6 ms·

I'm no longer surprised that Samsung doesn't feel the need to update to the latest version of Android! Grace UX (their skin) already had all of these features a

I'm no longer surprised that Samsung doesn't feel the need to update to the latest version of Android! Grace UX (their skin) already had all of these features as of last year. I do not see anything worth upgrading for here. Potentially huge for people buying the notched phones. The support for that did improve in this update.

untog 8y ago
Surely the headline features here are the machine learning everything, not really the UI tweaks?
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  You're right, but Samsung features go beyond UI changes. I am locked into the Samsung ecosystem by a few of these intangibles. Like: Samsung Pay (works on credit card readers) Samsung DeX (Chromebook in your pocket) Samsung Pass (auto fill with Iris scanning) Some of these features are made by other companies like, Huawei makes a Chromebook style UI too, but Iris scanning and Magnetic Payments are exclusive to Samsung platform.
  - NSAID 8y ago
    > Samsung Pay (works on credit card readers) I hadn't heard of that before. That's pretty cool. "Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) is a technology that emits a magnetic signal that mimics the magnetic strip on a traditional payment card. MST sends a magnetic signal from your device to the payment terminal's card reader (to emulate swiping a physical card without having to upgrade the terminal’s software or hardware)" https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00043865/ https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00043865/
    - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
      It's literally the most epic thing, I feel like Harry Potter when I go into stores and wave my watch over their credit card reader :) I actually gave up my wallet 3 years ago to only use this and it's not let me down yet. Also nice to not have a wallet bulge in my back pocket cuz I do sit a lot and it's taken a toll on my spine being disaligned.
    - xd1936 8y ago
      Yup. Samsung bought a company called LoopPay a couple of years ago. They invented and patented the tech. https://www.looppay.com/ https://www.looppay.com/ https://www.recode.net/2015/5/13/11562614/samsung-paid-around-250-million-for-looppay-its-apple-pay-competitor https://www.recode.net/2015/5/13/11562614/samsung-paid-aroun...
  - krzyk 8y ago
    > Samsung Pay (works on credit card readers) I was wondering what you mean, until I read the first child comment. Credit card readers around Europe support NFC (are all chip based), I haven't seen an only magnetic stripe card in years.
    - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
      In America NFC is often available now but it's broken in a lot of places where the reader will reject the transactions outright. Very disappointing to use and 100% of my iPhone friends still carry a wallet.
sigfubar 8y ago
Samsung's modifications to the stock Android experience aren't "features"; these are desperate attempts to differentiate itself from other Android handset OEMs. The resulting need to reconcile two codebases leaves users as the losers: they wait forever for general advancements in the Android ecosystem.
- wvenable 8y ago
  The general consensus amount Samsung users from my experience is that that they do these features better than Google. Samsung's multi-window support was better than eventually came to Android. Samsung's handling of app badges was WAY better (message counts!) and that went away with Oreo's terrible implementation (a dot indicating un-dismissed notifications). My impression after upgrading to Oreo and getting more Google-designed features and less Samsung-designed features has been pretty disappointing. I lost a bunch of features that were extremely useful. Unfortunately, as you said, reconciling the two code-bases means that Android updates are slow-to-never. The promise of open source and upstreaming patches for features doesn't happen with Android. Every manufacturer does many of the same enhancements themselves and then Google re-implements it a few years later poorly.
  - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
    My feelings exactly, Google literally plays catch up to Samsung in terms of features in it's OS and it's phones. So really I feel sorry for those poor people using Pixel 2 XL which has been slowed down to a crawl by the updates Google pushes out on the regular.
    - 555513 8y ago
      Are you talking for all of us XL 2 users ? Not a single slow down on mine, thanks. Was on beta the first day it was available.
      - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
        No sorry, you might have gotten lucky. But a few major YouTubers have reported this slowdown and I really have no data to back this up. I'm glad the Pixel 2 XL works for you! I just have a personal grudge against the pixel line of phones are they compete with OEM's directly without bringing good hardware to the table (except that god tier camera of course)
mkirklions 8y ago
Curious what others think of samsung hardware on HN. Ive had: >S5 phone whos charging port broke and had terrible battery life. But hey, when I bought the phone the screen was bright and beautiful... I feel like I was tricked >My SSD failed in a year >My grandpa's 1,000 dollar samsung TV he bought in 2018 has an irresponsibly slow smart TV. And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was looking to buy them last year. I cannot tell if Samsung has lots of customers with horror stories, or a massive marketing department that is able to get people to buy average products at luxury prices.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  I'm still using my Galaxy Note 4, and I have no complaints.
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  It sounds to me like a lot of issues were had. I'm sure Samsung isn't for everyone but as a poweruser nothing remotely compares to the speed, power and reliability Samsung devices give me. My favorite feature is by far Samsung Pay, it's completely replaced my wallet.
- kop316 8y ago
  > And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was looking to buy them last year. I can add to that. From a previous comment: "I actually just replaced a 3 year old Samsung Electric Dryer. The heat was no longer working, and I suspect it was the heating element. To access the heating element required me to: - Take off the control board - Take off the entire top of the dryer - Take out the door - Take out the Front panel - Take out the drum I only figured this out after finding a service manual, as I did not want to risk destroying a dryer to figure out how to fix it. A new heating element was $80 off the grey market. I wanted to see how much it would be to get it fixed by a service place, and any service place I went to wanted to charge $100 just to look at it! When I saw a new dryer was $400, I just decided I did not want to deal with it anymore and bought a new dryer. I will not be buying Samsung products again. "
  - 8y ago
josephh 8y ago
My thoughts exactly; the only feature that I really missed from not having my device upgraded to Oreo last year was the OS-wide credential auto-fill functionality. I see none this time around. I wonder when they'll have better VPN support: the stock OS is still missing IPSec IKEv2+RSA w/ proper server cert validation (even Strongswan has a few major limitations with their Android app implementation[1]), and their always-on VPN support is quite bad (e.g. lack of domain name support for not good-enough reason[2], doesn't handle tethering properly while connected) [1]. https://wiki.strongswan.org/issues/813 https://wiki.strongswan.org/issues/813 [2]. https://superuser.com/a/1019661 https://superuser.com/a/1019661
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  Before Oreo finally enabled universal auto fill, Samsung Pass did a good job signing me in with my irises so far. I love the ecosystem of apps they made so far really impressive. Especially the magnification loupe that iOS has had for years.

untog 8y ago

Surely the headline features here are the machine learning everything, not really the UI tweaks?

DennisAleynikov 8y ago
You're right, but Samsung features go beyond UI changes. I am locked into the Samsung ecosystem by a few of these intangibles. Like: Samsung Pay (works on credit card readers) Samsung DeX (Chromebook in your pocket) Samsung Pass (auto fill with Iris scanning) Some of these features are made by other companies like, Huawei makes a Chromebook style UI too, but Iris scanning and Magnetic Payments are exclusive to Samsung platform.
- NSAID 8y ago
  > Samsung Pay (works on credit card readers) I hadn't heard of that before. That's pretty cool. "Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) is a technology that emits a magnetic signal that mimics the magnetic strip on a traditional payment card. MST sends a magnetic signal from your device to the payment terminal's card reader (to emulate swiping a physical card without having to upgrade the terminal’s software or hardware)" https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00043865/ https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00043865/
  - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
    It's literally the most epic thing, I feel like Harry Potter when I go into stores and wave my watch over their credit card reader :) I actually gave up my wallet 3 years ago to only use this and it's not let me down yet. Also nice to not have a wallet bulge in my back pocket cuz I do sit a lot and it's taken a toll on my spine being disaligned.
  - xd1936 8y ago
    Yup. Samsung bought a company called LoopPay a couple of years ago. They invented and patented the tech. https://www.looppay.com/ https://www.looppay.com/ https://www.recode.net/2015/5/13/11562614/samsung-paid-around-250-million-for-looppay-its-apple-pay-competitor https://www.recode.net/2015/5/13/11562614/samsung-paid-aroun...
- krzyk 8y ago
  > Samsung Pay (works on credit card readers) I was wondering what you mean, until I read the first child comment. Credit card readers around Europe support NFC (are all chip based), I haven't seen an only magnetic stripe card in years.
  - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
    In America NFC is often available now but it's broken in a lot of places where the reader will reject the transactions outright. Very disappointing to use and 100% of my iPhone friends still carry a wallet.

sigfubar 8y ago

Samsung's modifications to the stock Android experience aren't "features"; these are desperate attempts to differentiate itself from other Android handset OEMs. The resulting need to reconcile two codebases leaves users as the losers: they wait forever for general advancements in the Android ecosystem.

wvenable 8y ago
The general consensus amount Samsung users from my experience is that that they do these features better than Google. Samsung's multi-window support was better than eventually came to Android. Samsung's handling of app badges was WAY better (message counts!) and that went away with Oreo's terrible implementation (a dot indicating un-dismissed notifications). My impression after upgrading to Oreo and getting more Google-designed features and less Samsung-designed features has been pretty disappointing. I lost a bunch of features that were extremely useful. Unfortunately, as you said, reconciling the two code-bases means that Android updates are slow-to-never. The promise of open source and upstreaming patches for features doesn't happen with Android. Every manufacturer does many of the same enhancements themselves and then Google re-implements it a few years later poorly.
- DennisAleynikov 8y ago
  My feelings exactly, Google literally plays catch up to Samsung in terms of features in it's OS and it's phones. So really I feel sorry for those poor people using Pixel 2 XL which has been slowed down to a crawl by the updates Google pushes out on the regular.
  - 555513 8y ago
    Are you talking for all of us XL 2 users ? Not a single slow down on mine, thanks. Was on beta the first day it was available.
    - DennisAleynikov 8y ago
      No sorry, you might have gotten lucky. But a few major YouTubers have reported this slowdown and I really have no data to back this up. I'm glad the Pixel 2 XL works for you! I just have a personal grudge against the pixel line of phones are they compete with OEM's directly without bringing good hardware to the table (except that god tier camera of course)

mkirklions 8y ago

Curious what others think of samsung hardware on HN. Ive had: >S5 phone whos charging port broke and had terrible battery life. But hey, when I bought the phone the screen was bright and beautiful... I feel like I was tricked >My SSD failed in a year >My grandpa's 1,000 dollar samsung TV he bought in 2018 has an irresponsibly slow smart TV. And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was looking to buy them last year. I cannot tell if Samsung has lots of customers with horror stories, or a massive marketing department that is able to get people to buy average products at luxury prices.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
I'm still using my Galaxy Note 4, and I have no complaints.
DennisAleynikov 8y ago
It sounds to me like a lot of issues were had. I'm sure Samsung isn't for everyone but as a poweruser nothing remotely compares to the speed, power and reliability Samsung devices give me. My favorite feature is by far Samsung Pay, it's completely replaced my wallet.
kop316 8y ago
> And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was looking to buy them last year. I can add to that. From a previous comment: "I actually just replaced a 3 year old Samsung Electric Dryer. The heat was no longer working, and I suspect it was the heating element. To access the heating element required me to: - Take off the control board - Take off the entire top of the dryer - Take out the door - Take out the Front panel - Take out the drum I only figured this out after finding a service manual, as I did not want to risk destroying a dryer to figure out how to fix it. A new heating element was $80 off the grey market. I wanted to see how much it would be to get it fixed by a service place, and any service place I went to wanted to charge $100 just to look at it! When I saw a new dryer was $400, I just decided I did not want to deal with it anymore and bought a new dryer. I will not be buying Samsung products again. "
- 8y ago

josephh 8y ago

My thoughts exactly; the only feature that I really missed from not having my device upgraded to Oreo last year was the OS-wide credential auto-fill functionality. I see none this time around. I wonder when they'll have better VPN support: the stock OS is still missing IPSec IKEv2+RSA w/ proper server cert validation (even Strongswan has a few major limitations with their Android app implementation[1]), and their always-on VPN support is quite bad (e.g. lack of domain name support for not good-enough reason[2], doesn't handle tethering properly while connected) [1]. https://wiki.strongswan.org/issues/813 https://wiki.strongswan.org/issues/813 [2]. https://superuser.com/a/1019661 https://superuser.com/a/1019661

DennisAleynikov 8y ago
Before Oreo finally enabled universal auto fill, Samsung Pass did a good job signing me in with my irises so far. I love the ecosystem of apps they made so far really impressive. Especially the magnification loupe that iOS has had for years.