3 ms·

It's because Samsung can get away with selling total garbage. I work on an audio-related app, and a huge majority of the hacks in the app to work around bugs in

It's because Samsung can get away with selling total garbage. I work on an audio-related app, and a huge majority of the hacks in the app to work around bugs in phones are for different Samsung models. Still more than half of our users keep buying them.

shadowgovt 6y ago
This, but slightly revised: it's because Samsung is in the market of selling cheap hardware. Apple sells luxury products and part of their value-add is leverage with their vendors. Apple can come to a vendor and say "these are our constraints on what we are willing to buy. Here's testing benchmarks. You are required to meet them. Failure to do so voids the purchase contract." The vendor will then, of course, say "We'll have to charge you more if we're spinning up a test infrastructure we don't have." And then Apple will negotiate a price point and pass the anti-savings onto the consumer. They do this at multiple levels at multiple points in their hardware story. I met someone once who worked on the USB integration specs back in the first-couple-generation iBooks. Apple built a rig for physically testing the connectors (including multiple cycles of intentional mis-plug, i.e. flipping a USB-A connector over wrong-side-up and pushing hard against the socket). They told the vendors selling them USB sockets that the sockets had to survive the rig, or the sale was void. Vendors priced accordingly. But the resulting product is more robust than others on the market.
- oriolid 6y ago
  > Samsung is in the market of selling cheap hardware I'm not sure about this. There are people who pay >1000€ for their flagship phones and believe them to be premium products, but they are just as buggy as the cheap ones. Huge amount of CPU power and impressive camera specs, though.
  - iopq 6y ago
    I've never had one, can you expound more on this topic? The S21 Ultra seems like a very good purchase from reviews. QHD screen with dynamically adjusted 120Hz seems really like the best spec.
    - oriolid 6y ago
      IIRC that model doesn't give apps audio route change notifications when Bluetooth is disconnected, which screws up audio timing. Or something similar, each model has different bugs. But yeah, it doesn't spontaneously catch fire, so on Samsung scale it's good. Reviewers generally don't know about this stuff, because app developers have already worked around it.
- dilippkumar 6y ago
  My social network orbits around several people who experience apple’s testing rigor- and the stories I’ve heard aligns with the parent comment. Apple sounds like it really is that rigorous with the quality of hardware and drivers/firmware they use. Some of the stories of nitpicking that I’ve heard are truly awe inspiring. On the other hand, I’d hate to be the engineer on the vendor side trying to please apple. (Mostly because some crap PM or sales person made promises without consulting engineering on what’s possible with the available time and resources)
boromisp 6y ago
Are Samsung devices buggier than other android brands, or just so much more popular within your userbase, that more bugs surface?
- V-2 6y ago
  My impression as an Android developer (not backed by any systemic research, just personal experience) is that Samsung feels less bound by the platform standards because - due to their large market share - they can simply get away with it.
- oriolid 6y ago
  It's something like 50% of user base and >75% of device-specific bugs.
vagrantJin 6y ago
Bruv. I have a samsung. I'm touched. We've been together 4 years, its USB port is a little loose now. Too much charging everyday, but the screen is still pristine. The camera is fine so we can go out and take photos at the beach. I'm happy man. It does what it said it would do and did it. And still doing it.
- oriolid 6y ago
  You don't get to see the hacks in the apps you're using, starting with comments like "On some Samsung phones X happens even though API documentation says Y. We work around it by Z" or don't directly pay for the work that went into discovering the workaround.

shadowgovt 6y ago

This, but slightly revised: it's because Samsung is in the market of selling cheap hardware. Apple sells luxury products and part of their value-add is leverage with their vendors. Apple can come to a vendor and say "these are our constraints on what we are willing to buy. Here's testing benchmarks. You are required to meet them. Failure to do so voids the purchase contract." The vendor will then, of course, say "We'll have to charge you more if we're spinning up a test infrastructure we don't have." And then Apple will negotiate a price point and pass the anti-savings onto the consumer. They do this at multiple levels at multiple points in their hardware story. I met someone once who worked on the USB integration specs back in the first-couple-generation iBooks. Apple built a rig for physically testing the connectors (including multiple cycles of intentional mis-plug, i.e. flipping a USB-A connector over wrong-side-up and pushing hard against the socket). They told the vendors selling them USB sockets that the sockets had to survive the rig, or the sale was void. Vendors priced accordingly. But the resulting product is more robust than others on the market.

oriolid 6y ago
> Samsung is in the market of selling cheap hardware I'm not sure about this. There are people who pay >1000€ for their flagship phones and believe them to be premium products, but they are just as buggy as the cheap ones. Huge amount of CPU power and impressive camera specs, though.
- iopq 6y ago
  I've never had one, can you expound more on this topic? The S21 Ultra seems like a very good purchase from reviews. QHD screen with dynamically adjusted 120Hz seems really like the best spec.
  - oriolid 6y ago
    IIRC that model doesn't give apps audio route change notifications when Bluetooth is disconnected, which screws up audio timing. Or something similar, each model has different bugs. But yeah, it doesn't spontaneously catch fire, so on Samsung scale it's good. Reviewers generally don't know about this stuff, because app developers have already worked around it.
dilippkumar 6y ago
My social network orbits around several people who experience apple’s testing rigor- and the stories I’ve heard aligns with the parent comment. Apple sounds like it really is that rigorous with the quality of hardware and drivers/firmware they use. Some of the stories of nitpicking that I’ve heard are truly awe inspiring. On the other hand, I’d hate to be the engineer on the vendor side trying to please apple. (Mostly because some crap PM or sales person made promises without consulting engineering on what’s possible with the available time and resources)

boromisp 6y ago

Are Samsung devices buggier than other android brands, or just so much more popular within your userbase, that more bugs surface?

V-2 6y ago
My impression as an Android developer (not backed by any systemic research, just personal experience) is that Samsung feels less bound by the platform standards because - due to their large market share - they can simply get away with it.
oriolid 6y ago
It's something like 50% of user base and >75% of device-specific bugs.

vagrantJin 6y ago

Bruv. I have a samsung. I'm touched. We've been together 4 years, its USB port is a little loose now. Too much charging everyday, but the screen is still pristine. The camera is fine so we can go out and take photos at the beach. I'm happy man. It does what it said it would do and did it. And still doing it.

oriolid 6y ago
You don't get to see the hacks in the apps you're using, starting with comments like "On some Samsung phones X happens even though API documentation says Y. We work around it by Z" or don't directly pay for the work that went into discovering the workaround.