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Samsung is hurting Android

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Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#31

Post by MatthewPhillips »

bjustin wrote: post #18

>The exit strategy is called Tizen. I see two major issues with Samsung switching to Tizen: * Samsung is unlikely to get developers as talented as those at Google. I doubt that Tizen development could approach mainline Android's development pace, given the talent difference. * Tizen would need its own app store. Ask BlackBerry or Microsoft how well new app stores do. Tizen is unlikely to catch up with Android functio…

Android's development pace is slowing down, as is iOSes. Smartphones are not an innovative platform any more. It used to be that OSes got major new features like universal voice dictation, universal search, and turn-by-turn navigation, but in the last couple of years the two major platforms have been getting very iterative improvements; performance upgrades, visual polishes, proprietary assistant apps...

That's because the smartphone market is slowing undergoing commoditization. We're only a few years away from when Samsung could realistically swap out Android for another OS that looks on the surface to be the same and not many people will notice.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#32

Post by chrisrhoden »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #13
chrisrhoden wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am an android developer. Are you suggesting that screen sizes and resolutions are uniform among Samsung devices? Drivers are the same? That is nonsense. Aftermarket distros include no warranty warnings, it's up to the packagers to solve bugs in their builds. Here is the reality: if they had opted to use the MediaPlayer classes with whatever streaming service they use on devices 2.3+, they would have likely had to d…

> Are you suggesting that screen sizes and resolutions are uniform among Samsung devices? Drivers are the same? That is nonsense. ...No? In fact my post said exactly the opposite of that: > all cause a LOT of issues and these things all exist on virgin Android just as much as Samsung's strange re-imagining of the ecosystem. I am saying there is fragmentation between two "virgin Android" devices. Therefore making his…

The argument that the post was making was that there is zero weight to the claim that this decision was made for technical reasons.

Further, the post makes the point that choosing an open-source baseline as the first system you support means that there's a clear and relatively straightforward path to compatibility. Setting that target at a proprietary fork of that system does nothing to improve the situation.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#33

Post by [deleted] »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #5

> If ITV wanted to avoid fragmentation it would have chosen to make its app compatible with only pure versions of Android That isn't what causes Android's fragmentation issues. Even between virgin android devices there is a LOT of fragmentation, these devices just happen to be popular with developers so most people aren't impacted by it. Different screen sizes/resolutions, driver issues, graphics acceleration, afterm…

[deleted]

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#34

Post by notatoad »

salimmadjd wrote: post #21

From what I'm hearing, Google is not happy with Samsung. Google wants to lead and direct the future of Android but Samsung wants to do what's best for Samsung. Google is facing a bit of a dilemma. They can't push and risk alienating their number one device producer and they don't want to lose control of Android. Their only option is to move faster than Samsung to make sure samsung follows.

Their other option is to declare android essentially a lost cause, let the device manufacturers do whatever they want to it, and develop their own "pure google" platform that runs on top of android and works around any OEM specific customizations.

Coincidentally, they already have a platform that they maintain complete control over and that runs on top of other operating systems - Chrome. and android just got brought under the umbrella of the chrome division.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#35

Post by footpath »

radicalbyte wrote: post #25
mtgx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Google should be supporting active pens in a much bigger way. There are certain "niches" in the app ecosystems where the iPad and the iPhone are much better than Android, and that's mainly because of Google's almost complete disregard for those categories of apps such as: games, music tools, and drawing/designing. Rumors are Google begin to address gaming at next I/O, and some rumors said they will announce some…

I hope so. Drawing/handwriting on the iPad isn't great either; the software (3rd party) is good but the hardware isn't. Samsung on the other hand have the hardware spot on, but their software could be a (lot) better. Apparently the Surface Pro pen is just as good; that doesn't surprise me in the slightest because Microsoft have been active in that area for a long, long time.

A proper pressure-sensitive stylus from Apple would be nice. Out of the few pressure-sensitive bluetooth styli available from third-parties, only two (Pogo Connect & Jot Touch 4) support palm rejection. Even the prototype pen showed by Adobe during MAX didn't seem to have palm rejection implemented. It just feels really awkward holding a pen without putting the palm on a surface somewhere. The drawings apps on iOS are so good though, and if I have to pick between good hardware/weak software (Android tablets w/ S-pen) and good software/weak hardware (iPads w/ 3rd party pen), I would choose the latter.

Also, the Surface Pro pen apparently had issues supporting Photoshop, and it didn't get fixed until a (beta) driver update released two days ago.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#36

Post by yoshamano »

megablast wrote: post #16
emanuer wrote: post #7

The Samsung software I have seen on their TVs, laptops, phones has been adequate at best. I wish them best of luck developing another closed ecosystem. However their track record of developing good, functioning software is not very promising. When you use Apple products everything is tied into Apple. I didn't like some parts of their ecosystem (Itunes). It is all or nothing for Apple, so I said farewell and moved on.…

Samsung have a lot of money, and a lot of resources to through behind making their software work better. I find it hard to believe that is that hard to get right. If they had any sense they should buy BB or Palm OS.

LG already bought webOS and all the other Palm goodies from HP back in Feb.

http://www.webosnation.com/lg-purchasing-hps-webos-division-...

They're going to use it as the basis for a new line of "smart" TVs. I still have my fingers crossed that OpenWebOS makes a usable phone to replace my Pre2.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#37

Post by chrisrhoden »

notatoad wrote: post #34
salimmadjd wrote: post #21

From what I'm hearing, Google is not happy with Samsung. Google wants to lead and direct the future of Android but Samsung wants to do what's best for Samsung. Google is facing a bit of a dilemma. They can't push and risk alienating their number one device producer and they don't want to lose control of Android. Their only option is to move faster than Samsung to make sure samsung follows.

Their other option is to declare android essentially a lost cause, let the device manufacturers do whatever they want to it, and develop their own "pure google" platform that runs on top of android and works around any OEM specific customizations. Coincidentally, they already have a platform that they maintain complete control over and that runs on top of other operating systems - Chrome. and android just got brought…

They have that now, but they don't because consumers do not care.

The Nexus line is the best smartphone bargain that has ever happened, period, and it's still outsold by the Galaxy S III. They even use the words "pure google" in some of their marketing materials for the devices. Developers seem to be most of their market, though.

They could also opt not to include the Google properties on such phones (GMail, Google Play Store, etc...) but they don't. I suspect that relationships with headset manufacturers is the reason for this, but that's pure conjecture.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#38

Post by nwh »

emanuer wrote: post #7

The Samsung software I have seen on their TVs, laptops, phones has been adequate at best. I wish them best of luck developing another closed ecosystem. However their track record of developing good, functioning software is not very promising. When you use Apple products everything is tied into Apple. I didn't like some parts of their ecosystem (Itunes). It is all or nothing for Apple, so I said farewell and moved on.…

> The Samsung software I have seen on their TVs, laptops, phones has been adequate at best.

You've clearly used a Samsung SmartTV then. The software is so slow, so clunky, so unreliable; it's a hair pulling exercise just waiting for the thing to load (1-2 minutes to bring up the dashboard). Its bad enough to justify hauling the thing back to the shop and getting a refund.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#39

Post by w1ntermute »

emanuer wrote: post #7

The Samsung software I have seen on their TVs, laptops, phones has been adequate at best. I wish them best of luck developing another closed ecosystem. However their track record of developing good, functioning software is not very promising. When you use Apple products everything is tied into Apple. I didn't like some parts of their ecosystem (Itunes). It is all or nothing for Apple, so I said farewell and moved on.…

> When I switched to Android I discovered it is strongly tied to Google

This is a common misconception. It is very easy to replace Google apps commonly found on Android phones (such as Gmail, Google Maps, Google Talk, etc.) with non-Google apps. If Google's services start to get shitty, manufacturers will simply replace it with alternatives. For example, in China, where Android phones are popular but Google services are largely inaccessible (due to the government censorship rather than anything that is Google's fault, but the situation is sufficiently similar to Google losing its edge), Android phones come with Baidu as their default search engine. There was even a phone released on Verizon that had Bing as its default search engine (Microsoft probably paid Verizon a ton of money for that).

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#40

Post by richardwhiuk »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #5

> If ITV wanted to avoid fragmentation it would have chosen to make its app compatible with only pure versions of Android That isn't what causes Android's fragmentation issues. Even between virgin android devices there is a LOT of fragmentation, these devices just happen to be popular with developers so most people aren't impacted by it. Different screen sizes/resolutions, driver issues, graphics acceleration, afterm…

Add audio APIs to that list. If you want to do anything with noise control, echo cancellers or gain control it's a whole world of pain - in my experience HTC phones are particularly bad in this area - your experience may differ, depending on what type of app you develop.
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