculous

[pentadecagon]

For a Google-account you don't have to give up any private information, they just want your name and an email-address.
Do you use any other registration-based service with any other company? If yes you are a hypocrite, because the others are not better than Google when it comes to privacy. If no you are lying, you do have an account at least with Slashdot, and for sure your contributions here tell a lot about you. Are you aware that this page here sends *plenty* of information all around the world? Ghostery finds Google-doubleclick, Google-Adsense, Google-Analytics, Amazon and some other trackers here. So probably Google already knows a lot about you and you gain exactly nothing by not having an account there.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree it's redonculous. Why would samsung want to do that? They make money on hardware, they can't make money on search but google can. If google makes money on search, then it doesn't lower samsungs hardware profits. So it's win win. Even apple cant quit samsungs fabs, so samsung will always have a hardware volume advantage over any other maker including moto X.

Pretty much. I mean, I buy Samsung phones because they have nice hardware and are typically easy to install cyanogenmod on. I don't want the touchwiz crap.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Golgafrinchan]

Forgot to add: "Good day, sir!"

Re:this is ridiculous

[_merlin]

Lol you think I ever run a browser without ghostery? I don't even log in to /. on my phone. You underestimate my paranoia!

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Google (Nexus) Firmware lets you run Android without using Google services too, just FYI.

The only non-obvious thing you might need to disable is the OS update check (you can side-load updates - just crawl the Android sites), but that doesn't require a sign-in.

Re:this is ridiculous

[west]

They make money on hardware, they can't make money on search but google can.

Have you ever read any corporate histories of Sears, Walmart, et al?

As soon as you are the dominant market for any manufacturer's product, you take over their profits.

Now this is usually done be either by demanding lower prices until the manufacturer had almost no profits left, or in the case of family companies that felt loyalty to the workers, until the family could no longer afford to run the company (there are some dramatic anecdotes of frantic owner's giving up and trying to hand the keys to the sellers. Of course the sellers refused - the manufacturers would be the only ones capable of wringing out those last few dollars).

In Samsung's case, it only makes sense to demand that Google start handing over either a percentage of their mobile sales or simply paying Samsung a set amount per handset. (Of course, it might make sense to start smaller. For example, giving Samsung first access to new releases for 6 months to eventually demanding exclusive access to Android on platforms for which they have products.)

If you've got enough profits to be worth worrying about, you never, *ever* want to have just one viable customer.

Honestly, I don't think Samsung is quite at that point, but it's getting pretty close. Outside of the slashdot-crowd (which, let's face it, is noise in the sales figures), almost everybody I know thinks of themselves as buying a "Samsung", not an "Android phone".

Re:this is ridiculous

[BasilBrush]

because the others are not better than Google when it comes to privacy.

Sure they are. Google is the last company on earth to trust not to spy on you.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Andrio]

I don't think Samsung's software customizations have much--if anything--to do with their success. Samsung is successful because they don't make the mistakes other manufacturers have made, over and over again.

Motorola? They got married to Verizon to produce Droid phones, and largely ignored the other carriers. Thankfully Google is straightening them out.

HTC? They've made some pretty good devices, but their marketing has always non-existant, instead leaving that up to the carriers. They only recently started up a "flagship" brand, the "One" (You could argue if the name is good or bad--it largely doesn't matter. What's matter is that the public keep seeing it).

Sony? LG? Not many sexy phones (although that seems to be starting to change), and a general lack of good marketing. Again, leaving it mainly to the carriers to market.

On the contrary, Samsung has done the three things that are necessary for a successful phone: They made their phones good, often with very impressive innards and screens. They marketed their phones intensely, and on their own (rather than just leaving that up to the carriers), and made them available on all carriers, with the same name. And lastly, and this is a big one that the other makers messed up on, they established a brand (Galaxy) and kept at it. We've been seeing "Galaxy", on all carriers, for years.

Re:this is ridiculous

[iserlohn]

Cantonese romanization is not as standardized as Mandarin. Jyutping (which means "Cantonese assembled") is probably the most consistent Cantonese romanized phonetic system, but not the most used. Then there is Wong's system, which was standardized as the system used by the HK Education deparatment (which no-one uses). Yale romanization is more popular , but almost nobody uses Cantonese romanized input in Hong Kong because it is a massive hassle (especially in representing the tonal information - there are 7-9 tones in Cantonese (depending on who does the counting) compared to 4 in Mandarin).

In fact, the most widely used romanization system for Cantonese is the system that the HK government uses to transcribing names in latin script. This is used for proper names - the names of places and also for the names of people. This isn't standardized and is not very useful for text input as tonal information is not preserved well. However, it is probably the only Cantonese romanization system people in HK would generally know.

In any case, I would take care not to make over-generalizations from your personal experiences, and then use them to dismiss the observations of other people, which is probably the main point of my post to you. You only need to see the number of Galaxy Notes on the streets to see the popularity of the stylus input in the CJK region. It may be that text input is usually done on keypad systems (such as T9), or keyboard systems (such as Quick or CJ), but there is a certain attractiveness of stylus-based input there that you simply don't see in N.America or W.Europe for example.

Re:this is ridiculous

[farble1670]

I agree it's redonculous. Why would samsung want to do that?

ummm. more money?
samung sees google making money on software / services. samsung wants that money. no company likes to see other companies "eating their lunch" so to speak.

Re:this is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the last ones would be Apple and Microsoft. They've been actively cooperating with the US gov

Re:this is ridiculous

[Zontar The Mindless]

Forgot to add: "Good day, Sir/Ma'am/Fido!"

TFTFY. :D

Re:this is ridiculous

[Zontar The Mindless]

I think my personal experiences in several of China's largest cities and knowing quite a few Chinese with a high level of education have some validity.

I can certainly understand the attractiveness of a stylus--I am considering buying a Wacom tablet (or whatever they're calling those now--last time I owned one was ca. 1999) for just that reason.

I'd also like to point out that pinyin doesn't take tones into account.

And I agree that Cantonese Romanisation varies widely. A big reason for this being that the central government suppressed all the regional Han languages ("dialects"? who are you trying to kid?) for many years and permitted little or no publishing or broadcasting in anything other than *Mandarin* Chinese until fairly recently.

For bonus points, learn to write Hanzi left-handed, as I do. Talk about something that flips most Chinese people out when they see me do it... :)

Re:this is ridiculous

[Zontar The Mindless]

So does Android.

(My partner has an iPhone 5, BTW, but she still prefers pinyin.)

Pinyin is not nearly as slow as people make it out to be. Google Pinyin in particular is very good at providing choices based on context, and recognises phrases. If I type "wotingshuo" and then hit the 1 or Enter key, I get just what you'd expect.

Which I cannot reproduce here thanks to antediluvian/full-retard Slashcode. So you will just have to take my word for it, I guess.

I also question the premise that handwriting is faster than typing. I can certainly type much faster than I can write with a pen, and this is true for me whether I'm using Latin, Cyrillic, or Hanzi characters. "wo [I]" is 7 pen strokes or 2 keystrokes. "zou [walk]" is 7 pen strokes or 3 keystrokes. Even if you count an extra keystroke for each character (to select from the pick-list), I find that's a lot fewer keystrokes, and they tend to be much faster. I can type "wozoulu1huijia1"--15 keystrokes--much faster than I can make the 43 pen strokes needed to write out the Hanzi for "I'm walking home". This is also true in English--16 keystrokes for "I'm walking home" vs 31 pen strokes for writing it by hand.

For an operator of even moderate proficiency, the keyboard is very likely to be faster, regardless of language/character set.

Re:this is ridiculous

[iserlohn]

Pinyin uses marks to indicate tones. You might not use it for computer input and it's also widely omitted on signs but it's a part of the system and is important to note.

Cantonese romanization standardization.. well it's a complicated story - as even the Hong Kong Government couldn't standardize on one romanization scheme. A lot of it is history, as the HK Gov uses a historical standard to romanize place name and personal names, and the system works very well at this level. A legacy of British rule so to speak. This system, however, is useless when you want to romanize Cantonese in texts.

Genetic affinity for left-handedness does exist on one side of my family. My aunt, for example, is left-handed and writes Chinese with her left hand from a small age. I can't, (well I can, but it's ugly), write Chinese with my left hand, nor English, Japanese or French for that matter. In any case, I fail to see how this relates to our conversation on the subject matter as a whole. Personally though, I do wish you well on your studies.

Re:this is ridiculous

[St.Creed]

Hmm.. okay. Good points.

In any case: in no way does anyone absolutely need a stylus for any form of input. I guess that argument is now officially moot :)

Because we all know ..

[OhANameWhatName]

.. how well platform divergence works. In a few years we could have the choice between a dozen different mobile operating systems! Hellelujah

Re:Because we all know ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if you're being serious or sarcastic, but I for one would seriously welcome a dozen different mobile operating systems. Competition is a good thing. I don't want one platform to rule them all, but several platforms with standards for interoperability.

Re:Because we all know ..

[Anonymous Coward]

In the real world, you have *either* competition *or* interoperability.

Re:Because we all know ..

[ozmanjusri]

Now that's just bullshit.

It's always been the monopolists who've refused to interoperate. They want to lock people to their systems.

Re:Because we all know ..

[Zontar The Mindless]

In the real world, you are an idiot.

Re:Because we all know ..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's the company in the lead with a particular technology that refuses to interoperate.

Google talk is the perfect example here –they were way behind microsoft in terms of people using their service, so they used an open standard, that interoperated well with all the other jabber clients out there – it wasn't much, but it gave them a start in their user base.

As soon as they got into a situation where tons of people were using their service (because of android), suddenly they drop the open protocol and close it down.

For the same reason Google maps and search are closed. For the same reason, google chose an open basis for android, and for the same reason they're slowly closing bits of android (starting with the SDK licensing change for example).

Companies in the lead close things down; companies catching up use open things to do so.

Good.

[ozmanjusri]

That's a great benefit of competition in an open platform. If Samsung's good enough, to usurp Google, then customers of both will benefit.

MS/Apple style lockin is what's to be feared, not good healthy competition.

Re:Good.

[Thanshin]

That's a great benefit of competition in an open platform. If Samsung's good enough, to usurp Google, then customers of both will benefit.

Actually. Even if Samsung isn't good enough, customers will still benefit. Competition, even if it's only remotely fair, is still much better than monopoly.

The added benefit of competition on an open platform is that customers aren't the only ones to benefit. The faster improvement of the platform improves the shared knowledge and raises the starting point of any future effort to improve.

Closing platforms should be punished with a "purposefully resisting the technological improvement of humanity" tax.

Re:Good.

[thegarbz]

Yes and no, because what customers really don't need right now is another under appreciated app store. Or do we really want to go down the road where apps start costing a small fortune because every developer has to fork out $30 to every manufacturer for the privilege of listing their app in yet another store?

Re:Good.

[Zontar The Mindless]

This is the same as the very tired "Linux fragmentation" arguments we've all seen and heard before.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux fragmentation has been an issue with servers, but it's undoubtedly been a big factor with the lack of Linux of the desktop, beyond IT personnel and Linux enthusiasts.

Re:Good.

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL yeah because it's not like Telecoms don't lock you in...oh wait....

Re:Good.

[tlhIngan]

Yes and no, because what customers really don't need right now is another under appreciated app store. Or do we really want to go down the road where apps start costing a small fortune because every developer has to fork out $30 to every manufacturer for the privilege of listing their app in yet another store?

Ironically, it's what led to the popularity of the Apple App Store. The concept isn't new - app stores have been around before (Xbox Live Marketplace, on the original Xbox, and Steam, for example, both have been around longer).

But even dumb featurephones have had apps - they usually had a java section where you play some preloaded games and buy more. Of course, the real issue becomes that an app developer has to negotiate with various carriers to carry their app, and even then, it would only run on some phones.

That's why developers flocked to the Apple App Store - one place to sell apps on all phones, no need to negotiate with AT&T (at the time) to do business, or other carriers worldwide. Instead, they just deal with Apple (whose terms were far better as well) and it was available worldwide.

Most of the big guys in the mobile app genre (Glu, etc) rapidly abandoned their old business because it was much easier to deal with Apple and appear on iPhones worldwide than to deal with 100 individual carriers and 10s of phones on each.

Of course, Samsung also commands like 80% of the Android marketshare (note - while the popular flagships like the S3 and S4 are the largest proportion of them, they're still only about 10-15% of phones Samsung sells. Given how many phones Samsung makes, the sales drift that way - something like for every S3 or S4 sold, Samsung sells 8 other Android phones).

And Samsung is aggressively pushing for developers as well - they've been heavily promoting a 0% take for indie developers. Yes, 0%.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Devs already pay $100 / year for the i store. Some other stores, realizing how little bandwidth and server space is actually used, only charge one time fees.

Also, how is this any different? Currently devs can target: 3 major living-room consoles, 2 hand held consoles, 2 major desktop OSes, and 3 "mobile" OSes. One console's subscription fee is like $10k or more!

Re:Good.

[Zontar The Mindless]

Get back to us when you've accounted for massive preloading/marketing/lockin and then we'll talk about "fragmentation".

Won't say it's impossible...

[yellowcord]

Don't think it's too likely in the near future though. They now have the S4 Play Edition so I'm not sure that Samsung will be ditching andoid any time soon. I think they could make a go at it but without the Play ecosystem they'd basically be back to square one and be back with BlackBerry and Windows Phone for apps.

Re:Won't say it's impossible...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Don't think it's too likely in the near future though. They now have the S4 Play Edition so I'm not sure that Samsung will be ditching andoid any time soon. I think they could make a go at it but without the Play ecosystem they'd basically be back to square one and be back with BlackBerry and Windows Phone for apps.

What? that Samsung will end it's symbiotic relationship with Google and turn it into an antagonistic one by becoming a Google rival? Isn't that what Google did to Apple? They abandoned their symbiotic relationship with Apple and used Eric Schmidt's position as an Apple board member to become a competitor in the Mobile market. Why shouldn't Samsung take that lesson to heart, realise that to a large extent Android's success is the same thing as the success of Samsung products and leverage that position to hijack Android. If they are really are the driving force behind Android profits then they can simply fork Android, they can easily set up their own rival to the Play ecosystem and marginalise who'd be stuck with a fragmented landscape of struggling Android device manufacturers.

Re:Won't say it's impossible...

[Anonymous Coward]

One or the major reasons they did that was simply due to the control over the platform.

If they felt like it, they could ban G-services / G-ads overnight or make it inconvenient like the current maps -- you have to copy-paste addresses into the Gmaps application; people will get lazy and stop using g-maps.

Think about it now: the ads on the i-platform *must* go through APL and they take their own cut.

Re:Won't say it's impossible...

[Tough Love]

They abandoned their symbiotic relationship with Apple and used Eric Schmidt's position as an Apple board member to become a competitor in the Mobile market.

Wow, that's some major respin. The way I heard it, they bought a startup named "Android" and used it to become a competitor in the Mobile market. Google did this because Apple planned to take the smartphone advertising market for itself, which you didn't need to be on Apple's board to know.

One other point

[willoughby]

I can pop the back of a Galaxy S4, slide in a microSD memory card & replace the battery - all without tools. That's why the Samsung phones have become the default geek Android phones (well, that & they are also easily rooted) even more-so than the latest Nexus devices. With the latest quad-core devices having enough power to run Touch-Wiz seamlessly (from what I've seen in-store, anyway) they are very nice out-of-box, even without root.

Re:One other point

[pherthyl]

>> With the latest quad-core devices having enough power to run Touch-Wiz seamlessly

You know your software is a bloated piece of shit when...

Re:One other point

[willoughby]

Point taken, & I agree. If it was mine, I'd rom it to Cyanogenmod. But my point was that... well I think you know my point. Anyway... good shot!

Re:One other point

[rudy_wayne]

With the latest quad-core devices having enough power to run Touch-Wiz seamlessly (from what I've seen in-store, anyway) they are very nice out-of-box, even without root.

If your phone needs a quad core CPU . . . .WTF?

Re:One other point

[Zelos]

And when did core count replace MHz as the standard marketing-speak meaningless processor comparison?

Re:One other point

[thegarbz]

Not bloated just poorly written. It doesn't really have many features either useful or useless that aren't present in any other interface.

I don't think the Quad core is what make Touch-Wiz finally run smoothly. I think they just finally got it running somewhat better. Remember this is a company who rolled their own file system for the original Samsung Galaxy S which was so slow that Android often thought Apps which were writing to the disk were locked up and offered to force close them.

Re:One other point

[symbolset]

It takes up most of the storage on the device.

Re:One other point

[AmiMoJo]

It runs fine on my old Galaxy S, it's not bloated. What 4 cores are useful for is multitasking. My GS3 doesn't slow down when I'm installing or updating apps in the background. I can have lots of widgets without any noticeable performance loss. Everything is snappy and immediate.

Re:One other point

[Rockoon]

Not bloated just poorly written.

Well that depends on whose point of view, doesnt it?

I see a trend where 'doing the same thing' is a lot slower than it used to be in the desktop world, but the meaning of 'the same thing' is based on external appearances. When you look under the hood there is a lot more abstraction than their used to be, but thats not done arbitrarily. For instance, the rise of dynamic XML-based configuration, data, and scripting formats is a long term cost saving measure that really murders performance. Poorly written with regards to the end user, but not so poorly written with regards to the developer/publisher.

The effect is felt very heavily in certain video games, which now take unbelievable amounts of time loading data (ex: the entire game is 6 GB in disk, the drive can peak at about 100MB/sec, yet it takes 60 seconds just to get to the main menu and then another 90 to 180 getting into the game)

Re:One other point

[rwise2112]

I don't think the Quad core is what make Touch-Wiz finally run smoothly

It definitely isn't. I've got touchwiz (custom ROM) running on an underclocked dual core phone, and it's silky smooth.

Re:One other point

[Anonymous Coward]

>> (well, that & they are also easily rooted)

You are exactly who Samsung and Google do not care about or really want as customers since you do not use the services that make them the real money.

Re:One other point

[Sloppy]

Interesting that "installing or updating apps" has become a CPU-bound thing, so that more CPUs or cores makes it significantly faster. I normally think of those kinds of activities as being something where your Amiga's single-core 7 MHz 68000 is mostly idle, just waiting for the disk or network I/O.

It's great that my next phone will be quad-core, but I damn well expect it to be using those cores to work on complicated pipelines. If I see more than 10% CPU use on "updating apps" then I'm going to be a bit disappointed.

Re:One other point

[AmiMoJo]

When you install an Android app it does pre-compilation of Java code, which is CPU intensive. It does however mean that the app loads and executes quickly, and you get it custom compiled for your device's CPU architecture.

They are moving Android faster

[SuperKendall]

Samsung is doing a better job of improving Android than Google is. Even though Google shipped hardware with BTLE, Samsung was the first company to offer libraries that actually let you use BTLE with Android!

I think at some point soon Samsung will take over where Android is heading, or just veer off with it's own version of Android entirely. And I'm not sure Android will be the worse for it.

I've also admired the custom work Amazon has done with Android. They had multi-user on the Fire before Google announced support for it.

Re:They are moving Android faster

[Anonymous Coward]

That's where I see Samsung going. They will eventually fully fork Android, like Amazon or B&N.

Re:They are moving Android faster

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you think so, Apple shill.

Re:They are moving Android faster

[serviscope_minor]

Even though Google shipped hardware with BTLE, Samsung was the first company to offer libraries that actually let you use BTLE with Android!

And you know the fucked up thing about all of that? Linux has supported BTLE since pretty much its inception. On any standard Linux box you can open up a socket to a BTLE device in about 4 lines of code, most of which is identical to standard socket code.

That said, the BlueZ userland is useless. Fortunately you don't have to use it.

Re:They are moving Android faster

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you think so, Apple shill.

Of course you don't think so Android shill.

Wait!

[multiben]

Let me get some popcorn. This is going to be a good debate with lots of well rounded and rational arguments.

Re:Wait!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark Penn, the former Clinton-family political operative who developed Microsoft’s Google-baiting “Don’t Get Scroogled” campaign, got a hefty promotion in the latest reorganization.

Re:Wait!

[AmiMoJo]

I think you will find Apple has patented rounded debates, which is why you never see them any more.

Uh, no, at least for tablets ...

[perpenso]

Look at the Samsung tablets, 7 inch tablets are 1024 x 600 pixel, larger tablets are 1280 x 800. Serious, a 10 inch tablet with 1280 x 800. No, Samsung is not competitive at all today.

Strangle the Google Nexus 10 is 2560 x 1600 and its made by Samsung.

Re:Uh, no, at least for tablets ...

[perpenso]

Strangle the Google Nexus 10 is 2560 x 1600 and its made by Samsung.

That should be "Strangely".

That's an odd typo. I thought "strangely" and typed "strangle". I'm in a good mood and the Nexus 10 is my favorite Android tablet, I mean it no harm. :-)

Re:Uh, no, at least for tablets ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Strangle the Google Nexus 10 is 2560 x 1600 and its made by Samsung.

Do you happen to be married with children, perhaps?

Rival, yes. Biggest, no.

[Intropy]

Samsung competes with Motorola, a side business of Android, one of Google's side businesses. Google has far bigger rivals in Microsoft's Bing and Facebook. Samsung sells a lot of phones, which is just what Google wants. It may be a version tarted up with a bunch of crapware, but it's still Android, and it's still funneling people into Google's web suite.

Re:Rival, yes. Biggest, no.

[mrchew1982]

"it's still funneling people into Google's web suite." And that my friends is all that Google should care about. It's their stated mission for Android, so it's a win-win situation. Google purchased Motorolla for PATENTS, not because they wanted to start making money selling phones. If Google is smart they will use the Moto phones to roll out new features that users want but manufacturers are leary of. It should work well for them to use that brand to set a baseline Android experience, much as they've done with the nexus series. Hell, if they haven't complained about amazon building their own app store (and conveniently leaving Play out) I really don't think that they care much about what direction Android takes, as long as it continues to use Google search and display Google Ads.

Re:Rival, yes. Biggest, no.

[gl4ss]

motorola mobility had shit all none of good patents left... it was destined for burn.

anyhow, they did complain about things like amazon did.. but they could only bitch. since then there has been minor changes to android rules to address this.

Google make Money from Advertising Space

[tuppe666]

Unless Samsung become an advertising company, Google has nothing to fear from Samsung becoming completely independent from google. Googles main rivals is Facebook and maybe Amazon and that is not going to change any time soon.

In fact maybe slightly off topic its interesting to note that Google Chromecast is a dirt-cheap wireless video dongle that streams Netflix a company I thought of as direct competitive with Google Play

Re:Google make Money from Advertising Space

[thegarbz]

Unless Samsung become an advertising company, Google has nothing to fear from Samsung becoming completely independent from google.

That's short sighted. A company should always fear when a hundred million potential customers are no longer funnelled through Google services. If they split from the Google Play store and partnered with a different search engine / data provider then I believe Google would really take notice.

Re:Google make Money from Advertising Space

[gl4ss]

Chromecasts main use case is with androids.

they should have just called it AndroidCast or AC-plug for short.

Re:Google make Money from Advertising Space

[MachineShedFred]

Google may have nothing to fear from Samsung, but Samsung probably isn't happy with having to compete with their OS vendor for hardware sales (Motorola Mobility). Google wins either way - it's a set of eyes looking at Google advertising. Samsung only gets paid if the device the eyes are looking at says "Samsung" on the bezel.

Windows PC manufacturers almost had the same problem from Microsoft with Surface, except that Microsoft's offering was (is) so botched from the beginning that it was only an issue until the first non-NDA non-shill review was published.

Re:Google make Money from Advertising Space

[quacking duck]

Main use case != only use case.

Unlike "AppleTV", Google actually wants Chromecast used by as many platforms as possible, not just Android. Obviously there's advertising hooks in anything that passes through it so they can properly monetize it and keep the device itself cheap.

And Chrome is now the most popular desktop browser in much of the world. Limiting it to Android (or implying that limit) doesn't make sense.

Re:Google make Money from Advertising Space

[Tough Love]

Samsung truly does not care about Google's own-brand phones, because it outsells them by a large multiple. Google's phones are more like "concept cars", they showcase new OS features and set the hardware standard, to Samsung's benefit.

Re:Google make Money from Advertising Space

[MachineShedFred]

That's the state of things now.

Who's to say that the next Nexus phone starts picking up all the current Galaxy customers, because they put a feature on it that Samsung's customers can't get from Samsung?

(Insert patent violation joke here)

Samdroid

[otuz]

I wouldn't count out the possibility of Samsung's Android diverging from the other Android. That'd leave the rest with whatever Google releases and Samsung providing their own, separate stuff and exclusive third-party apps.

S3 still run android 4.1.2

[Anonymous Coward]

They do terrible work with Android actually.

Firstly it is bloated with crapware. TouchWiz, Samsung Apps, Even Antivirus.

Secondly they do terrible job in keeping the software up to date. S3, what used to be their flagship a month ago is still running 4.1.2.

Re:S3 still run android 4.1.2

[tlambert]

S3, what used to be their flagship a month ago is still running 4.1.2.

This is an incredibly dumb argument.

(1) How does updating a phone you've already paid for to the latest OS sell more phones, if you don't need a new phone to get the latest OS?

(2) How does updating an old phone lock you into the carrier for another 18 months so that the carrier is willing to subsidize the cost, instead of you just letting your updated phone fall off contract, and then go pay-as-you-go, or contract with the cheapest carrier, which isn't the one that subsidized your phone?

(3) How do they monetize to pay the development costs, which might be better spent on newer hardware, since yours already works?

(4) How do they monetize to pay the FCC and other regulatory recertifications, since an SDR is defined as a combination of software and hardware, for certification purposes?

(5) How do they monetize to pay for the the carrier qual process, especially if you won't end up locked back into the carrier?

It's good money after bad, and what's actually pissing you off is that you don't get new software for your old phone, and YOU get to pay the monetization costs, even if they are a break-even, by having a carrier contract with termination fees so that these things get paid, even if you decide you don't like your carrier.

Re:S3 still run android 4.1.2

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good money after bad, and what's actually pissing you off is that you don't get new software for your old phone, and YOU get to pay the monetization costs, even if they are a break-even, by having a carrier contract with termination fees so that these things get paid, even if you decide you don't like your carrier.

Actually I am not even an S3 owner, but I find it completely disrespectful for the owners that they don't have the option to upgrade their software to the latest release. Hell, even Apple is better than them at this.

Re:S3 still run android 4.1.2

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're just a know-nothing tosser.

Re: S3 still run android 4.1.2

[CadentOrange]

So how does Apple do it? The iPhone 3gs released in 2009 can run the latest iOS 6.

Re:S3 still run android 4.1.2

[gl4ss]

They do terrible work with Android actually.

Firstly it is bloated with crapware. TouchWiz, Samsung Apps, Even Antivirus.

Secondly they do terrible job in keeping the software up to date. S3, what used to be their flagship a month ago is still running 4.1.2.

hey dumbster, care to list anything that they've added after 4.1.2 that you have use for?

besides, they're doing better work than google owned motorola in that regard.

Where are the Samsung Apps?

[tuppe666]

Samsung is doing a better job of improving Android than Google is.

Except its interesting to note that Samsung have started offering Google Play Edition Phone due to demand for it. HTC has also a Google Play edition.

Where are the Samsungs compelling first party Apps? A quick search on Google Play https://play.google.com/store/search?q=samsung&c=apps shows a couple of nice Applications to use with your Samsung smart tv and nothing else. Google Inc is a different story https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Google+Inc.

Re:Where are the Samsung Apps?

[AmiMoJo]

Most of Samsung's apps are only available through their own app store that comes with their phones. Naturally they have no interest in offering them on other phones via Play, otherwise they wouldn't be exclusive any more.

Having said that I don't use any of them except for S Beam. I'm basically agreeing with your point, just saying that your comparison is flawed and doesn't necessarily reflect the popularity of Samsung apps.

Ardiod faster

[Nicolelife]

Samsung is doing a better job of improving Android than Google is. Even though Google shipped hardware with BTLE, Samsung was the first company to offer libraries that actually let you use BTLE with Android! I think at some point soon Samsung will take over where Android is heading, or just veer off with it's own version of Android entirely. And I'm not sure Android will be the worse for it. I've also admired the custom work Amazon has done with Android. They had multi-user on the Fire before Google announced support for it.

Re:Ardiod faster

[Anonymous Coward]

That really worked for Barnes and Noble when they crippled android for the Nook color and tablet.

Choice

[tuppe666]

As more features are added to new versions of Android from Google it takes longer for Samsung to merge its changes into that new version

Why? I hate to say it but as a programmer, I would find it shocking if there is not a massive move towards making sure that as little work as possible is needed in making sure that Samsung changes are not trivial to apply.

I find it even more surprising considering that Android is pretty modular in the interface, You can swap all interface elements, many are sold in their play store I own several.

I find it even more surprising again In fact Google is moving most of their first party applications out of the core OS, making it easy to update whatever version of Android you are running.

Re:Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

It becomes a balancing act of avoiding difficulty while differentiating their offerings. In the end it is all about money. Currently they are simply stomping the competition so it isn't a real issue, but if they start to need to fight to hold their market share things could rapidly change.

Re:Choice

[AmiMoJo]

One of the big new featured rumoured for the next version of Android, Key Lime Pie, is that it will support skinning by manufacturers that the user can turn off. You will be able to flip back and forth between stock Android and the manufacturer's skin.

In fact you can pretty much do that today in fact. There are basically two major components to an Android skin. You have the graphical changes which are usually fairly minor, just different colours and some slightly altered icons here and there. Then you have the manufacturer's custom launcher (home screen) which is easy to replace with the stock one, no rooting required as it is a fully supported Android feature.

Remember that Google's goal is to get people using their services. The more users the more money they make. From that point of view it makes sense to split the apps out of the core OS (as they always have been, it's nothing new) so that even users without the very latest OS revision can get most of the new features through ordinary app updates.

Note also that Samsung offers a version of the GS4 running stock Android, supported by Google. The idea that these two are going to fight it out is ridiculous - Samsung relies on Google for Android updates and features, Google gets a lot of sales and the most popular Android handsets from Samsung. Manufacturers have always included exclusive features in their phones to differentiate themselves from the competition, and Google knew they would and helped facilitate them. Diversity is seen as a good thing. Only Apple fans care about what they see as fragmentation, while everyone else sees it as choice and innovation driving the market forwards.

Re:Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't find it surprising at all. I think it's a sad necessity for them. There are still tons of phones being shipped running Android 2.X variants, especially on the prepaid MNVO carriers. That and many manufacturers/carriers just want to shift units and couldn't care less about keeping those phones up to date. Moving all the first party apps out of the OS and in to the PlayStore gives Google back a modicum of control.

Re:Choice

[greg1104]

Samsung has an inescapable problem. If they make their additions to the phone small enough to apply easily to upstream Android, they won't have a distinct enough offering to really distinguish from stock Android. If they modify their platform with a lot of large changes, now they have a hard merge problem as new upstream Android releases come out.

If you are consuming an upstream software distribution, you have to innovate faster than they do in order to produce something really different that is still useful. So far Samsung seems to have navigated that well enough to satisfy customers, with only some complaints about slow upstream merges. But they'll always be facing this problem where serious innovation will fork Google's Android so much that they're stuck with a lot more R&D work to support the result.

The whole reason Android has become successful is that Google has so far done a good job at that task, something no phone hardware vendor was handling before (except Apple). The idea that Samsung will succeed in outperforming Google here, that's an idea that seems to ignore the battered trail of competitors like Nokia, Blackberry, and Motorola. Building a successful phone platform is a much harder problem than any phone hardware manufacturer faces; Google has managed it; and Samsung is going to need a lot of good luck to compete directly at that job.

Re:Choice

[greg1104]

Having control over the Play Store is the key element to keeping security exploits from being a nightmare, since phone hardware vendors are clearly not ever going to do software updates well. But if you can block the main way seriously bad malware gets onto the system in the first place--installing rogue apps--you can limit the damage.

Re:Choice

[rmstar]

Samsung has an inescapable problem [...] The idea that Samsung will succeed in outperforming Google here, that's an idea that seems to ignore the battered trail of competitors like Nokia, Blackberry, and Motorola.

Well, Samsung is an immense company by any measure, dwarfing Nokia, Blackberry, Motorola, and even Apple. It is the company that had pockets deep enough (and the brains to go with it) to snatch a large share from the smartphone market from Apple. It is the company that had a warchest big enough to enagage (and win!) a very messy IP war against a well entrenched Apple.

I'd say the aren't many inescapable problems for Samsung.

Re:Choice

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact you can pretty much do that today in fact

Do you work for the Department of Redundancy Department?

Re:Choice

[bingoUV]

Samsung has an inescapable problem. If they make their additions to the phone small enough to apply easily to upstream Android, they won't have a distinct enough offering to really distinguish from stock Android. If they modify their platform with a lot of large changes, now they have a hard merge problem as new upstream Android releases come out.

Written from a very poor understanding of Software.

Making software "distinct enough offering to really distinguish from" some other software, does not need changes not "small enough to apply easily". Especially on code as well modularized as Android.

Any software professional worth his salt can make very little, maintainable changes to make vast differences in usability of software.

I still have my bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

On microsoft. It's just a bit slow to being widely adopted.

Re:I still have my bets...

[Anonymous Coward]

On microsoft. It's just a bit slow to being widely adopted.

Yeah, the Surface 3 tablet will be pretty popular.

Re:I still have my bets...

[Zontar The Mindless]

On microsoft. It's just a bit slow to being widely adopted.

Isn't that a bit like saying the dead parrot is merely tired after a long squawk?

Re:I still have my bets...

[St.Creed]

No, it's a bit like saying the dead parrot is pining for the fjords :)

Except its been seen running 4.3

[tuppe666]

http://www.ibtimes.com/android-43-update-nears-samsung-galaxy-s3-leaked-photo-shows-device-running-googles-new-os-1355843 It looks like it will be running 4.3 in future skipping 4.2.2

Re:Except its been seen running 4.3

[Anonymous Coward]

A year too late..

Re:Except its been seen running 4.3

[Anonymous Coward]

*Will* be running.

It *still runs* 4.1.2. Almost a year after 4.2 has been released.

Samsung competing with Google

[rossdee]

Samsung has a search engine?

Yes I know they have an App Store , I don't use it (for my Galaxy Tab 2) or the Google one - I use Amazon since I already have an account there

Re:Samsung competing with Google

[Frankie70]

Are all (or atleast most) of free apps on Google store available on the Samsung store also.

They won't fork it

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll replace the core O/S with something like Tizen where they will have greater control over its operation.
Then once they build an even more dominant position they will put up their own walls to keep all their disciples locked in.

Re:They won't fork it

[SuperKendall]

They'll replace the core O/S with something like Tizen

People keep saying that but I don't think Samsung wants to give up on the app support AND widespread developer support Android gives them. They would much rather extend Android in a number of premium ways and get developers to use the Samsung specific extensions they are offering. It's way easier to do that then to get developers to port a whole app to Tizen.

Re:They won't fork it

[bloodhawk]

I think you are not understanding just how much Samsung dominate not just the smartphone market but the android space. If they fork change then the devs will more than likely follow, especially if they make it a relatively easy and seamless process.

Re:They won't fork it

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They'll need Google Maps or something of similar quality to compete.

Re:They won't fork it

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung have money, Google don't even make the best mapping software for phones, there are multiple options out there for them.

Re:They won't fork it

[oh_my_080980980]

You mean Java developers. Google used Java developers. Samsung can do the same.

Re:They won't fork it

[west]

If they're smart, they'll let Google continue to pay for updating Android, but demand a percentage of sales (or a set fee per handset) to keep using Android. The whole point of being the dominant retailer is to take the manufacturer's profits, and leave them with the expenses. Samsung should spend just enough on Tizen to make it a plausible threat (including releasing the occasional Tizen phone), and not a penny more.

Re:They won't fork it

[SuperKendall]

If they fork change then the devs will more than likely follow

For a market that's smaller than Windows Phone (samsung only devices and only newer ones at that)? I don't think so. Developers only target Android now because of a huge device space, even though they make less money than with iOS development. There's no reason to think they would make MORE money on Samsung devices, and the device count is far smaller than Android as a whole.

Samsung Microsoft Phones

[tuppe666]

On microsoft. It's just a bit slow to being widely adopted.

Nokia announced they sell 80% of Windows phones, Which occupy 4% of the Smartphone market. Its probably safe to assume the other 1% is not taken up by samsung Microsoft phones, but even if it is. Its not looking like a viable alternative for Samsung any time soon.

Moving Toward Stock Android Not Away

[tuppe666]

http://www.androidcentral.com/google-play-edition-htc-one-galaxy-s4 Its interesting that the article points out how Samsung is moving away from Stock Android, but fails to point out that they are offering stock android as an option, because people desire just that, and they are not the only company doing so.

Re:Moving Toward Stock Android Not Away

[zyzko]

It is still Samsung who is providing the updates. Sure, you can unlock the phone more easily and put Cyanogenmod on it, but if you want "supported" OS it is still yet to be seen if Samsung updates the Play Edition or not. But choice is good, from reading reviews; would I buy an "Play edition S4" - probably not (battery life is actually worse, getting rid of TouchWiz doesn't give any real peformance boost, extra camera goodies are gone), and when the manufacturer version reaches it's end-of-life and you have to put Cyanogenmod on it to get to the newest stuff there probably exists an unlock hack for the bootloader anyway. If you wan't to unlock the phone from day 1 of course the story is different.

Why "fix" what isn't broken?

[nullchar]

Why would Samsung want to create it's own appstore when it can leverage Google's to sell more devices?

Re:Why "fix" what isn't broken?

[GigaplexNZ]

They already have. My S4 came with both Google Play and Samsung Apps. Samsung Apps didn't seem to recognise that I already had some apps installed via Google Play and offered to install them again.

Re:Why "fix" what isn't broken?

[radarskiy]

There is a primitive but common sort of capitalist that thinks that money that some other entity earns is a loss to themselves. They are blind to the existence of complementary goods, and they make the baby Adam Smith cry.

Except its not

[tuppe666]

A year too late..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history A quick look shows 4.1.2 only released October last year. 4.2.2 was released in February.

Samsung plan on skipping a version. I am not sure I am against that strategy, and could see a whole host of reasons why they would do so.

Re:Except its not

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. 9 months to be precise. I don't know about you, but I would be really pissed off if I had an S3 and was forced to wait that long to get all the new goodies.

Re:Except its not

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowhere did he say that they were losing money. BUt its obvious that only samsung makes any "real money" and leaving the rest to fight for scraps. But hey.. trolls like you never seem to embrace facts so why start now..

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-16/google-makes-android-but-samsung-makes-all-the-money

Also nice deflection about nokia which had nothing to do with android phones. I guess you have to bash anyone who is not paying you. You would be a truly valuable asset on any politicians payroll..

Samsung still a popular tablet maker

[tuppe666]

I'm not sure I agree http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24093213 Samsung is the most popular tablet maker after Apple with about 15% of the market...and rising(flat this quarter). Whether it deserves it is another matter.

Samsung apps are on Samsung devices.

[SuperKendall]

Where are the Samsungs compelling first party Apps? A quick search on Google Play...

Don't they ship on Samsung devices? Why would they even be on Play?

I thought the Note came with some nice drawing/note taking apps that were unique to the system.

All of the Google apps will also work on Samsung devices... and none of them are really compelling.

Re:Samsung apps are on Samsung devices.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you admittedly don't know what you're talking about, just like spreading FUD about Android's future.

it is possible...

[houbou]

that Samsung will take it's OS to a place where it will not be mistaken for Android. I like Samsung in that they don't always get it right the first time, but they do try hard. And I've had little gems of products such as the 32GB media player yp-p3 media player which was utterly brillant in every aspect. Superior playback, great support of various audio and video codecs and serious next level audio playback features truly designed for serious musicians.

No touch wiz

[goombah99]

When I pee I use the no-touch system.

Re: No touch wiz

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's patented! Hope you know a good I pee lawyer...

Re:No touch wiz

[turp182]

So you're the guy that gets the floor wet by the urinal... (seriously, who is always peeing outside the urinal boundaries???)

Re:No touch wiz

[Anonymous Coward]

That is Cindy Crawford that is. She hovers over the seat so that she does not touch and obtain AIDS.

Re:No touch wiz

[GoogleShill]

(seriously, who is always peeing outside the urinal boundaries???)

Even worse, what kind of guy skips the urinal and pees all over the sit down toilet instead? I've seen guys do this even when every urinal is available.

Re:No touch wiz

[Jmc23]

Those aren't real people. That's just god messing with you because he knows it annoys you!

Re:No touch wiz

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're the guy that gets the floor wet by the urinal... (seriously, who is always peeing outside the urinal boundaries???)

Now, there's a job for the NSA!

Moto X

[tuppe666]

motorola mobility had shit all none of good patents left... it was destined for burn.

...but Google own a hardware manufacturing company capable of generating more patents, and those will not be squandered on Frand patents this time. That is ignoring the fact they still have literally thousand of patents to Mine...and thousands more pending.

As for it being destined to burn. I think Motorola have finally Generated interest around their *assembled in America*(A mistake Apple have made) Moto X that the CEO has been flashing around being launched in just a few days. If its as cheap (and close to stock) as many are hoping including me. Motorola are back in the game. It looks to have some fun features like it being more aware. It knows your driving a car etc and it will use two separate processors to help improve battery life.

The big deal is Google is expected to spend US$500 million in marketing the Moto X so it looks like they have a product they believe in.

Re:Moto X

[gl4ss]

marketing budget hasn't been motorolas failure in the past.
what I meant with destined to burn was that for almost a decade they had been chopping parts off it - ever since sales of the razr faded.
and frankly rest of the world doesn't really give a damn about manufactured/assembled in usa(or not) - in fact that has been one of the major downfalls of the whole motorola mobile phones venture, acting like usa was the world market - like it was the only market that mattered.

but it is not, Nokias downfall started 6 months after they "Focused on USA". LG & others have made similar fails, focusing on doing custom sw to please usa operators while their androids were sitting on 2.0 and the rest of the world(galaxies) had gone 2.3. Go world or go Home. Samsung forte was that they didn't stop running(stop their releases) to customize too much for operators(who have no fucking idea what they actually want so it's time lost anyways).

Thought is not good enough

[tuppe666]

I thought the Note came with some nice drawing/note taking apps that were unique to the system.

Hold on you announced "Samsung is doing a better job of improving Android than Google is." and now you can barely list any improvements that Samsung bring.

Android is about its killer First Party Applications, Even your precious Apple is lost without them. Microsoft is screaming anti trust without them. I wouldn't buy a phone without them.

Samsung bring a few nice touches to its custom android *interface*, that is worlds apart from replacing Google on custom Android.

Re:Thought is not good enough

[SuperKendall]

Hold on you announced "Samsung is doing a better job of improving Android than Google is." and now you can barely list any improvements that Samsung bring.

They were in my original message. Try reading.

Apps are not an improvement to the CORE OS you moron. I'm talking about features apps can be built on, not apps themselves!

It's the cloud man.

[goombah99]

It's interesting that Google is pulling the same trick Apple did with regard to reducing ports and expansions. For example the new nexus 7 doesn't have HDMI out even though all its major competotrs besides Ipad do. The apple solution is appleTV which, while costing a bit more, is an overall better solution aside from portability. Google just came out with chromecast which also offloads the need for a port onto a wireless device that costs extra. same scheme. Likewise, icloud is apples way of not requiring as much memory in their devices (or power for things like Siri). And google follows the same path with chrome.

Samsung can't match that. THey can toss in ports but in the long run the cloud model and the wireless model are going to win. Apple got it right and google figured that out too. Samsung is not going be building a cloud of their own on short notice. THeir only hope will be to buy or partner with someone who has a cloud (Nokia or Amazon) if they want to go toe to toe with google.

Re:It's the cloud man.

[MrDoh!]

I get the impression that the nexus devices are deliberately reduced with those sorts of features.
A) to avoid patents/licensing (which is the SD-Card thing I think B) to keep the cost as low as possible C) to give a reason for their hardware partners to produce something different, at different price points.
Some people will pay the extra for the sd-card and replaceable batteries. it's good to have that choice

Re:It's the cloud man.

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Nexus 7 *does* have HDMI out (SlimPort). The old one didn't.

Re:It's the cloud man.

[MachineShedFred]

iPad can do HDMI as well, it just requires a ridiculously priced adapter.

Re:It's the cloud man.

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Nexus 7 DOES have HDMI outIt's via the micro-USB port using a Slimport adapter (mostly passive adapter using parasitic power from the host device, unlike MHL). It is also a proper HDMI outut, unlike the one over Apple's 'lightning' connector which encodes your display as an airplay stream, outputs this to the adapter which contains a small ARM processor to decode the h.264 steam for output over HDMI. No, really, that's seriously how it actually works, encoding artefacts and all (all output is downscaled to 720p before encoding, then decoded and rescaled to whatever your chosen output resolution is). It's a Rube Goldberg adapter.

Re:It's the cloud man.

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that Samsung already had AllShare that transmits over wifi from a mobile device to a Samsung TV, Blue-Ray player or other video equipment. Samsung also makes a device that can be hooked into an HDMI port for non-Samsung TVs, Blue Ray players or other video equipment.
The Note 2 only has 2 "ports". One for headphones and a mini usb thingy (forgot what it's called). It can output to HDMI if you have the correct adapter for it, same as the ipad. The only thing Samsung doesn't have on it's own is content, but with most of those things already coming on TVs, Blue-Ray players such as Hulu, Netflix, Amazon streaming service why add it to yet another device?

Re:It's the cloud man.

[Anonymous Coward]

The new Nexus 7 has Slimport, a dual purpose micro USB port. Yes the Slimport cable is not as cheap as a HDMI cable it can connect to more than just a TV, and it can be charged at the same time when connected to an external display.

Re:It's the cloud man.

[Anonymous Coward]

You get the impression Samsung has to do this themselves. Chromecast works on most major platforms, so why would Samsung need to get into this themselves? They'll just support Miracast (which, afaik, they already do).

Samsung includes an SD card slot on most of their devices. 5GB cloud storage with a max transfer speed of 1-2MB/sec (likely less on cellular)? What a pittance. 16/32/64GB one-time purchase with 50MB/sec+ transfer speeds, PLUS you don't have to watch your bandwidth cap for your data plan, nor worry about crappy signal or roaming?

Nobody wants cloud; people are just forced or too ignorant as to the drawbacks to use it. (I have an office full of people who think that ithingy will completely back up their entire device, despite that cloud service only storing 5GB LOL)

Re:It's the cloud man.

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Samsung was all about DLNA and Miracast? Why make your own when you can use the industry standard? You stand to make alot more money using the standard by not having to deal with all the headaches of a proprietary port.

FRAND means money

[SuperKendall]

but Google own a hardware manufacturing company capable of generating more patents, and those will not be squandered on Frand patents this time.

FRAND patents are the only patents actually worth anything, because they earn you regular licensing income over a very long period of time.

All other patents are just nerf darts in a world where everyone has a pile of a million nerf darts stockpiled. You can fling them at each other all day long and in the end nothing changes, and you each have a pile of nerf darts.

Metaphorically speaking, Google doesn't even have the whistlers nor are any likely to be forthcoming from the husk of Motorola...

The big deal is Google is expected to spend US$500 million in marketing the Moto X

Which would be an excellent reason to sell GOOG, and expect Samsung to take Android for itself. Did you really think Samsung would just sit there and say Hurrah! when Google makes such a heavy push to steal sales from the Galaxy line?

FRAND vs Apple

[tuppe666]

FRAND patents are the only patents actually worth anything, because they earn you regular licensing income over a very long period of time.

Except Google is not interested in money, they are interested in advertising space. Your Apple(and Patent troll Microsoft) has abused FRAND licensing, and expecting band Android manufactures products on a few interface patents(and Microsoft Protection Money). It has been very successful for Apple

Your Apple committed a serious home goal as a Design(sic) company, as cross licensing of real technological innovation will happen behind closed doors. I get the feeling Apple is not going to invited to these back room meetings. I think we will see a lot of anti trust cases in future, with Apples abuse frandf licensing being used as an excuse.

The bottom line is Google Bought Mototrola for $12.5 Billion(ok less with tax breaks and parts sold off) its not going to worry about what it could make from a few cents cross licensing patents...when Nokia+Microsoft have set up a patent troll company, and Apple(And Microsoft) have attacked most of its OEMS.

Re: FRAND vs Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

> Except Google is not interested in money, they are interested in advertising space.

Did you actually read what you wrote?

Welcome to standards :)

[tuppe666]

In the real world, you have *either* competition *or* interoperability.

Hardware USB, SATA, HDMI, WIFI 802.11 standards
Software OpenGL ES, JAVA, HTML5

Re:Welcome to standards :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardware USB, SATA, HDMI, WIFI 802.11 standards Software OpenGL ES, JAVA, HTML5

exFAT file system driver liberated from Microsoft

"A student and programmer using the name “rxrz” has posted a large chunk of a proprietary Microsoft file-system software to GitHub, claiming that she’s liberating it for the open source world. She says that the software was leaked from Samsung,

Rxrz became interested in exFAT while trying to scratch an itch. “Basically, I just got one of those large 2TB external hard drives, and needed to share the data with my friends and family,” rxrz said in an e-mail interview. She was using Linux, but needed to share data with people on other platforms, so she decided to try to fix it. “I just felt that more people who use Linux end up in the same unfair situation all over the planet, and just don’t know that there’s a source for this driver on GitGub,” she says. “The more I have read about exFAT, the worse I felt about this whole ‘proprietary’ story.”

Microsoft’s exFAT licensing terms rankle some open-source advocates, like rxrz, who say they’re overly burdensome. “All I’ve done is given the community of open source developers and linux/android users a way to finally share data between all major OS’s without any excessive impact on the performance,” she wrote on GitHub."

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/samsung_code/

A disscusion about Samsung in mid-2013 without a

[Anonymous Coward]

word on Tizen.
Allow me to be the first to congratulate you on your victory in this year's talking-out-of-your-ass competition.
Writing off Samsung's business and R&D plans while wording lengthy articles about them, is no doubt an amazing feat of ignorance. The article is dated to the July 25, 2013, and Tizen 2.2 was released 3 days ago coupled with a massive recruitment of new developers. There was also an announcement for a Tizen smartphone release in August just two month ago.

Unbelievable.

Google purchased Motorola for $12.5 billion

[tuppe666]

Its never gets mentioned but Google get about $700m a year in tax deductions from future profits each year through 2019. It got a further set-top box business to Arris Group for $2.35bn and offloaded Motorola Home getting a 15.7 per cent or so stake in broadband technology firm Arris plus $2.05bn in cash. Some estimates put eh cost to Cost Google as low as $1.5 Billion http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/12/22/did-motorola-mobility-only-cost-google-1-5-billion/ and it got Motorola's 12.5k issued patents and 7500 patent applications.

No problem, there's Sony and LG...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and HTC, and of course Motorola.

The line is full of companies ready to take Samsung's position.
My LG L7 for example, was half the price of my wife's Samsung Galaxy ACE, and a much better phone.

Re:No problem, there's Sony and LG...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol.. nobody besides samsung is making any real money... go look it up.

android is like the kiss of death for most manufacturers

Still banging that fragmentation drum

[symbolset]

6 years on and obviously not Winning, but you're going to keep banging that drum, aren't you? Couldn't stop Android from getting top dog with this story, but still trying to find some fool to influence with it. Why don't we talk about Windows fragmentation, and all of the devices and apps left behind each version, how even Microsoft doesn't even support their own older OS with their apps and so fragments their own installed base? Or maybe Windows Phone, where 7.x apps don't even run on 8.x?

Re:Still banging that fragmentation drum

[gl4ss]

6 years on and obviously not Winning, but you're going to keep banging that drum, aren't you? Couldn't stop Android from getting top dog with this story, but still trying to find some fool to influence with it.

Why don't we talk about Windows fragmentation, and all of the devices and apps left behind each version, how even Microsoft doesn't even support their own older OS with their apps and so fragments their own installed base? Or maybe Windows Phone, where 7.x apps don't even run on 8.x?

all of my 7.x stuff works on 8.x windows phone.. that's to say that currently it's still pretty much a must to develop 7.x apps if you do windows phone and want potential audience.

that being said, I still wouldn't consider it for a daily driver, there may not be that much of fragmentation but who cares when that means that you don't have features at all. and pretty much only people doing concept apps or apps paid directly by samsung are doing apps that only work on samsung api's. it's easy enough to do the apps so that they work on older stuff as well so why not..

fragmentation wasn't that much of a problem for pc vs. amiga if you think about it, fragmentation is what made it possible to go further with hw.

Patent Protection not Patent Troll

[tuppe666]

> Except Google is not interested in money, they are interested in advertising space.

Did you actually read what you wrote?

Yes, If you don't understand that *Google* spent $12.5Billion on acquiring patents to protect Android...Its mobile platform...to deliver advertising on. Not to become a Patent Rapist like Nokiasoft.

Re:Patent Protection not Patent Troll

[gnasher719]

Yes, If you don't understand that *Google* spent $12.5Billion on acquiring patents to protect Android...Its mobile platform...to deliver advertising on. Not to become a Patent Rapist like Nokiasoft.

So why are they suing Microsoft over some shitty h.264 patents?

Re:Patent Protection not Patent Troll

[drinkypoo]

So why are they suing Microsoft over some shitty h.264 patents?

Mutually assured destruction only assures destruction. Microsoft fired the first shot. Until they demonstrate a willingness to stop shooting, I'd be returning fire as well.

Re:Patent Protection not Patent Troll

[deathguppie]

For those people unfamiliar with the patent wars. Think of it as two large spanish galions loaded with treasure recently pillaged from the new world. If they both make it home they have to share in the bounty, but if one takes the other ship. Then only one ship goes home with the plunder.

So now we have two ships circling each other firing canon at close range hoping the other will surrender or sink..

In this case MS sued Motorola, and it's actually Motorola's shitty h.264 patents you are talking about not googles... and I seriously doubt they are anywhere near as bad as the list of patents that Barnes & Nobles releases when MS went to sue them for not using Windows. Google to my knowledge has not initiated a patent war with any major company. It has however been fighting as hard as it can.

Samsung has progressively molded Android...

[Anonymous Coward]

For that I ditched it.

I could not bare with pre loaded, uninstallable extra shits

My latest is nexus4.

Samsungs Bing Phone

[tuppe666]

That's short sighted. A company should always fear when a hundred million potential customers are no longer funnelled through Google services.

Except Microsoft Scream Antitrust when Google does not put applications on their dead platform, and Apples top Applications are Google Maps+Google Youtube (they also pocket and alledged $1 Billion for having Google as default search. Android may be a platform...but google have created a platform within a platform with some incredible first party applications.

I am not saying Google should not be aware of Samsungs dominance in Android phones, but they certainly shouldn't fear them...that would be weird, but Google *never* intended to make money directly from Android..they are just in a cake and eat it situation.

Maybe they thought about it....but not anymore....

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung is still the heavyweight in Android world, but the other manufacturers are coming back. The latests shipments show Apple barely growing, Samsung nicely growing, and the others (LG, sony, chineses, ...) insanely growing. I think the dices have rolled, Android is the new microsoft for mobiles and Tablet. Apple will hold it's traditional niche (much smaller than today), unless they manage to create a new market, and others will compete on hardware, with android compatibility a prerequesite. Nokia...hum, I hope they have some android secret lab.

Comments do not Agree with figures.

[tuppe666]

The latests shipments show Apple barely growing, Samsung nicely growing

Not sure where you are getting your figures but neither of these are true IDC http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24239313 show Samsung market share flat for about forever at around 30% with a slight dip this quarter...and Apples market share plummeting to an all time low of 13% even with its better than expected iPhone sales.

Re:Comments do not Agree with figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am looking at IDC shipments, not market share. Imho it is easier to get a feeling like that, decreasing market share when the whole market is growing like crazy is a little bit misleading. Apple is not failing....but not convincing new custumers either. They are still comfortable, and will be (given their huge profit margin) as long as developers do not abandon iOS. This will eventually happen, but only when they start to actually loose a lot of installed base...or when iOS user stop buying apps...or both.
IMHO the first sign will be iOS user reducing a lot the number of apps they buy. As it seems most iOS users are in for a "long" time, this will happen soon (they have all the apps they need)...Then the Apple golden age will be over very quickly.

Re:Comments do not Agree with figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, you are quoting market share. He talks about shipments. I believe you both are right (remember this is a market that still grows insanely, it's possibly to have growth but still plummeting market share).

Except its not

[tuppe666]

lol.. nobody besides samsung is making any real money... go look it up.

android is like the kiss of death for most manufacturers

Except its not true :) In fact the reverse is true. The financial statements are out for all the major companies. Do you know how I know its true, because they continue to make phones while posting profits, and would not be able to do so at a loss...not everybody has a sugar daddy like Microsoft to subside each of your phones like Nokia :) and still make a loss.

Putting lots of love in front does not make it true.

Support

[bickerdyke]

Yeah. Whatever. I'm fine with all the changes that Samsung does to stock Android. It's open source and everything.

But don't send users over to the Google user forums if that Samsung calendar screws up.

Way too many users there along the lines of "I have a samsung Android phone, so Google must support is because Android is Google, right?"

Re:Support

[Frankie70]

I didn't realize Google supported users of Android at all.

Re:Support

[bickerdyke]

Indeed. They don't.

But that doesn't keep Android users from popping up in the Google user forums asking for support. (and if some other user can answer their question, they get at least that)

And for some reason, this still seems to be better than Samsung support, as they keep showing up with questions about the samsung App.

Not with Samsung Kies

[Anonymous Coward]

You thought iTunes was bad wait until you install Samsung Kies, nothing inspires confidence more than the first message it gives you on its home screen is "if this fails to connect", why would it fail ?, ok so it fails to connect press the "troubleshooter" button and it re-installs the phone drivers ! (10min operation) which has no effect on why it wont connect, not to mention it is slow beyond belief using 1GB RAM just to open, written by the lowest bidder in .NET 4, in a word awful, how awful ?

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&gbv=1&q=samsung%20kies%20worst

no joke

Re:Not with Samsung Kies

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung are incompetent when it comes to software. The best one can hope for is that at some time they will realize that fact.

That may not be enough

[aglider]

In order to be a Google competitor you have to differentiate away from it.
In my opinion TouchWiz and a few Samsung online services atop of Andoid are not enough.
Google controls the Android ecosystem.
Making real hardware also it is not, partly because Google is expected to deliver some in the near future.
Different/better hardware and different OS (like FirefoxOS) with different GUI could help. Let's see what happens.

Samsung Galaxy S4 available with Vanilla Android

[Racerdude]

But then again they have released a version the Samsung Galaxy S4 as a pure "Vanilla" Android device. So that goes against the above theory

Samsung reaches vertically.

[Anonymous Coward]

What I think is interesting is that Samsung is very into mining/processing raw resources. The fact that they have a leg into the vertical supply chain makes it very hard to beat. Google and Apple would have to start digging raw materials out of the ground.

Apple isn't Google's rival

[gnasher719]

The premise of the article is completely wrong. Apple isn't Google's rival at all. Apple sells devices to end users, Google sells end users to advertisers.

What will happen however is that Apple will do more and more to upset Google's business, just as Google has been working hard to upset Apple's and Microsoft's business. The first step is Apple's maps, which meant that Apple isn't paying anymore for licensing maps from Google, and Apple is destroying Google ad revenue (Apple maps comes without adverts). iWork in the cloud is another step. Apple switching to Bing is another one.

Re:Apple isn't Google's rival

[ducomputergeek]

You mean iWork's Syncing between computers & iOS versions/devices? Yeah, it may work for home users but not for businesses. I learned this the hardway. The iOS versions don't have all the templates compared to the dektops and the ability to share and edit bewteen multiple people doesn't work unless you are all on the same iTunes account. Unfortunately they don't really offer a small business edition of iCloud. I wish they did.

We've ended up with SkyDrive & Office365. It's not without it's own set of problems, but overall meets our needs extremely well. And with the SkyDrive App on iOS we can show powerpoint presentations and edit online if need be from iPads, etc..

The Irony is that Microsoft and Apple both need each other. And Microsoft has started to become far better about opening up support for other devices. With the surface being a no go, MS really needs to revaluate creating a version of Office for iPad.

Re:Apple isn't Google's rival

[rsborg]

The premise of the article is completely wrong. Apple isn't Google's rival at all. Apple sells devices to end users, Google sells end users to advertisers.

What will happen however is that Apple will do more and more to upset Google's business, just as Google has been working hard to upset Apple's and Microsoft's business. The first step is Apple's maps, which meant that Apple isn't paying anymore for licensing maps from Google, and Apple is destroying Google ad revenue (Apple maps comes without adverts). iWork in the cloud is another step. Apple switching to Bing is another one.

And the counter attacks from Google are also straining that relationship - Chromecast as a competitor to AppleTV/Airplay, Play Music as a competitor to iTunes, Google-branded devices directly competing with all offerings from Apple (price disruption), Chromebook Pixel as a nascent rival to the Macbook Air...

Google is fighting back against Apple's attacks on it's revenue stream as well by trying to strangle Apple's revenue in turn - personally I think Apple has more to fear from Google than the other way around.

Re:Apple isn't Google's rival

[pentadecagon]

Apple sells end users to advertisers as well, so they are direct competitors.

Re:Apple isn't Google's rival

[Anonymous Coward]

Err, Google maps on Android don't come with ads either... Not sure what kind of stuff you've been smoking. I've been with Android since 2.1, and it's never had ads.

Prioritized recommendations, however... (though APL is doing the same thing anyway)

Apple Already Forgotten

[Anonymous Coward]

"Forget Apple, Samsung Could Be..."

Forget Apple, best advice ever!

Why it works for Apple but not for Android

[tlambert]

So how does Apple do it? The iPhone 3gs released in 2009 can run the latest iOS 6.

The Apple monetization model for carriers is not based on carrier lock-in, and hasn't been since they changed the FAS (Federal Accounting Standards) rules under which they operate. These are the same rules that disallowed them from offering the 802.11n firmware upgrade to iPod users for free, but allowed them to give it away to iPhone users. The particular FAS rules they were using would have caused the firmware giveaway on iPods to be a Sarbanes-Oxley Act violation, and under the new rules, by realizing their revenue up front, they are now permitted to upgrade everything.

Apple also has a high enough profit margin on iPhones to pay for the carrier qual out of petty cash, plus it has had special contracts with the carriers which force them to certain infrastructure requirements, including updates. One of the deal-breakers for the first iPhone release not being on Verizon was that AT&T was willing to bend to Apple demands that they integrate web access for their voicemail system in order to implement the "Visual Voicemail" feature of the iPhome, while Verizon didn't want to bend. The reason Verizon didn't want to bend is that they wanted to be able to charge for a call completion, as well as charging for connected minutes, while you listed to the voicemails on the customer account; web access would not have given them that. In other words, Verizon was not willing to cave on monetizing their customers voice mail accesses. If you used a phone on Verizon prior to them releasing the iPhone on that network, the reason the voice mail access was such a twisty and time consuming maze was to increase customer usage of minutes to access it.

Finally, there's actually a monetary advantage to Apple for having everyone running the same version of the OS, and it's tied directly to having a single, central App store. With a single, central App store, it's important to Apple to have all the devices in the field present the same binary APIs to the Apps obtained from the store, in order to increase monetization of the App store. This doesn't exist with Android devices, both because there is not a single manufacturer of Android phones, as there is with iPhones, but also because your "Android 4.1.2" on one device can be slightly different than the "Android 4.1.2" on another device.

In simple terms, the Android model is that Google publishes an Android tree to all partners, and the partners duplicate the repo at some point and code freeze it. The only thing that goes in the partner repo after that point is the code necessary to productize the device based on that code base. This is also why the partners do not like to revisit a device, and why they can't just carry around changes for the device on top of a top-of-tree Android repository snapshot as local branches.

The breakdown works out to:

Source tree:
- iOS: version branch tag (all APIs the same)
- Android: version that was in the tree at the time of the snapshot (APIs may vary, even for different devices from the same partner)

Tablet vs. phones:
- iOS: from the same tree, maintained by the same company
- Android: from different trees per device, within the same company; Samsung laptops and phones: different divisions, don't talk much

Aspect ratio:
- iOS: same on all devices (4x5) except iPhone 5 (5 was a bean-counting decision on screen cost and remonitization of Apps and content)
- Android: varies widely between devices

App store:
- iOS: centralized, controlled by an entity that benefits from uniform APIs and versions
- Android: split, usually one Google, one vendor, per version

App store content:
- iOS: shared by all devices
- Android: can't be shared by all devices; each App on a new device is potentially a new port

Productization:
- iOS: handled by the seller of the device, who runs the App store, and who enforces uniform versions and APIs
- Android: handled b

Re:Why it works for Apple but not for Android

[Anonymous Coward]

So much bullshit. LOL

Sure, Android devices vary a little bit... but why would HTC worry about what screen size Samsung has? The only device the manufacturer has to worry about is their own, and they KNOW exactly what type of hardware it has.

Specific Android version features are identical. None are removed, but features can be / are added (see IR Blaster on the GS4 and HTC One).

You also point out: "people will buy new devices anyway, as soon as they come out, all things being equal"... well, you could do that on Android too. You'd actually be better off not paying for upgrades to ancient devices to boot.

Android also has baseline support for GPS, accelerometer/gyros, etc., so again, no clue what you're talking about.

Re:Why it works for Apple but not for Android

[tlambert]

So much bullshit. LOL

Sure, Android devices vary a little bit... but why would HTC worry about what screen size Samsung has?

COGS - Cost Of Goods Sold. To get the best volume pricing on screens, you buy screens that your competitor isn't buying. Otherwise, you end up in a fight like the one where anyone else trying to buy an iPhone comparable screen out of LG ends up in: Apple simply buys all available stock, and then gets an exclusive contract for all future stock from that screen manufacturer. Apple does exactly the same thing with 5-7 parts in all the iPhone models so that no one else can buy them. It has the added benefit that it stops "Third Shift" production runs of iPhones at the factories of "iPhone clones" built on the same assembly lines that build the iPhones.

To avoid this situation, HTC has to buy the parts that Apple and Samsung are not buying, and which are availalble in manufacturing quantities, for the cheapest pricing. This usually means "in stok" parts, which in turn means you don't get to pick your screen resolution.

So in fact HTC has a *very big* interest in Samsung's screen size, because if the parts were drop in replacements for the Samsung device screens, HTC risks having its supply stolen out from under it, and coming up short on a manufacturing run.

The only device the manufacturer has to worry about is their own, and they KNOW exactly what type of hardware it has.

And that's what they do, and that's what makes it impossible to do what Apple does, and have the Apps run exactly the same across all Android devices, without at least having display scaling artifacts - artifacts which Apple Apps do not have; even on the changes iPhone 5 aspect ratio and therefore resolution not being an even multiple, the default for App store apps is to put up black bars, rather than making than making all the cowboys (for example) look short and fat in order to fit the screen.

Specific Android version features are identical. None are removed, but features can be / are added (see IR Blaster on the GS4 and HTC One).

This is called a "minimal spanning set". And yes, you can write your App to the least common denominator (LCD) for hardware features, but if you do, be prepared to have your lunch eaten by the company that writes their clone of your App, but uses all the available features of the hardware - unlike your App.

You also point out: "people will buy new devices anyway, as soon as they come out, all things being equal"... well, you could do that on Android too.

But people don't! What's the consumer incentive? If all the Apps I have are built to work on any Android phone, then they are written to the LCD, then I don't get any new benefits from the new hardware, except for one or two partner supplied Apps that probably come with the phone -- what most people would call "crApps" or "crapware". With Apple (until the iPhone 5), I always get more/better/faster.

How compatible is the hardware profile across even just the Samsung Galaxy line of devices?

You'd actually be better off not paying for upgrades to ancient devices to boot.

And the vendors aren't paying for it, and neither are the carriers. So you're agreeing with my original argument, it seems: if you have Android version number envy, buy a new device.

Android also has baseline support for GPS, accelerometer/gyros, etc., so again, no clue what you're talking about.

Yes, but you can't depend on them being there in the most cheap-ass Android phone out there, and when they are there, with parts sourced from different suppliers, you can't depend on the behaviour being identical, for the same App, on differrent Android platforms, even if you as an App vendor were willing to lock yourself out of the segment of the market that doesn't have the hardware feature by making your App dependent on the feature.

Stratosphere

[morgauxo]

I have a Samsung Stratosphere
My wife has one too
We have a friend who had one

It sucks!!!!! Constant freeze ups, reboots itself randomly... What a piece of crap! If the Stratosphere is any indicaition of what Samsung products are like then the only way it can succede is if the buyers are all morons.

Well... iOS is doing pretty good so maybe that is the case...

+1

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

But I went down the China cheap pad route. No need to pay extra for something that'll go obsolete in a year. Hardware and software get upgraded at the same time ;-) If possible, get the model with the latest Android version because firmware support is spotty at best (although this is improving with some manufacturers now offering OTA updates). Or you can check if there's an active Cyanogenmod developer for the model so your tablet will be worth at least one Android revision (e.g. from 4.2 to 4.3).

Most of the apps I need are from F-Droid or downloaded from the developer site and installed/upgraded via adb. For example, I use the VLC for Android nightly builds at http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/armv7-android/, which I install via a command like "adb install -r VLC-debug-20130726-1426.apk". The -r option is for reinstall, which is is how an app is upgraded, something which took me months to find out as there's no explicit upgrade command.

Flavor of the month

[PvtVoid]

Oh, joy. Yet another in a never-ending series of "this phone is the HOT THING" tech porn. In two years, it will be somebody else.

SSNLFvampire

[ElitistWhiner]

VictimLIST:
          AAPL
        GOOG

google account

[Frankie70]

do not have a samsung account.

I own a HTC and don't have a HTC account. Google acct is the only account I am forced to have because I won't be able to access Google Playstore otherwise. I don't see any reason why I need to have a google account for downloading free apps from the playstore. Own my desktop CNET/Downloads etc don't force me to create an acct for downloading stuff.

HTC

[Frankie70]

I can pop the back of a Galaxy S4, slide in a microSD memory card & replace the battery - all without tools.

I can do all that with my HTC desire X and it probably costs 1/3 of the S4 cost.

Samsung doesn't play nice

[Mabhatter]

Google is going to find itself in the same boat Apple did because Samsung does not play nice with their business partners.

Remember its Samsung that wouldn't play nice with Apple inspite of a large portion of the BOM cost from every iphone going right back into SAMSUNG's pockets. (As Samsung makes the A-series chips and storage chips used).

They have already shown they will pick fights against their CUSTOMERS, lets see how long they get along with Google before they pull out of the Android software group and be "leechers" like Amazon or Barnes and Nobel with their own custom Android spin and store... If they think they have enough market share, I can see them pushing Google aside because they have a lot less $$$ attached to Google than Apple.

Re:Samsung doesn't play nice

[marcosdumay]

Remember its Samsung that wouldn't play nice with Apple inspite of a large portion of the BOM cost from every iphone going right back into SAMSUNG's pockets.

You mean "not playing nice" as in "being sued all over the world for no good reason"?

Hard to believe

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung is mainly known because they have an excellent reputation as a hardware manufacturer. They consistently hit a sweet spot on quality/price, in a way that really, only low-end Chinese "brands" have been able to match (but in a different segment).

But part of that quality is the generic-ness of OS. A customized Android with some addons is just fine, but a non-Android would be totally different, and suddenly they would be competing with Apple and Microsoft for who can make the most useless dead-end product. Staying mainstream is how Samsung stays in the big game, and then their other business qualities are what makes them win the big game.

Another dimension to this all, is that Google wins anyway. Even iOS users are loading Google ads. And even if Samsung bows out of the mainstream phone race, to become as lame as Apple, by forking Android: Samsung hardware users would still see ads that Google got paid to run. So much for Google being a "competitor."

Samsung would have to get their smartphones off the web for them to compete with Google. And if they do that, their marketshare will fall to around 0%.

Google is a data company

[MacDork]

Articles like this always miss the point. Apple is a hardware company. Samsung is a hardware company. They make hardware, and the software is provided as a means of enticing users to buy the hardware.

Google is an entirely different animal. Google is a data company. Google's product is data. Google makes hardware and software for the same reasons Samsung/Apple make software. Google wants to attract as many people to the platform as it can because those users provide more data to Google. Data is the product.

Just look at Apple Maps for a single example. Apple is clearly out of their league with maps, because maps is a data product. Apple just doesn't have the data or the infrastructure to handle the data even if they had it. Apple may have brilliant designers, but their data science wing is empty.

As a result, Google maps can correctly guide me through a dirt parking lot with turn by turn directions. Google's software can do this because their software is designed from the start to collect data and learn from its users. Some users went to that parking lot before I did, and their driving paths were assimilated. Google's map app learns in real-time. Apple maps will guide me to the bottom of the ocean, beautifully. It is designed from the paint job down.

BLeh

[Anonymous Coward]

TouchWiz and sprinkled with all sorts of Samsung-centric apps, the software interface on Samsung devices is deviating rapidly

None of which are useful.

What Samsung-Google competition could look like

[Anonymous Coward]

- The Moto X isn't going to be the new hero. Everything said about it so far makes it sound like a merely nice handset, pretty similar to the new Droids that Moto announced for Verizon. Marketing could overcome that but I'm suspicious. Or maybe low-to-no-margin pricing like the Nexus phones; that would be nice for me as a customer, but would sadden me a bit; I'd rather see long-term competition than one or two product cycles of cheap phones.

- I think Samsung backs Tizen so they theoretically have another option than Android. First, that's the wrong insurance policy: fork Android like Amazon did and just replicate the Google parts, and you get a much more complete and compatible base. (Starting now on cozying up to non-Google partners for e-mail, maps, etc. could help.) Second, if they're serious they need a better design/UX lead (or management structure or process--can't blame one person), because their Android modifications are a hodgepodge of the more-or-less-decent and the painful.

But I look forward to my predictions proving worse than I thought possible when in January 2014 it's all Moto X vs. the TizenPhone, all the time.

still a shitty java VM phone

[Anonymous Coward]

once samsung stops using that piece of crap Dalvik VM, then i will recognize them as their own seperate thing, worthy of mentioning.

Hey Apple Hater: Not everything is about Apple

[SuperKendall]

Of course you think so, Apple shill.

Wow. Just wow. Not one single thing I said had anything to do with Apple, but here you are...

You really need to start buying the more expensive paint to huff, the low quality stuff is not doing your neurons any favors.

Sumsung needs Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Or something. When they design their own phone OSes, they suck.

Case in point: the Samsung Instinct, their pre-Android answer to the iPhone. It was buggy and had zero third-party apps, which basically meant you couldn't do anything interesting with it. I got it to see what the smartphone thing was about, but without subsidizing the closed-tight Apple ecosystem. But I ended up using it as an overly-expensive feature phone: phone calls and text messages only.

I have a Galaxy Nexus now, which is quite nice, if a bit old. I'd get another Samsung Android phone. But I'll never buy a phone with a Samsung-exclusive OS ever again.

This will happen

[andygrace]

Despite the usual Slashdot non-believers it's a dead certainty. As soon as Google bought Motorola Mobility, it was on the cards that Samsung would look elsewhere. The fact the Google could potentially favor their own hardware development team, rather than a licensee, is strategically enough to change Samsung's strategy. The other big issue is the App store. I see figures bandied around of anything from 80% to 94.7% of Android ecosystem revenue going to Samsung devices. If it's anything like that, Samsung will have their eyes on the 30% developer fees they can take from their own App store, rather than that going to Google. Also, with the Tizen's Android compatibility layer built right in, it's effectively telegraphing the market that Samsung will switch to Tizen. Just a matter of time. I think sooner, rather than later.

Re:Hey Apple Hater: Not everything is about Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Just wow. Not one single thing I said had anything to do with Apple, but here you are...

Your posting history speaks for itself. I make absolutely no effort to keep track of who posts what, but even so seeing the name 'superkendall' makes me think "hang on, isn't that one of slashdot's two most prominent Apple shills, along with the more obviously named 'macs4all'?"

But but... google is not in competition with sammy

[niftymitch]

The serious anchor for Google is search and marketing.

Samsung has its own anchor in displays and silicon technology.

I suspect this involves Android but the reality is that Android is tossable and will be tossed should there be a real advantage in making the massive investment that building a sufficiently interesting software platform for a phone and other stuff might get them.

Will Samsung fork a version of Android, well I would not bet against it unless you gave me good odds. The risk to Sammy is that the GPL mandates that they play moderately fair. Any forked project would be open enough for others to pull from (both ways).

Will Samsung roll out a new generation SOC for phones that goes beyond ARM and does not embrace Intel? Who knows? But that will be a different tangle because sammy could have some locks on the tool chain (not Android). At this point ARM SOC land is a massive tangle but a player like Intel or Samsung could launch a new ISA/API and do a full endrun. Modest homework not unlike that which led to Dalvic could result in a hardware solution that could fly. Especially with the rubbish 64bit grafts onto ARM.

As long as they help the Raspberry-Pi folk I am all for it. What ever it is.