Forget Apple: Samsung Could Be Google's Next Big Rival 223
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."
this is ridiculous (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:this is ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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
No touch wiz (Score:5, Funny)
When I pee I use the no-touch system.
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So you're the guy that gets the floor wet by the urinal... (seriously, who is always peeing outside the urinal boundaries???)
Re:this is ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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I really don't like Google. Samsung firmware lets me run Android without using Google services. What's your problem?
+1 (Score:2)
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 th
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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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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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.
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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
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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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Because we all know .. (Score:3)
It's the cloud man. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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
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iPad can do HDMI as well, it just requires a ridiculously priced adapter. [amazon.com]
Welcome to standards :) (Score:5, Informative)
In the real world, you have *either* competition *or* interoperability.
Hardware USB, SATA, HDMI, WIFI 802.11 standards
Software OpenGL ES, JAVA, HTML5
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It's always been the monopolists who've refused to interoperate. They want to lock people to their systems.
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In the real world, you are an idiot.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
MS/Apple style lockin is what's to be feared, not good healthy competition.
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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.
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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?
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Choice (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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
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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 use
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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 t
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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.
Still banging that fragmentation drum (Score:5, Insightful)
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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
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the same as the very tired "Linux fragmentation" arguments we've all seen and heard before.
Won't say it's impossible... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
One other point (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
>> 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...
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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!
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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.
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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 w
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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.
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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.
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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?
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And when did core count replace MHz as the standard marketing-speak meaningless processor comparison?
They are moving Android faster (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Where are the Samsung Apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [google.com] 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 [google.com].
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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.
Thought is not good enough (Score:2)
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.
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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.
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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.
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Wait! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait! (Score:5, Funny)
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 ... (Score:2)
Strangle the Google Nexus 10 is 2560 x 1600 and its made by Samsung.
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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.
Samsung still a popular tablet maker (Score:2)
I'm not sure I agree http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24093213 [idc.com] 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.
Rival, yes. Biggest, no. (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
Moto X (Score:2)
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
FRAND means money (Score:3)
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.
FRAND vs Apple (Score:2)
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 r
Patent Protection not Patent Troll (Score:3)
> 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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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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.
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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
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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
Google make Money from Advertising Space (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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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.
Samsungs Bing Phone (Score:2)
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 G
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Chromecasts main use case is with androids.
they should have just called it AndroidCast or AC-plug for short.
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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 unt
Samdroid (Score:2)
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.
Samsung competing with Google (Score:2)
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
Moving Toward Stock Android Not Away (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.androidcentral.com/google-play-edition-htc-one-galaxy-s4 [androidcentral.com] 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.
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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
Why "fix" what isn't broken? (Score:3)
Why would Samsung want to create it's own appstore when it can leverage Google's to sell more devices?
Re: (Score:3)
it is possible... (Score:2)
Google purchased Motorola for $12.5 billion (Score:2)
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/ [forbes.com] and it got Motorola's 12.5k issued pa
Support (Score:2)
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?"
That may not be enough (Score:2)
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.
Apple isn't Google's rival (Score:4, Insightful)
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: (Score:3)
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
Flavor of the month (Score:2)
Except its been seen running 4.3 (Score:2)
http://www.ibtimes.com/android-43-update-nears-samsung-galaxy-s3-leaked-photo-shows-device-running-googles-new-os-1355843 [ibtimes.com] It looks like it will be running 4.3 in future skipping 4.2.2
Except its not (Score:4, Informative)
A year too late..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history [wikipedia.org] 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: (Score:2)
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.
Re: S3 still run android 4.1.2 (Score:3)
Why it works for Apple but not for Android (Score:2)
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
Samsung Microsoft Phones (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
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: (Score:2)
No, it's a bit like saying the dead parrot is pining for the fjords :)
Comments do not Agree with figures. (Score:2)
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 [idc.com] 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.
Except its not (Score:3)
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.