They'll be fine...
...once they figure out whose software they want to copy.
Samsung is going to have to do better in software if it wants to stay up near the top of the tech industry, its new CEO said today. "Samsung needs to improve its competitiveness in software, and is now at a crossroads. To become the top global technology company, we need to challenge and innovate continuously. I will give more …
Was the original iPhone OS not innovative then?
I suggest you have a look at the competition back then.
Before iPhone 1:
1. Symbian phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, mostly non touch screen keypad phones. Clunky UI. Touchscreen phones used menus and stylus input.
2. Windows Mobile and Smartphone. Two platforms, WM was stylus orientated and used the Start Menu design paradigm. Smartphone was similar to Symbian S60.
3. Blackberry. Similar to Symbian. Button based.
4. Android was not around, but prototypes were looking like Blackberry phones.
After iPhone:
Android - multitouch UI
WebOS - multitouch UI
WP7 - multitouch UI
etc.
How can a phone OS that drastically changes the smartphone industry not be innovative?
To make the fecking homescreen(s) on the S3 rotate when the phone's held in portrait mode.
You know, like IN A CAR IN A WINDSCREEN MOUNT!
Jeepers you'd think they'd have nailed that one by now. Tried a bunch of other launchers (had one on the Desire HD that did this) but didn't like them or they displayed stuff a bit oddly, and I actually quite like Touchwiz.
Yeah, the Note does this too. It's a bit weird, when most of the apps seem to be able to handle it fine, but you have to deal with a sideways home screen.
Andoid is very slick now, but the multi-tasking interfaces do seem a little like a step backward from Maemo.
If they're looking for a backup OS, maybe they could get more fully behind Tizen? I know, I know, that's just wishful thinking....
Check out some of the screen rotate apps on the market that will rotate the home screen for you. I use one by sugarmintcandy, not the greatest app in the world, but mighty useful and really simple.
My landscape dock for my galaxy nexus now rotates the home screen automatically when inserted after the update to 4.0.4, it could be the same bug if you have 4.0.3 or 4.0.2 on the S3.
1) Shoot, with prejudice, every one of the designers and management involved with Samsung Kies.
2) Release software updates for all phones last manufactured in the last (arbitrary number) 5 years. If this gets expensive to support then it should teach them to keep things simple and to not produce so many damn phones that are often indistinguishable from each other.
3) Sync everything online and/or to a local computer. Yes, this may require a replacement to Kies but with the previous team dead it'd be hard to do a worse job.
I once offered a software technology of mine to Samsung, Apple and a few other companies by email. From most of them I got zero reply whatsoever.
I got a reply from the Apple CTO who wrote that my tech was kind of interesting, but that it would not fit nicely into their technology architecture. He even took the time to respond to some more emails regarding related tech.
I also got a reply from Samsung who told me that "we are a Korean company and therefore have our own R&D department, so we don't need your tech". They did not write anything substantial like Apple did, just their assertion of allmightyness.
So, a bunch of complacent muppets, it seems.
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which work bought for me in December. The hardware is lovely, but teh software is buggy as hell. The first thing it did, when switched on new and out of the box, was announce that Samsung Social Centre had crashed, with a notification which could only be removed by power-cycling. Despite promises at the time, Samsung seem to have decided not to port ICS to it. There was a Honeycomb OTA update in February, the most obvious effect of which was to reduce meantime between browser crashes from ten minutes to five minutes.
Overall the software is so shite that I have relegated the Tab to use as an occasional picture frame (a six hundred quid picture frame) and bought a NOS Eee PC 901 instead. It's a quarter of the price and with Lubuntu does /everything/ better than the Tab.
I have a Samsung 46C8000 3D LCD TV that was delivered new with a defective motherboard. Then they shipped the wrong replacement the first time. Guess it has worked as well as it is supposed to since no matter it is easy to crash in the Netflix app. Just fast forward to the end of a movie and hit PLAY, usually, not always the TV will crash and turn itself off.
As someone currently working for a supplier and therefore for Samsung, I can honestly say that they are the most awkward PITA's to work for I have ever encountered. They have zero effective project management - I mean, they don't even have a list of features they want put in - you find out they want something about two days before some vital deadline so end up working 48 hours straight to get it to them. They their suppliers to do ALL the work on THEIR devices so that if it goes wrong, they have someone to blame, and the real reason it goes wrong is the utterly ineffectual management.
The SS staff are permanently exhausted as they work ridiculous hours, and you hardly ever meet anyone who is actually competent as all the good ones are promoted to management, leaving a bunch of 25yr old's to deal with suppliers, and because of their lack of experience really don't do a good job.
How this company came to be #1 in phones is beyond me, and yet, there they are! I guess this headless chicken approach works when you suppliers are so desperate for the job they work their employees to the grave, and firefight rather than plan.
"Many have wondered if Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility will put it into the hardware game, which could change the stakes for its current hardware partners".
The same people who don't ever wonder if MS sourcing its own hardware might cut into their own OEM channel.
"Android is also fighting patent battles on many fronts through its various hardware partners, so it would be prudent to have the option to drop the operating system"
I don't know any other industry where you can lean on your competitors customers and virtually extort revenue out of them for selling other peoples software - and it's perfectly legal.