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.<p>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.<p>When I switched to Android I discovered it is strongly tied to Google, their services are great and free. However I grew increasingly worried about a future in which my account ends up as a "false positive" and my life get's deleted. — Seriously those horror stories about people's Google account getting deleted for no good reason are very scary to a startup founder. The probability is very low, but I am scared enough to invest money and time in moving all my data away from Google.<p>So Samsung if the article is right and this is your longterm strategy, I wish you best of luck, don't expect me to be a customer at any point in the future.
What's strange to me is that everything Samsung does to try and differentiate themselves just makes me like their phones less. Their hardware design is plastic and cheap feeling and I hate the touchwiz layer they put on top of android with their gimmicky features (camera based gesture controls? - who cares?).<p>I think Apple, Nokia and even HTC make much nicer hardware (although HTC still puts its Sense on top of android). I really wished Nokia had partnered with google to make the nexus phones instead of joining up with microsoft - then we would have had awesome hardware and a solid vanilla android phone.
> If ITV wanted to avoid fragmentation it would have chosen to make its app compatible with only pure versions of Android<p>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.<p>Different screen sizes/resolutions, driver issues, graphics acceleration, aftermarket distro's, 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.<p>Nvidia Tegra in particular has broken a LOT of stuff.
The time is right to capitalize on Android's big weak spots (OS fragmentation, disorganized app infrastructure, indifferent branding) but I don't see Tizen looming large yet. Samsung is doing a great job selling phones to consumers, but it's not in a great position to buy up the whole Google Play collection one piece at a time, and it doesn't seem to be trying to get developers and advertisers interested in Tizen at the moment.<p>If their long-term plan is to fly close to Android and then swap it out for something completely different, I'd be very excited. As a longtime smartphone user and current Android developer, I've been through the transition from one proprietary platform to another... BlackBerry, iOS, Android... I'm weary of dismissing a dozen app update notifications from my tray every day, and I'm tired of "apps" in general. I don't want to jump to another copycat of the same old junky, cluttered world. If Samsung is prepared to offer a fresh way of seamlessly being in the physical and digital worlds without having to navigate through a bunch of noisy, crappy apps (possibly without even the candybar form factor), I will be right there, wallet open. But as the author points out, it looks like the current iteration is just to load up a bunch of crapware onto a plastic toy, and users have to buy into the whole infrastructure if they want access to their favorite brand. No thanks.
>The exit strategy is called Tizen.<p>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.<p>Tizen is unlikely to catch up with Android functionality- or app-wise. Unless the carriers push it hard over Android, it will have no advantages and thus will not sell.
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.<p>Their only option is to move faster than Samsung to make sure samsung follows.
The exclusive deal last until August 31<p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/09/samsung-itv-player-android-app-exclusive/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/09/samsung-itv-player-androi...</a>
><i>Samsung is hurting Android</i><p>Maybe. But without Samsung there is NO Android.<p>No mobile maker makes any money of it worth mentioning, including Google, besides Samsung. The disparity is so big, it's not even funny. The majority of Android devices shipped ARE Samsung.<p>If Samsung was to stop shipping Android stuff, maybe someone else would pick up. But if Samsung Android devices were to disappear altogether magically, Android would have like 10-15% market share.
If Google had been less afraid of the GPL, Samsung would've been forced to share-alike. Instead, they can just grab the fruits of Google's labors, put some icing on top, and leave Google with a lesser product.
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?<p>Samsung should have been content slipping under Google's radar and riding that wave. I can't see how poking the Google beast is a good idea.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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).
Paying off a software developer for an exclusive is, by some measures bad. But how bad is it? Worse than Netflix having exclusive content? Worse than exclusive games on consoles?<p>There is a lot not to like about Samsung's approach to "differentiation," but this seems like a minor, petty basis for condemning Samsung as harmful to the overall Android ecosystem.<p>It is also alarmist to say Google is in a weak position relative to Samsung.<p>Compared with Amazon, who compete directly with parts of Google's ecosystem on an Android-derived platform, Samsung is a model citizen, if you look at the world that way.<p>Google is content to leave a large penumbra of non-Google-ecosystem Android devices in the market without exerting any pressure to reign them in. Why worry on Google's behalf?
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".
This articles just increase my expectations for FirefoxOS and Ubuntu phones. I really want one of them to succeed. Firefox can probably attract more developers than Ubuntu.
Android has never been particularly open; never in the sense of FOSS. Samsung is in the business of selling devices and their business strategy is winning at the moment. I am sure Google too is looking for business though their scale dwarfs in comparison to Samsung.
I don't really care for Samsung's overpriced plastic phones, but their S-Pen is all sorts of awesome.<p>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?
As a monetization strategy an app maker gets in bed with a certain vendor. This has literally nothing to do with Android (or "fragmentation"), and Samsung is just as capable of entering into such deals as HTC is, or Apple, or any other vendor.<p>If I were a consumer of the service, I would be pissed with the service provider for making that choice.