4 ms·

I don't understand, why is Samsung pulling stunts like this all the time? It would make sense if they were trying to get up the ladder but they are already ther

by nivla 11y ago

I don't understand, why is Samsung pulling stunts like this all the time? It would make sense if they were trying to get up the ladder but they are already there, they hold an unquestionably large market share of Android. Things like these won't do any good in the long run but only prompt consumers to actively avoid the brand. Some of the things that really surprises me: [1] http://gizmodo.com/samsung-rigged-the-s4-to-unnaturally-perform-better-in-971577921 http://gizmodo.com/samsung-rigged-the-s4-to-unnaturally-perf... [2] http://www.neowin.net/news/samsungs-gamepad-is-a-microsoft-lawsuit-waiting-to-happen http://www.neowin.net/news/samsungs-gamepad-is-a-microsoft-l... [3] http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/09/technology/security/samsung-smart-tv-privacy/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/09/technology/security/samsung-...

darkmighty 11y ago
I think the most simple explanation is that they can get away with it without substantial backlash.
- ars 11y ago
  Still doesn't explain why. Are you suggesting they are doing it just for fun?
  - darkmighty 11y ago
    Well the ultimate 'why' is obviously aiming for monetary gain since they are a company, I was referring to a shallower 'why'.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nailer 11y ago
    They're doing it for money. They game benchmarks for sales. They disable windows updates because they can't make USB 3 work with the drivers you get from windows update.
  - MBCook 11y ago
    It's cheaper/easier than doing it 'correctly', and no one is applying enough pressure (such as declining sales) to make them change. This isn't "Hey lets see if we can screw over our users", it's "This shortcut is easy (and I never even considered how it would effect our users)".
rtpg 11y ago
The simplest explanation is that Samsung has mostly shoddy engineers and designers. The voice recognition thing is that they outsourced the voice recognition, so are just piping all conversation to them. The gamepad thing is "oh we need a gamepad, the 360 is popular right"? the benchmark thing is "our manager wants us to beat these specific benchmarks, let's just overclock for the benchmarks the manager mentioned" I mean, it doesn't excuse them of course, but I imagine this is mainly a consequence of a lot of people whose job it is to meet their manager's checklist of features, and not caring about the products themselves.
- MichaelCrawford 11y ago
  amazons alexa is an always on internet connected "speaker" that answers your questions. i expect amazon intends to obtain acceptance by not copping to the fact that it also has to be a microphone.
  - MBCook 11y ago
    The Alexa listens for a keyword (Alexa, or it can be changed to Amazon) locally, and then once triggered sends your query to Amazon for processing. That's the same way that "Hey Siri" and "OK Google" work. Samsung seems to have skipped the 'trigger phrase' part and just sent EVERYTHING and tried to see if it needed to be listened to. Big difference.
geon 11y ago
The gamepad is a complete non-issue. It is as similar to the xbox controller as the xbox controller is to the dreamcast controller, which in turn is similar to... It is the rounded rectangle all over again.
- fr0styMatt2 11y ago
  I agree with this. I can't fathom how the controller looks similar, except that the buttons are the same colour, or close. The shape is totally different. I don't get it.
  - geon 11y ago
    The layout of the sticks and main buttons are the same.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
kijin 11y ago
Samsung hardware is top-notch. But they're a hardware company first and foremost. Most hardware companies tend not to be great software companies. The company culture just isn't designed for producing great software. See also: Sony. I can't think of a single piece of software made by Samsung that gave me anything other than a thoroughly negative experience. Even their phones function best when they are not burdened with a Samsung ROM.
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  You can't be great at one without the other, companies like Samsung, Dell and HP have failed to recognise this for a long time.
eveningcoffee 11y ago
I think that they believe that they own the hardware customer bought and not the customers.
lmm 11y ago
They're a hardware company that aren't very good at software. It sounds like they found out that USB3.0 stopped working on some of their test machines, did the simplest 5-minute fix and called it good.

by nivla 11y ago

darkmighty 11y ago

I think the most simple explanation is that they can get away with it without substantial backlash.

ars 11y ago
Still doesn't explain why. Are you suggesting they are doing it just for fun?
- darkmighty 11y ago
  Well the ultimate 'why' is obviously aiming for monetary gain since they are a company, I was referring to a shallower 'why'.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nailer 11y ago
  They're doing it for money. They game benchmarks for sales. They disable windows updates because they can't make USB 3 work with the drivers you get from windows update.
- MBCook 11y ago
  It's cheaper/easier than doing it 'correctly', and no one is applying enough pressure (such as declining sales) to make them change. This isn't "Hey lets see if we can screw over our users", it's "This shortcut is easy (and I never even considered how it would effect our users)".

rtpg 11y ago

The simplest explanation is that Samsung has mostly shoddy engineers and designers. The voice recognition thing is that they outsourced the voice recognition, so are just piping all conversation to them. The gamepad thing is "oh we need a gamepad, the 360 is popular right"? the benchmark thing is "our manager wants us to beat these specific benchmarks, let's just overclock for the benchmarks the manager mentioned" I mean, it doesn't excuse them of course, but I imagine this is mainly a consequence of a lot of people whose job it is to meet their manager's checklist of features, and not caring about the products themselves.

MichaelCrawford 11y ago
amazons alexa is an always on internet connected "speaker" that answers your questions. i expect amazon intends to obtain acceptance by not copping to the fact that it also has to be a microphone.
- MBCook 11y ago
  The Alexa listens for a keyword (Alexa, or it can be changed to Amazon) locally, and then once triggered sends your query to Amazon for processing. That's the same way that "Hey Siri" and "OK Google" work. Samsung seems to have skipped the 'trigger phrase' part and just sent EVERYTHING and tried to see if it needed to be listened to. Big difference.

geon 11y ago

The gamepad is a complete non-issue. It is as similar to the xbox controller as the xbox controller is to the dreamcast controller, which in turn is similar to... It is the rounded rectangle all over again.

fr0styMatt2 11y ago
I agree with this. I can't fathom how the controller looks similar, except that the buttons are the same colour, or close. The shape is totally different. I don't get it.
- geon 11y ago
  The layout of the sticks and main buttons are the same.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

kijin 11y ago

Samsung hardware is top-notch. But they're a hardware company first and foremost. Most hardware companies tend not to be great software companies. The company culture just isn't designed for producing great software. See also: Sony. I can't think of a single piece of software made by Samsung that gave me anything other than a thoroughly negative experience. Even their phones function best when they are not burdened with a Samsung ROM.

tonyedgecombe 11y ago
You can't be great at one without the other, companies like Samsung, Dell and HP have failed to recognise this for a long time.

eveningcoffee 11y ago

I think that they believe that they own the hardware customer bought and not the customers.

lmm 11y ago

They're a hardware company that aren't very good at software. It sounds like they found out that USB3.0 stopped working on some of their test machines, did the simplest 5-minute fix and called it good.