Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by paulie_a 2903 days ago
Absolutely agreed. Great hardware that Samsung took a huge dump on with inferior replacement apps. Why do they even bother to develop worse versions of things built into Android? After my s8 issues and my randomly rebooting refrigerator, Samsung has lost me as a customer.
4 comments
flyinghamster 2903 days ago
> randomly rebooting refrigerator

Call me old-fashioned, but a refrigerator should never have to reboot. ;-) A microcontroller running drop-dead-simple firmware is OK, but if it ever has to reboot for any reason save power outages, they've failed.

I'll certainly agree on Samsung's software (at least the sort of things users directly interact with) being a vortex of suck, though. Back when I used a Galaxy S Relay "4G" (the "4G" in quotes because they were calling DC-HSPA+ "4G"), I found the phone to be much better after I installed CyanogenMod.

Too bad CyanogenMod imploded, and worse, there's no LineageOS for that old handset, which was one of the last good slider phones.

To be fair to Samsung, I have no complaints about their SSD firmware, but I'll stay away from their cell phones.

link
squirrelicus 2903 days ago
The value proposition of IoT is so bad. Maybe I'm old fashioned too, but I prefer things that work and can be repaired by third parties when they don't.
link
paulie_a 2903 days ago
I requested the source code on that refrigerator just to see how terrible it was. It's garbage clearly but I was pleasantly surprised they didn't hard code any passwords like Cisco's standard operating procedure. I still would never put it on wifi though.
link
caf 2903 days ago
Why do they even bother to develop worse versions of things built into Android?

They want to differentiate. In their minds, people will look at their friend's phone and go "oh wow, how do I get that sweet messaging app?" and the answer will be "You have to buy a Samsung!".

Of course, we all know it doesn't work out like that for a variety of reasons, not least of which is their inability to execute on a better clone of the existing Android apps.

link
dragonwriter 2903 days ago
> They want to differentiate.

It's sad, because they do that (IMO) really well, especially on their flagships, with hardware; the software isn't merely unnecessary, it's a cost that weighs against the hardware.

link
dralley 2903 days ago
>They want to differentiate.

mission accomplished

link
pkulak 2903 days ago
Just saw a "Hey, Bixbi" ad yesterday and it was as cringy as Scott's Tots. The company just has such an air of desperation and jealousy.
link
r00fus 2903 days ago
Samsung doesn't trust Google to be completely impartial- is why they have replacement apps for decent defaults like SMS.

Also if Android fails or is deprecated for some reason then they could replace the OS without a user revolt.

link