Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

cnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 151 posts

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#21

Post by hulium »

Steltek wrote: post #11
jwells89 wrote: post #4

A good first step. The next one I’d like to see is a one-tap toggle that disables the bulk of Samsung OS customizations and “me too” apps/ecosystem cruft, as some other vendors have. Yes it can be removed manually, but with one of Android’s chief selling points being the choice it affords users, I shouldn’t need to do that, particularly on expensive flagship devices.

You don't think people are naturally choosing "Samsung Internet" as their favorite browser?

Why not, it supports ad blockers so at least it is better than Chrome. Also it can put the URL bar at the bottom which makes much more sense on a phone.

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#22

Post by FirmwareBurner »

Kuinox wrote: post #19
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung's OS customizations and a lot of their apps are quite nice these days, I don't think there would be much of a point in such a toggle. Especially considering you can already change to a different launcher if you want.

Since 7 years I hear that Samsung apps are "quite nice theses days". I never found it to be true. I owned a Samsung S7, it was atrocious, people said it was great, the bloatware was painful, the gesture to open the apps drawer was conflicted with the gesture to open Samsung pay (which didn't worked with my bank), you can't disable Samsung pay, if you switch the launcher, it's still there. Searching the settings took…

>Since 7 years I hear that Samsung apps are "quite nice theses days". I never found it to be true. I owned a Samsung S7

To be fair that S7 from 2016 doesn't count as being from "these days" anymore, so your opinion is not up to date, as Samsung made pretty big strides in the last few years past 2020 compared to how it was when you last remember it with the nasty Touchwiz.

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#24

Post by davidzweig »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #12
NathanCollins wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point! I have a "cheap" Samsung M32 that I bought for about $170. One reason I chose this Samsung phone over a similarly priced phone from a competitor was that I wrongly believed that Samsung provided several years more OS and security updates. After buying the phone I realized that longer support only applied to flagship models :/

Devil's advocate question: How did you expect Samsung could fund SW dev costs to support 7 years of updates on the margins of a $170 phone while still turning a profit? Not sure how much you were expecting at $170 but you might have been penny wise and pound foolish here trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel as nobody else gives you more than 2 years of updates at those rock bottom prices. Sometimes it pays to sp…

"In 2022 alone, the South Korean company sold almost 260 million smartphones worldwide."

Say there's a model that sold 10m total. I think it's fair to say Samsung could reasonably increase the price by $1 (~0.75c minus tax) for 10 years of support instead of ~3 years.

That's $7.5m. I used to flash Cyanogenmod on my phones (motorola defy etc.), IIRC it was often a single guy making the roms, I guess part time, doing a decent job of it. $1m/year for years 4-10 should cover a team of 5.

I think difficulties arose when newer kernals wouldn't work with the older hardware drivers that were available. But there's fewer SOCs than smartphone models.. I guess maybe $0.10 to Qualcomm for every SOC sale should cover updating drivers.

Not sure I'd want to be using a 10yo (2013) phone now, but a 5yo (2018) phone with fresh software would be fine. Todays higher-end phones should still be usuable beyond 5 years.

Here's Android 12 on Samsung S4 (2013), looks okay but probably marginal once you put a few chonky apps: https://youtu.be/lySu841rNgg?si=LyONyyUP8mcCa67L&t=783

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#25

Post by shmoogy »

Steltek wrote: post #11
jwells89 wrote: post #4

A good first step. The next one I’d like to see is a one-tap toggle that disables the bulk of Samsung OS customizations and “me too” apps/ecosystem cruft, as some other vendors have. Yes it can be removed manually, but with one of Android’s chief selling points being the choice it affords users, I shouldn’t need to do that, particularly on expensive flagship devices.

You don't think people are naturally choosing "Samsung Internet" as their favorite browser?

I have a galaxy fold 5 as my secondary phone and when I first got it I was trying to see what people were using on android in 2023, and fold users overwhelmingly suggested the Samsung internet browser on Reddit. It's.. fine, I was disappointed immediately as even my iPhone in native safari supports greasemonkey scripts.

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#26

Post by farhanhubble »

jwells89 wrote: post #4

A good first step. The next one I’d like to see is a one-tap toggle that disables the bulk of Samsung OS customizations and “me too” apps/ecosystem cruft, as some other vendors have. Yes it can be removed manually, but with one of Android’s chief selling points being the choice it affords users, I shouldn’t need to do that, particularly on expensive flagship devices.

Google is terrible at doing UX and Samsung has had a chance to actually built a quality alternative app store. However all they have managed to do is to churn out unusable bloated apps like SHealth, SmartThings and Samsung Note.

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#27

Post by hexagonwin »

NathanCollins wrote: post #9
gHA5 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are the other vendors that have such a toggle?

It's not a toggle, but Google Pixel phones (or at least the one I owned a few years ago) come with very few if any bloatware type apps, since the default Android apps are the Google apps anyway. Contrast with Samsung that duplicates a bunch of core apps/functionality.

Not sure what you mean by default Android apps but Google Pixel apps != AOSP's stock apps. AFAIK most apps can now be disabled in Settings on recent Samsung phones, I'm not a fan but I don't think they're that worse compared to Pixels, especially on the flagship devices.

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#28

Post by sundvor »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #22
Kuinox wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 7 years I hear that Samsung apps are "quite nice theses days". I never found it to be true. I owned a Samsung S7, it was atrocious, people said it was great, the bloatware was painful, the gesture to open the apps drawer was conflicted with the gesture to open Samsung pay (which didn't worked with my bank), you can't disable Samsung pay, if you switch the launcher, it's still there. Searching the settings took…

>Since 7 years I hear that Samsung apps are "quite nice theses days". I never found it to be true. I owned a Samsung S7 To be fair that S7 from 2016 doesn't count as being from "these days" anymore, so your opinion is not up to date, as Samsung made pretty big strides in the last few years past 2020 compared to how it was when you last remember it with the nasty Touchwiz.

Totally. My S21 Ultra 512 with OneUI 6 with Android 14 is a very, very nice UI experience; got the update around the new year.

I'm in love with the new drop down settings screen especially.

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#29

Post by dotnet00 »

farhanhubble wrote: post #26
jwells89 wrote: post #4

A good first step. The next one I’d like to see is a one-tap toggle that disables the bulk of Samsung OS customizations and “me too” apps/ecosystem cruft, as some other vendors have. Yes it can be removed manually, but with one of Android’s chief selling points being the choice it affords users, I shouldn’t need to do that, particularly on expensive flagship devices.

Google is terrible at doing UX and Samsung has had a chance to actually built a quality alternative app store. However all they have managed to do is to churn out unusable bloated apps like SHealth, SmartThings and Samsung Note.

What alternatives do you prefer to Samsung Notes? I think it's by far the best note taking app I've used. OneNote is close but is less reliable.

Re: Samsung extends Android and security updates to 7 years

#30

Post by sundvor »

hulium wrote: post #21
Steltek wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think people are naturally choosing "Samsung Internet" as their favorite browser?

Why not, it supports ad blockers so at least it is better than Chrome. Also it can put the URL bar at the bottom which makes much more sense on a phone.

Yup. I use the Samsung browser as my primary - thanks to the adblockers.
Post reply on HN