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Samsung is hurting Android

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Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#71

Post by gurkendoktor »

eknkc wrote: post #30
city41 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Nokia Lumia 920 and other than battery life I am extremely happy with it. WP8 might prove to be a nice middle ground between iOS and Android. If only more people would give it a chance, it's a really stellar experience.

I actually switched to iPhone 5 after a couple months of Lumia 920 usage. Bought it right after release, with the wireless charger and stuff. I really liked the device. My problem was the fucked up regional annoyances. If you are not in USA, good luck! No full size skydrive photo uploads for you! No Xbox online.. No album covers in music app. A lot of missing apps in store. No this, no that. Well, I have no such prob…

At least it is only software-regional. I've bought the One X in Taiwan when it was brand-new and now I have an Android 4.0 phone that only supports the following languages: Chinese, Simplified Chinese and English (I'm still too scared of Buyer's Remorse to check what else is different).

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#72

Post by batiudrami »

AlexDanger wrote: post #47
chrisrhoden wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 P…

>The Nexus line is the best smartphone bargain that has ever happened, period, and it's still outsold by the Galaxy S III. Dont forget what happened with the Nexus 4. A pure-android device with great hardware at a reasonable price. It sold out within an hour. Availability was terrible for weeks (months?) after launch. A very large number of people who wanted the phone couldnt have it and presumably went with other ha…

Plus, I don't know about the US, but in Australia the average consumer is going to have no idea the Nexus 4 even exists. Previous nexus handsets were supported by significant collateral from telcos, the only way you'd know about the N4 would be if you accidentally clicked the 'devices' link in Google Play.

The lack of 4G is also a bit of an issue to the average consumer, I think - it's a clear feature differential between it and high end phones, at a time when 4G is receiving a huge marketing push in Australia.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#73

Post by fpgeek »

yareally wrote: post #61
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.

I don't think Google was overly happy with Samsung implementing the multi-app view on the Note 2 either, but there was not much they could do about it in the end. They had already told Cyanogenmod previously not to do this[1], so one can assume they were not pleased that Samsung would do it, but Samsung carries much more weight than an AOSP modding group. [1] https://plus.google.com/100275307499530023476/posts/ViCME1…

Samsung implemented multi-window exactly as Google wanted: opt-in instead of opt-out or forced. I highly doubt the Android team is unhappy about that. Several top Google apps support it (Chrome, Gmail, Maps, Talk and YouTube, judging from my Note 2). Given that (and the many other windowing hacks I've seen including ones by such obscure companies as Facebook and Sony) I expect some sort of cleaner, official multi/floating window support to be coming in a future version of Android. I would have even predicted next week before the rumor mill started saying to expect 4.3, not 5.0

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#74

Post by DigitalSea »

Samsung will never truly ditch the platform that helped it become the number #1 mobile phone maker in the world, at least not in the next few years. While Samsung undoubtedly have a plan for Tizen, swapping out Android for Tizen is probably suicide right about now. Without Android, Samsung probably wouldn't be in the place that they are right now: highly profitable and popular.

The average consumer doesn't buy a phone because of it's CPU, battery life or operating system, they buy phones based on the number of apps in an app store. The reason Apple were the number ones for so long is due to the fact they were the first mobile phone manufacturer to have a decent app store. Sure Symbian had app stores and before that you had stores where you could buy Java apps for other phones, but nothing unified and supported by just one device existed.

The only way Tizen will succeed is if they manage to build an app marketplace that can rival Android or iOS: consumers want apps. As Microsoft and Blackberry have shown, it's not easy releasing a new OS and getting developers to spend time and money to build for yet another operating system and marketplace with little market share in comparison to Android or iOS. The Lumia 920 had some of the best hardware and camera around, but failed to reach the masses because of the app store drama's.

Lets not forget the other side of the story here. Samsung are helping Android out here as well, every time Samsung sells a phone it's currently benefiting Android not hurting it. Currently it is in Ssamsung's best interests to see Android succeed as it took what, five years for Android to be the dominant player in the mobile space via it's quantity not quality approach in the early days. Anything is possible here for either platform.

I foresee Samsung releasing Tizen phones and Android phones in the future, then depending on the success of Tizen choosing to venture down a completely Android-less path. Only time will tell what truly happens here, not conspiracy theories.

I am a happy Samsung Galaxy S4 owner and I really like the TouchWiz additions Samsung put over the top that make the phone more user-friendly and easier to use. I don't see the additions as a degradation of the Android experience, I actually prefer them and they're leaps and bounds more stable than the additions in the S3 or S2 (which seems to contradict this article suggesting Samsung want Android to fail).

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#75

Post by fpgeek »

mtgx wrote: post #15
radicalbyte wrote: post #11

I don't really care for Samsung's overpriced plastic phones, but their S-Pen is all sorts of awesome. Why no-one else is innovating in that area is beyond me. Or do google prefer us to type our data in, because it's easier to index?

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 don't think Google dropped the ball on active digitizers, other OEMs did. From what I remember, at least two other companies (HTC and Lenovo) also tried active digitizers on tablets. And soon after that (right around the original Note), Google started adding more stylus APIs in ICS.

Unfortunately, the HTC and Lenovo tablets flopped (and I can say, from personal experience, the HTC Flyer deserved it - the stylus was laggy and very disappointing) and only the Note took off. It's really disappointing how many OEMs are going after the Note's screen size and how none of them are going after the active stylus (though I'm sure Samsung's Wacom investment has complicated that). My Note 2's stylus is one of the few reasons I put up with TouchWiz.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#76

Post by fpgeek »

You know, Samsung did the exact same thing last year with the S3 and Flipboard. I believe that, at the time, some people had similar concerns. In retrospect, though, that deal turned out great for Android. Samsung paying for exclusivity helped give the Flipboard developers an incentive to do the (long-desired) port. A year later, "everyone" has it and most people have forgotten that Samsung had an exclusive window (if they ever knew it at all). If the ITV app turns out similarly (and other have pointed out that the exclusive window is limited), I don't see any reason to be worried on behalf of "Android".

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#77

Post by [deleted] »

fpgeek wrote: post #73
yareally wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Google was overly happy with Samsung implementing the multi-app view on the Note 2 either, but there was not much they could do about it in the end. They had already told Cyanogenmod previously not to do this[1], so one can assume they were not pleased that Samsung would do it, but Samsung carries much more weight than an AOSP modding group. [1] https://plus.google.com/100275307499530023476/posts/ViCME1…

Samsung implemented multi-window exactly as Google wanted: opt-in instead of opt-out or forced. I highly doubt the Android team is unhappy about that. Several top Google apps support it (Chrome, Gmail, Maps, Talk and YouTube, judging from my Note 2). Given that (and the many other windowing hacks I've seen including ones by such obscure companies as Facebook and Sony) I expect some sort of cleaner, official multi/flo…

[deleted]

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#78

Post by yareally »

fpgeek wrote: post #73
yareally wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Google was overly happy with Samsung implementing the multi-app view on the Note 2 either, but there was not much they could do about it in the end. They had already told Cyanogenmod previously not to do this[1], so one can assume they were not pleased that Samsung would do it, but Samsung carries much more weight than an AOSP modding group. [1] https://plus.google.com/100275307499530023476/posts/ViCME1…

Samsung implemented multi-window exactly as Google wanted: opt-in instead of opt-out or forced. I highly doubt the Android team is unhappy about that. Several top Google apps support it (Chrome, Gmail, Maps, Talk and YouTube, judging from my Note 2). Given that (and the many other windowing hacks I've seen including ones by such obscure companies as Facebook and Sony) I expect some sort of cleaner, official multi/flo…

I wouldn't mind multiview becoming the norm with official Android API support for apps made to support it. I didn't realize Samsung made it opt-in, but that makes much more sense and calms my fears about it. We can already have multiple fragments displayed in an app, so it would make sense the next logical step is to have multiple apps open with some limitations and restrictions via official support in the Android API.

Just curious, but did support for it (for Google Apps) come at the Note 2 release or after its release?

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#79

Post by Shank »

w1ntermute wrote: post #39
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…

Yes, but in China Google services aren't nearly as prevalent as they are in the US. Baidu is as popular, so naturally it'd be okay as a default standard.

The Samsung Fascinate (Galaxy S1) on Verizon had Bing included by default, and there were quite a bit of complaints about it - not to mention the fact that the device wasn't too competitive with other devices on the market at the time.

From Engadget's review:

"This was maddening to us. We don't have a personal issue with Bing, but it's not our engine of choice, and we'd be willing to bet that it's not yours either. Now, imagine buying an Android phone -- a Google phone -- only to discover that not only was Google not defaulted to as a search engine, it's not even an option! For us, this is actually a deal breaker. It's fine to throw a new choice a user's way, but to force them into using nothing but that choice seems pretty low. Even on the original iPhone you were given a choice between Google and Yahoo!. Here, you've got Bing unless you want to get hacking -- and most people actually don't want to get hacking. They just want to use their phones. Again, it's not that Bing is a bad search engine, but Google is the standard. If it's not even offered, what does that say?"

http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/07/samsung-fascinate-review/

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#80

Post by Shank »

AlexDanger wrote: post #47
chrisrhoden wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 P…

>The Nexus line is the best smartphone bargain that has ever happened, period, and it's still outsold by the Galaxy S III. Dont forget what happened with the Nexus 4. A pure-android device with great hardware at a reasonable price. It sold out within an hour. Availability was terrible for weeks (months?) after launch. A very large number of people who wanted the phone couldnt have it and presumably went with other ha…

They'll be prepared with the next revision for sure. The last time Google tried to sell a phone was the Nexus One, but that was at full retail price. The Nexus 4, on the other hand, was below market price, unlocked, and the best "pure Google" phone around.
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