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.
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Member since:2006-02-15
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.
Member since:2006-05-18
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.
Member since:2005-06-29
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
Member since:2005-07-06
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?
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight.""And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.
"The key takeaway we've reached (after two less than 24 hours playing with the iOS 7 Beta release) is this - every App must consider even basic updates to its UI to survive in a post-iOS 6 world." Great. Telling developers to update their entire application - user interface and behaviour alike - to target a look and behaviour that isn't final yet. Seems like potential for a lot of wasted work here."Overall the app is really basic, and designed for on the go editing. Microsoft says it's not planning to create an iPad version, noting that tablet users can utilize the Office Web Apps instead. We'd like to see some additional options for editing, including more clear options for text formatting and the ability to insert and change images, but it's a solid attempt for something you're only really going to use for editing in emergencies." A resounding meh can be heard from all over the world."Today, most people are using modern browsers that support the majority of the latest web technologies. Better yet, the usage of legacy browsers is declining significantly and newer browsers stay up to date automatically, which means the leading edge has become mainstream. Given these factors we've decided to retire Chrome Frame, and will cease support and updates for the product in January 2014." Eh.
Member since:
2009-05-25
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.