According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Google is growing increasingly concerned with Samsung’s dominance of the Android – and smartphone – landscape. Supposedly, the topic is being openly discussed at Google, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s great news.
I’m pretty sure most of you are aware what this is about. Samsung dominates Android, and could start asking for more from Google. If Google doesn’t give in, Samsung could pull an Amazon and fork Android, cutting Google out of the loop entirely. Alternatively – and I think because of how Tizen 2.0 looks this is more and more likely – Samsung builds its own smartphone operating system.
This is a horror scenario for Google. Samsung has become a strong brand, while the brand Android has fallen by the wayside. If Samsung takes matters into its own hands, users would still buy Samsung phones, even if they don’t run Android. With the way Tizen looks almost identical to Android/Touchwiz, users wouldn’t even notice. Google, on the other hand, would lose its position in the smartphone market almost overnight, since the other Android OEMs are hurting bad.
Apparently, Google bought Motorola as insurance against this very scenario. So far, we’ve only seen Motorola phone coming out, so it’ll be interesting to see when the first true Google device comes out of Motorola. Hopefully for Google, it’ll be able to gain traction in the Android OEM market.
For us users, though, this is great news, since it’ll break up the dominant position of Android. If Samsung backs Tizen big, we’ll suddenly have a huge third contender, leading to increased competition. We’re already being spoiled by Ubuntu, Sailfish, Firefox OS, BB10, and others, but those don’t really stand much of a chance if Android keep dominating the way that it does. If Android breaks up into pieces, the market will be wide open for other players.
So, Samsung, do it. Get behind Tizen, or fork Android. Break the market open before it’s entirely wrapped up in Android and iOS.
The moment Samsung ditches Android, people switch to another manufacturer. While more time passes Android users are becoming more tied to the platform, knowing or not if it is Android, be it applications, Google services, etc, like iOS users that are tied to their App Store applications. Do you think people will switch to Linux if the big PC OEMs ditch Windows for Linux? Not gonna happen, people will switch to the next one that gives them Windows.
When an OS reach the kind of numbers Android and Windows have, no change on the OEMs will make big change in numbers, this kind of changes only happen when the new competitor innovates so much that people change.
Exactly my thoughts after reading the first paragraph. I, for one, have been considering switching to iPhone quite recently and I also keep my fingers crossed for Ubuntu. But I won’t easily move away, as I have quite a bunch of applications already bought from the Play store and to buy them again on a different platform wouldn’t be justifiable.
Meh, I don’t know. Lets face it, the apps cost squat. People with just a little disposable income won’t really notice. I don’t think i would have any trouble switching platform. Problem is, I’m already on Android, and find the lack of a back button intolerable on iOS. I could easily switch to other platforms if they weren’t a pain to deploy software to, and was seriously considering N9 but it was insanely overpriced and ditched before it was released.
I suspect my next phone could just run firefox, although then i’ll need to keep an Android tablet for my gaming fixes.
/Uni
iPhone….blech.
Maybe not, since people tend to buy what they’re told to. If the marketing is good enough, and the device is ‘sexy’ enough, then who knows? People don’t give a damn about functionality these days; they only care if it makes them look good while they’re holding it.
People will buy whatever the 16 year old nephew who ‘knows computers and shit’ will tell them to buy, you mean. That kid is a die-hard Apple or Android fanboy.
Trying to compare Android to Windows in this way is nonsensical. Also, you seem to think Android users are fiercely loyal to Android.. But, why do you think this? I’m sure most of us (if not all) know many iOS and Android cellphone users. I do see loyalty amongst the iOS’ers (though it’s more of a general Apple loyalty), but I don’t see the same with the Android’ers.
I think you’re mistaking what’s mostly not-wanting-to-pay-iPhone-prices for loyalty to Android.
In my experience it’s more a case of people seeing that Samsung are releasing phones that are (i) better and (ii) cheaper than the iPhone.
Fanboyism exists on all platforms.
This implies that Android users wished they owned an iPhone. There’s plenty of people who choose Android over iOS because they prefer Android over iOS.
The real question is whether they’ll prefer Tizen over Android and iOS if and when Samsung decide to switch.
Edited 2013-02-28 16:31 UTC
I don’t think it would be that hard to move from Android to iOS or to ms phone 8 OS or to Blackberry. Phones are a bit different of the desktop case, where ms office, Autocad and some other applications really make a big difference. Most of the users just browse the news on Internet, check emails, facebook, weather or take directions between calls. They are devices to consume content, not to produce.
Perhaps I don’t get it, but really, for what I see the vast majority of the users I know use just that said functionalities. Add some few apps that cover the missing features and that have equivalents on all of them and probably we have a scenario where almost 100% of the users needs are covered.
iOS is actually a case on itself as its users are so used to the clunky iTunes that move them to something else would be really hard.
Anyway, I think that Google should be concerned to improve Android and let the market sort the rest. Yes, Samsung has a very good set of devices, but so does HTC, LG and some others now.
They should never divert their focus or try to interfere on the business of whom served them so well. Actually, they should improve their image as a fair, trustworthy and impartial leader, the exact things the manufactures don’t see on Microsoft right now.
I got my mother-in-law and sister-in-law off iPhone and onto Android via the SGS3. It took about a month but they love those things now.
And that’s based on what? Pure speculation? Look, people don’t buy mobile operating systems. That’s a minor branding thing, and I think you’re overemphasizing the OS because, like the rest of us, you’re a geek. People buy phones. Samsung rules them all. If Samsung comes out with a phone that looks, feels, sounds, and works like Android — but isn’t Android — people won’t care one bit.
So we’ll do a few circles before concluding eventually that our data and favourite apps shouldn’t be tied to Android, Tizen, BB, iOS or Microsoft.
They should be device/OS agnostic web apps …
This way the phones become increasingly commodity – fiercely competig over basic things like durability, battery life, signal strength, weight, comfort, etc
Isn’t competition great!
Frankly if you use google services then you’re fairly free to jump between different devices. MS less so but still fairly free. Apple, not at all.
You do lose the applications however, so other platforms have to provide alternatives.
I am not a “techy” as most of you guys seem to be, just the usual Linux zealot, but I love reading OS News and thought you might like to know how my female cousin (51 yro) selected her Lumia 920 just before Xmas here in Oz. She doesn’t know what an “app” is. She walked into the Optus shop and said she wanted a new phone, the salesman told her the 920 was “the best” and she loved “the blue on the screen”. That’s how non-techy people seem to buy phones here. As an old guy I think the rise of Android has been great, as has the rise of Samsung with it, with potential rises from Ubuntu phone and maybe Firefox phone all using open protocols (or whatever the word is I should use) I see no problems, the only ones to worry may be Apple and Microsoft, that can’t be all bad. BTW I got an N9 before they ran out about a year ago – love it. I will probably get a Moto-Goog if and when available. Thanks for reading.
Why would I care if Samsung decides to ditch Android? Good riddance from my standpoint. They currently pollute the Android well with stellar garbage like Touchwiz and other crapware made to replace perfectly functional Google apps. Let them bung up Tizen for the masses that just want cool hardware with no substance. I think that would make most of the fanboys just as happy.
Samsung Android phones have been the LEAST stable in the ecosystem based on the handsets I’ve owned. Lots of hardware issues as well. I prefer pure Google devices thank you very much.
I have the complete opposite experiences: no one I know has had any hardware-issues with their Samsung-phones and the software-issues they’ve had have all been about not being familiar with Android. I, too, am happily sporting my Galaxy Note around and I consider it a fairly solid build — I would be saddened if Samsung left the scene as I would have to find some other manufacturer when the time comes to leave the Note behind.
I bought a Galaxy S two years ago and I’m never buying a Samsung Phone ever again. The updates were horrible, and Samsung can’t be bothered to update past 2.3.6. They even said that the device wasn’t able to run anything newer. Well I’m running 4.2.1 on it now.
As for the hardware – the GPS barely works (also a problem on a friend’s Galaxy S), the camera’s external protection is easily scratched by simply putting and taking the phone out of the pocket, resulting in blurry photos (I had to buy a replacement from eBay).
And don’t get me started on Touchwiz which is a total Apple ripoff. The past two years were a constant struggle to make my Android as vanilla as possible (thanks Cyanogenmod).
So, in my experience, Samsung does mediocre hardware, horrible software and doesn’t care about its customers.
I also have a Galaxy S which I upgraded to Jelly Bean with CyanogenMod. I found that although speed was greatly improved and the constant crashes and hangs of applications stopped, the battery consumption went up dramatically. It would not last through the day if I had wi-fi or mobile internet enabled (turning these off made it last considerably longer). CyanogenMod developers have said that this is a persistent problem with Samsung S-series devices. I suspect that the application problems were down to them being optimised for ICS or JB because they had not always been happening (and I had not had an OS upgrade since getting the phone in mid-2011) and stopped when I upgraded.
The GS was quite hard-wearing though. I was tempted to buy a Motorola Defy because of its claims of supposed indestructability (which have been shown to be groundless), but this phone survived at least two drops onto hard surfaces. I never cared about the camera – I have a proper camera for taking pictures. I replaced the GS with a Galaxy Nexus this month.
I also have problems with the battery life and I suspect it’s to the fact that the CM devs don’t have access to proper drivers.
At least 5 drops on concrete here
What ? I have a Samsung Galaxy S also , bought 2 years ago.
It still doesnt have a scratch. Camera, screen, cover is like new. ( i just bough a 10€ cover for it, white brand )
I have CM with 4.2.2 in it, running great (helly rom). I also have a Nexus 7, and the two android systems are running great.
Also speed wise, if i dont put alot of Bloaty apps on it, it runs very well.
Dont know what more would anyone want from a phone : Durability, Battery still good, probably the phone that has more ROM’s not being a Nexus.
Makes me think that i dont have no reason to buy another android phone in the near or not so near future.
I have a friend who was a die hard HTC fan until he got a Note 2, on my recommendation. He is in phablet heaven now! He actually has two full tablets, a Nexus 7 and an Asus Transformer Infinity, and he still uses the phone as a tablet far more than the other two despite how cool Asus hardware is.
As for me, well my first and only Samsung phone is my Nexus S 4G, and the only issue I ever had was with the back button registering phantom keypresses constantly, throwing me out of whatever app I was in. That was fixed with a switch to CyanogenMod, which also gained me a bit more battery life and working native tethering. Overall I love the phone. I’ve even tried out a BlackBerry Style recently (my second favorite mobile phone platform after classic Palm Garnet) and I quickly went back to the Android phone.
If Samsung does fork Android or abandon it in favor of Tizen, I’ll gladly follow them, provided I’m not blown away by BB10 when I get to try it anyway.
Edited 2013-02-27 11:27 UTC
My problem with the SGS4G is that there is no official CyanogenMod for it 🙁
XDA has been a life saver for me since purchasing this damn thing. Running CM9.1 unofficial until CM 10 unofficial works better on the hardware.
Yeah, I would be sad as well. I absolutely love my Note II. The current form of touchwiz isn’t bad at all. I’ve had zero issues.
The hate spewing seems to stem from earlier releases and experiences, much like the MS hate and others. People, stop being small minded and up date your views or at least stop being so hate filled. Raises your blood pressure, ya know?
We always like to see more competition. Monocultures stagnate, and monopolies abuse customers. But if there are too many incompatible operating systems, then I fear that this will once again relegate phones to being commodity devices rather than application platforms. If every time you upgraded your phone, you had to throw away your investment in all the apps you bought, you’d stop buying apps, and eventually the “app store” concept would fade away as well. I think there’s a huge benefit to there being large repositories of apps you can buy (and lots of free ones!) and then migrate to your next portable device. How many operating systems is too many?
Android phones to this point have been an arms race for larger screens, higher resolutions etc. but now all the flagship phones are launching at 1080p, 5 inch screens, ~8MP cameras etc.
In the same way it doesn’t matter to my inlaws if they have a $500 desktop or a $1800 desktop we are slowly going to start seeing the same thing with Android phones.
HTC, Motorola, Sony, LG etc. all make Android phones almost as good as Samsung. The S1 was’t a very good phone and Samsung has lead the pack for only about 2 years.
You’re spot on there – Samsung’s rise to number 1 started with the S2, less than 2 years ago. It’s only about 18 months ago that HTC had nearly a quarter of the US smartphone market. Things change, sometimes quite quickly. And as the Galaxy S2 showed, all it needs is one especially good phone to grab some serious market share.
Amazon never commercialized Android devices.
Samsung do, and so they have a contract with google stipulating they can’t fork Android.
They can walk away from the contract.
Yeah but they can’t use the Android name or Google services without permission. What they would be left with is Linux which they already have in the form of Tizen (formerly MeeGo) and the need to get permission from Oracle to use a license of Java for the cause.
That Java part is tricky, it is a mirracle that Google got the terms they did from Sun and now that Oracle owns it it is highly unlikely (read: not happening) they would give Samsung the proper licensing.
Without java they could not easily port existing Android apps. Oracle would no doubt demand a LOT of control so not only would they be no better off with the new software partner they would have an uphill battle in an already crowded market of mobile operating systems (iOS, Android, Windows mobile, BB10, Ubuntu mobile etc.)
Java is largely irrelevant.
Yes, Android apps are written in Java, however they also make extensive use of Android APIs and are completely reliant upon them.
An app written for Android cannot be easily ported to another OS that uses Java because the Android APIs are not available.
Android does not have a license for java because it does not use JVM. It was a process about this (Google vs Oracle), and google won. The result is that google and others can use there own implementation of java.
Can you provide a citation for the terms of this Samsung-Google contract. Or, was your claim that Samsung can’t fork Android purely speculation with nothing tangible behind it?
… They just should tell the other manufacturers to make better phones. Like phones with microSD card or removable batteries, add a good amount of internal storage (not like the 8GB on Nexus 4 without microSD card) and good camera sensor + camera software, etc etc.
If other manufacturers have quallity phones with options people want, they will sell more and samsung won’t be so dominant.
The thing about the Nexus 4 is that it’s $300 unlocked and contract free. My S3 would have been $650 off contract.
I think vendors still have to pay Microsoft to license fat32 to support microSD. I think it covers more than just fat but AFAIK Android phone makers pay Microsoft $10 to $15 per unit and Nikon recently agreed to license IP to run Android on their new line of smart cameras.
What is interesting is that Motorola was blasted over using “standard-essential patents” in court (and by Microsoft) but Microsoft now uses patents on the Fat32 standard to force the rest of the industry to pay them a tax for anything that doesn’t run Windows.
FAT32 is not a standard, it’s a filesystem.
Samsung developed F2FS (currently in the linux kernel) and it’s designed for flash storage, I’m curious what will come out of it.
FAT32 is a requirement by SD standard. So, it is required to implement microSD support. exFAT required for bigger cards (>64GB IIRC).
Not sure: SD is a standard or a de facto standard like FAT?
Motorola used FRAND patents = when a new standard was defined motorola said (and signed) that it want it’s patents to be use for that standard.
I don’t think the same happened to MS, sd manufactures just used it to be compatible with Windows by default. They could have used a different file system and provide the drivers, but would hurt the adoption rate (format your card with ext2/3/4 and see that it just works on linux).
Of course you are partialy right from the ethical point of view. But the law is the law and motorola chose from the beginning to make that patents FRAND while MS didn’t.
The SD-related standards are published by the SD Association ( https://www.sdcard.org/ ) and available to anyone who has a few thousands of dollars per year to spend.
There is also a free “simplified” specification, which effectively contains the minimum amount of information required to use an SD card as a storage device. Filesystem-related information has been mostly removed from it, however one can still see FAT-specific features being mentioned here and there.
Besides this, it is mentioned multiple times on the web, and also suggested by various pages of the SDA website, that the SD specification does mandate the use of filesystems of the FAT family (FAT32 for SDHC, exFAT for SDXC).
So in effect, what we have here is a publicly documented standard that more or less mandates the use of a proprietary, de facto standard. A shady practice to say the least, but then again I’m starting to expect the worst from people who do hardware standards…
Edited 2013-02-28 06:18 UTC
Not really; There’s nothing stopping them from just using an ext filesystem, and telling users to install software if they want to access it through an adapter.
Most users access it through their phone via USB, when they want to put stuff on it, so there is really no reason to ensure that it can be read out of the box by windows and OS X.
Just thought I would chime in here – FAT32 can handle up to 2TB partitions just happily. The default MS tools for formatting cuts the support off at like 32gb, but that is an artificial limit. I have a 1tb HDD formatted to FAT32 that I use for easy file exchange between various new and old OSes just because it was the simplest option. exFAT is NOT a requirement, though it probably is a slightly better FS.
Edited 2013-03-01 21:49 UTC
This is one reason why I recommend against buying MS products. The despicable extortion scheme they are running against Linux is no different than the SCO fiasco. Every time I read that Thom ran out and purchased some new MS product I cringe ;-).
After the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop, a Google monopoly on mobile would be a disaster, that’s for sure.
Edited 2013-02-27 07:08 UTC
All of these “other” operating systems (except BB) are just Linux with a different set of libraries, right? Maybe in the future they will be like desktop environements and you can have more than one on the same phone.
I doubt it.
It all about a consistent user experience.
While I agree, having one dominant OS is not a good thing. It brings about a lack of choice since app(programs) are only developed for one platform. That said, I’d much rather have Android as the dominant OS than iOS or Windows. Android does the least to lock you down and Google does the most to let you opt out or removed your data and move to another services provider. They don’t use proprietary formats to try and lock others out.
Tizen and Firefox OS sound pretty open, but Tizen is run my Intel and Samsung, which do not have a very good track record.
Be careful what you wish for, it could be a lot worse.
If Tizen is really open still remains to be seen:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIwMDU
LOL Moronix.
Who cared whether it is “truly open”. It it not really a measure of whether soemthing will get adopted.
It seems to be tkeith did, so that is why I mentioned it.
Fair enough. By why does everyone care about the openness about said project so much?
I understand not like proprietary code, I don’t like it when a uncooperative 3rd party for a piece of bespoke software won’t give you the source and you actually need to change it.
But when buying a device such as a phone, I can understand not wanting the iOS style of Application control .. but beyond that why worry?
I don’t know, past experiences with anything closed I guess.
Certain people prefer open.
So you’re saying the distribution terms of a piece of software have nothing to do with how widely it’s distributed?
Tizen never heard about it. But there was another phone OS from Samsung which failed very spectacularly: Bada.
They may try again but don’t see why they will success with new OS now…
It has out sold the so-called windows phone OS and is continuing to do so. Hmmmmm …
Did I miss something. When did Android fall to the wayside? I’ll have some of what he’s smoking, please.
They’d lose the the whole Google Play store.
I understand that Google develops Android behind closed doors.
I understand that Samsung would have more control over the product if they ditched / forked Android or went with Tizen.
But… is Samsung being held back by a lack of control?
The custom ROMs surely aren’t.
Look at the cool things coming out of Paranoid Android with their PIE controls.
With that said I think Google should be a little more open as far as development goes.
If Samsung leaves the Android camp (unlikely) the void will quickly be filled by HTC, Sony, Huawei and ZTE. This is a tempest in a teacup.
Tizen is actually for feature phones. The “domestic OSes” the Asian manufacturers used to have are becoming outdated fast, and Android doesn’t really work well in phones with under 512MBs of RAM and low-end CPUs. Nokia has Nokia OS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_OS ) and is making a killing from the Series 30 and Series 40 phones they sell in developing countries. Nokia actually turns a profit despite their smartphones sales being low thanks to Series30/40, so it’s natural that other manufacturers want a piece of the “feature phone” pie. Firefox OS has a similar purpose.
What Samsung could do to screw Google? They don’t have to do something as radical as throw the Android app compatibility away and pissing off customers. All they have to do is slowly deviate more and more from the official Android. Develop alternatives to things like Google Play, Google Music/Movies etc, let those alternatives grow (by attracting developers and adding content) so that the importance of Google Play and Music/Movies decreases, and then remove Google Play/Music/Movies altogether. Google has every reason to fear that.
The Tizen vs Android thing? A complete joke born out of the imagination of some bloggers. Two different classes of products.
Edited 2013-02-27 15:30 UTC
If samsung can pull a BB10 with Tizen, users literally wouldnt notice. BB10 runs native android applications. Those who didnt go through the whole BB10/Playbook Android support cycle, missed some interesting things.
Before Blackberry/RIM put the lockdown on the system, you could install google play (or amazon store) and install apps directly (this was also pre-single window, if i remember correctly).
Samsung doesnt have to be as strict and allow the amazon marketplace as well as folks so inclined to sideload the google play app.
Though then the question this raises the question why move from android in the first place?
Tizen doesn’t have to be the bee’s knees. The demonstrated possibility of a viable OS is sufficient to be valuable for Samsung as leverage should they ever need it against Google.
Third contender? What about Windows Phone 8!?
Joking! I’m joking. Please don’t flame me 😉
I’ve always been an early adopter of samsung, going back to the days of the D900, I switched and never returned, because in those days they were very cutting edge… Nowadays the others are catching up pretty well and if sammy pulls a no-android trick, especially considering their track record of sluggish system updates me (and a fairly good amount of other people) are not going to pick a samsung as their next device, it is simple, they didn’t get there on their own, they won’t be messing up their dominant position by attempting something they’ve failed so miserably before.