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

Samsung is hurting Android

trustedreviews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 117 posts

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#61

Post by yareally »

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/ViCME1bb...

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#62

Post by mratzloff »

lucb1e wrote: post #59
_pmf_ wrote: post #14

Without Samsung, Android would be about as relevant as Windows Phone OS.

The fact that I'm a Linux user makes me irrelevant because of the low market share? Tell that to Valve.

Valve doesn't give a shit about you, the Linux user. They are hedging their bets against Microsoft and Xbox.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#63

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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…

Are you in China? Yes, the regional annoyances on the 920 suck. Ironically, they are only an issue on the Nokia phones; the HTC phones (like the HD8) allow you to change to the American app store very easily.

iPhone 5 has a few that are not obvious, even if it does allow me to easily switch to the American app store. Chinese versions of Android are a complete pain, but the devices are easily rooted.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#64

Post by jussij »

lucb1e wrote: post #51
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.

If more people used Symbian, it would be a much better platform, too.

More people did use Symbian but they found it wanting.

Symbian was the reason Nokia lost its dominance of the smart phone market.

http://static8.businessinsider.com/image/4b9973c67f8b9a24285...

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#65

Post by myko »

georgemcbay wrote: post #41
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.…

I agree. I've ranted previously about how Samsung is toxic for Android in the past, mostly because they really did copy Apple too much, which gave the impression that "Android" (since Samsung is a very popular Android device provider) copied Apple too much. eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4346221 The problem is that whenever they don't blatantly rip-off Apple the designs they come up with are terrible. And b…

> The problem is that whenever they don't blatantly rip-off Apple the designs they come up with are terrible. And beyond just design they're clearly lacking on the software quality front.

Actually I find their blatant copies of Apple some of the worst offenders when it comes to their design. The ugly bars all over TouchWiz are pretty much darker tinted variants of the default bars found on iOS. The Samsung messaging app is ugly and essentially copies the iOS messaging app with a darker color scheme.

But really Samsung's designs are just terrible. They should try to work more with Google and leave as much of the stock UI as it is.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#66

Post by myko »

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 is allowed to do this because they limit multi-window to apps that support it. Cornerstone was built to work for every app, and could cause problems for apps that don't know how to behave properly when windowed like that.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#67

Post by myko »

threeseed wrote: post #50
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might sound crazy, but it seems that Google are trying to do the same to Apple as well. Obviously they won't switch to Android, but most consumers don't really care about the OS. Nobody can replace Google's apps - Apple can't, Samsung will fail if/when they try. By placing their apps on iOS, and essentially being the best of breed in every category, the long game seems to be to relegate Apple into the realm of t…

Have you never used the Google apps on the iOS before ? They are good but not significantly better than Apple's built in ones. Apple Maps may have less quality data but has a much better UI and uses a lot less data. Google Now is pointless compared to the genuinely useful Android version. Chrome is slower in most cases than Safari and not integrated with the rest of the OS. And really all their other apps simply aren…

> They are good but not significantly better than Apple's built in ones.

I guess I'll agree to disagree here. Apple's first party apps significantly behind Google's in my opinion.

> Unfortunately Apple just doesn't give third party apps any room to expand beyond its tiny little sandbox.

This is unfortunate, but it looks like Google is working hard to make its own applications interop nicely and directly, even with the limited capability iOS provides for this.

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#68

Post by myko »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #17
contacternst wrote: post #2

I'd think twice before going to war with Google. Samsung's phones aren't as much better than Motorola as Samsung seems to think they are. It isn't hard to see Google pumping the next Razr model with significant advertising dollars and claiming the crown for best selling Android smartphone for itself. Remember how fast Chrome beat out Firefox and and IE? Samsung should have been content slipping under Google's radar a…

> Samsung's phones aren't as much better than Motorola as Samsung seems to think they are. It isn't hard to see Google pumping the next Razr model with significant advertising dollars and claiming the crown for best selling Android smartphone for itself. Remember how fast Chrome beat out Firefox and and IE? It's the brand that matters. Motorola's is pretty beat up and is losing a lot of money every quarter even after…

> They've had some major screwups with hardware like the Google TV

AFAIK Google has never released their own hardware for Google TV. Hopefully this changes but it's probably not fair to lump the shitpool that is Google TV hardware in with Google's hardware faults (of which the Nexus Q really seems to be the only one, maybe the Xoom as well?).

Re: Samsung is hurting Android

#69

Post by mbetter »

yoshamano wrote: post #36
megablast wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I personally consider the Pre2 the high-water mark for smartphones.
Post reply on HN