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What are you talking about? It does seem like the simplest explanation for why Samsung both makes their own Android apps and seems to consistently half-ass the

What are you talking about? It does seem like the simplest explanation for why Samsung both makes their own Android apps and seems to consistently half-ass them, is because they're meant to serve as leverage for negotiating with Google, not something they expect many end users to actually use.

MikusR 3y ago
Samsung Notes, Reminder, Calendar, Browser are all much better than Google versions. Edit. And I completely forgot Gallery with OneDrive integration.
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  ? They're shovelware. They're remarkably bad software.
  - Tarball10 3y ago
    Have you used a recent Samsung phone? They have come a long way from the TouchWiz days.
  - dotnet00 3y ago
    Samsung Notes and Calendar are way better than the Google versions. It's kind of baffling to see anyone calling them shovelware. That impression only fits if you haven't used a Samsung device in 5+ years. It's going to be hard to go back to the Google versions after seeing how much better the Samsung versions are.
    - maxwell 3y ago
      Has it been that long...? I'll take another look.
      - dotnet00 3y ago
        I used to be a pretty heavy user of Google Keep, which was functionally most of what I use Samsung Notes for now, but my usage fell off. I don't know what Notes used to be like, but nowadays I find it to be like a better OneNote, and since I prefer to use the pen for note taking of all types, it's become my go to on all platforms. With Calendar, I've always found Google's UI to be kind of clunky and the flow for adding a new reminder a bit too involved for what ought to be functionally equivalent to circling a date and adding a note on old school calendars. I also expect it to show me a direct overview of the entire month rather than just the day with an additional menu to show a rough overview of the month. Samsung's app comes pretty close to this smooth flow, by actually just showing the tasks per day for the entire month on most of the screen and by having a textbox right at the bottom where you can just type out the reminder and it'll extract the needed info from that. Google's app IIRC has a similar feature, but having to tap the + icon, then think about which category my task falls in kind of breaks the flow for me. Edit: I forgot about Samsung Gallery, which I also find to be far superior to the Google version. I love that the image editor has version control without creating duplicates. It feels like it's actually used by the developers, since in most of casual smartphone editing you just want the cropped image (eg with screenshots). I also find the automatic image segmentation and clipping in the Gallery app to be a convenient and cool 'hidden' feature that the Google Photos app lacks. This isn't to say that there isn't any bloat. There are many apps I don't care for. But that's the same with Google's apps. Overall though, I feel Samsung has come far from the old touchwiz days, when it felt like they were being different for the sake of being different, while nowadays it feels like they actually have a vision for their services with how everything interoperates between devices.
- maxwell 3y ago
  Curious by which metric(s) you consider Samsung Internet Browser superior to Chrome for Android?
  - MikusR 3y ago
    Adblocker.
    - maxwell 3y ago
      Fair point, looks like they're third party but easy to manage through the browser directly: https://www.samsung.com/my/support/apps-services/how-to-block-samsung-internet-ads https://www.samsung.com/my/support/apps-services/how-to-bloc...

MikusR 3y ago

Samsung Notes, Reminder, Calendar, Browser are all much better than Google versions. Edit. And I completely forgot Gallery with OneDrive integration.

local_crmdgeon 3y ago
? They're shovelware. They're remarkably bad software.
- Tarball10 3y ago
  Have you used a recent Samsung phone? They have come a long way from the TouchWiz days.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Samsung Notes and Calendar are way better than the Google versions. It's kind of baffling to see anyone calling them shovelware. That impression only fits if you haven't used a Samsung device in 5+ years. It's going to be hard to go back to the Google versions after seeing how much better the Samsung versions are.
  - maxwell 3y ago
    Has it been that long...? I'll take another look.
    - dotnet00 3y ago
      I used to be a pretty heavy user of Google Keep, which was functionally most of what I use Samsung Notes for now, but my usage fell off. I don't know what Notes used to be like, but nowadays I find it to be like a better OneNote, and since I prefer to use the pen for note taking of all types, it's become my go to on all platforms. With Calendar, I've always found Google's UI to be kind of clunky and the flow for adding a new reminder a bit too involved for what ought to be functionally equivalent to circling a date and adding a note on old school calendars. I also expect it to show me a direct overview of the entire month rather than just the day with an additional menu to show a rough overview of the month. Samsung's app comes pretty close to this smooth flow, by actually just showing the tasks per day for the entire month on most of the screen and by having a textbox right at the bottom where you can just type out the reminder and it'll extract the needed info from that. Google's app IIRC has a similar feature, but having to tap the + icon, then think about which category my task falls in kind of breaks the flow for me. Edit: I forgot about Samsung Gallery, which I also find to be far superior to the Google version. I love that the image editor has version control without creating duplicates. It feels like it's actually used by the developers, since in most of casual smartphone editing you just want the cropped image (eg with screenshots). I also find the automatic image segmentation and clipping in the Gallery app to be a convenient and cool 'hidden' feature that the Google Photos app lacks. This isn't to say that there isn't any bloat. There are many apps I don't care for. But that's the same with Google's apps. Overall though, I feel Samsung has come far from the old touchwiz days, when it felt like they were being different for the sake of being different, while nowadays it feels like they actually have a vision for their services with how everything interoperates between devices.
maxwell 3y ago
Curious by which metric(s) you consider Samsung Internet Browser superior to Chrome for Android?
- MikusR 3y ago
  Adblocker.
  - maxwell 3y ago
    Fair point, looks like they're third party but easy to manage through the browser directly: https://www.samsung.com/my/support/apps-services/how-to-block-samsung-internet-ads https://www.samsung.com/my/support/apps-services/how-to-bloc...