Larry Magid: Samsung Pressured To Better Unify With Android
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — Samsung may have caved in to pressure from Google over some of its apps. That's according to a report on the tech news website, Recode.
This comes just as we're learning that Google is selling Motorola Mobility to Lenovo. I can only speculate, but my guess is that Google must have said to them that they want to have a unified operating system.
Samsung keeps coming out with great phones, but they look and act very different from other Android devices, which are made by Google.
What I don't like about Samsung is that their software is different, not necessarily worse than Google's, but just different. The other thing that I'm sure Google was thinking about is that they want people to use Google apps. Google apps generally have a monetization component even if the apps are free. If nothing else they collect data.
Really, I think the pressure has been going on all along. The press has been down on Samsung, Google's been down on them and in general I think there's been a movement to get Android to be more unified and less fractured.
Samsung has some great apps, but truth be told, I think Google does a better job on user interface in terms of keeping things simpler.