

Samsung’s secret mission to cut Google out of its Galaxy - r0h1n
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/samsungs-secret-mission-cut-google-galaxy

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Nanzikambe
Mixed feelings about this.

As a Android user, I _like_ Google's interface and several of the apps.
Samsung's apps are extremely poor quality. I own 3 of their devices (two
phones and a tablet) and I don't use a single Samsung app on any of them. I
would actually pay extra for a Samsung device with stock Android installation
modified for Samsung hardware support and _nothing_ else.

Not to say I don't have problems with Google, I do. Privacy, in particular the
lack of granular control to lock down feature access by application, the
scenario is this:

You're looking for a app particular type of app, you find a simple one that
does everything you need, requiring only access to store data locally.
Perfect! You install it, then a month later an update comes out that requires
additional privileges, network access, because the developer has decided that
everybody must want to store their notes in the cloud. Obviously you can elect
to remain at the previous version for something as simple as the notepad, but
when you move to more complex apps that's no longer an option. If you stopped
updating apps a year ago for instance, you'd now be vulnerable to a myriad of
attacks due to improper SSL implementations that've since been corrected.

I'm aware that in that context I could install a firewall and remove the apps
network access, but how could you prevent an app accessing your contacts,
messages, SD card, etc.

Surely there's a market for guaranteed apps that guarantee zero feature-creep?
No updates beyond security and hardware support. I'd buy it.

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cmelbye
Can't you explicitly choose whether or not you'd like to give the app a
particular permission? I'm surprised that's not possible.

~~~
Nanzikambe
Not as far as I'm aware, and I did look. If anyone knows of how to do that, I
would love to know.

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bsaul
Is there any example in the history of _desktop_ computer of a manufacturer
trying to customize an os so much in order to try to replace it later by its
own ? I don't think so...

With the complexity of today's app, which become close to yestersay's desktop
one, it seems like samsung goal is really unreachable. They've tried it with
bada without luck, then tizen, and now they're doing it with android.

Maybe what they're trying to do is not to get rid of android, but rather to
create its own fork, just like amazon. That seems like a much more manageable
ambition.

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Oculus
I currently have the Galaxy S3 and if their add-ons are any indication of
their new OS quality, then this will be the end of Samsung. It's absolutely
horrendous.

