J
Jeff Causey
Guest
The past month has been an up and down month for the relationship between Google and Samsung with much of the consternation being centered on Samsung’s new Magazine UX that was revealed during CES 2014. At the event, when Samsung announced several new tablet devices, they came loaded with a new interface dubbed Magazine by Samsung. The interface is quite a departure from the stock Android interface and appears much more closely aligned with a Windows Metro-style interface with hints of Flipboard present. Despite this issue, late in January the two giants in the Android space announced a 10-year patent licensing agreement amidst proclamations about the importance of collaboration and cooperation. Yesterday’s announcement of the U.S. release of the new Samsung tablets has once again stirred up the Magazine flap between the two companies.
According to a report last week, on the heels of the announcement of the patent agreement, the companies were ready to bring Samsung devices more into alignment with Google’s vision for the Android operating system, including the user interface. Sources with Re/code indicated Samsung may be willing to completely dump, or at least significantly alter, the Magazine UX and promote Google’s own services more visibly. At the time, we wondered what this might mean for Samsung’s recently announced tablet devices in light of the time frames and schedules needed to make a change.
That question appears to have been answered when Samsung announced the availability of pre-order for the NotePRO and TabPRO tablets. In their press release, Samsung indicated the devices would come loaded with the Magazine UX. Reports now indicate that not only will the Magazine UX come loaded on the tablets, users will not have an option to turn it off, not use it or even remove it. A Samsung spokesman has even indicated “to continue our momentum of delivering great user experiences and bringing greater value to people’s lives, Samsung will continue to identify and provide differentiated and innovative service and content offerings on our mobile devices” which sounds suspiciously defiant.
Jack Narcotta, an analyst with Technology Business Research, says he thinks Google is probably concerned with this turn of events as it creates an appearance of fragmentation. The criticism of Android as being fragmented, whether accurate or not, has been a problem for Google. The good news is that deployments of Android 4.0 or better continue to rise with older versions fading away. However, Google would probably like to see KitKat rolling out faster since one of their goals was to make it easier to run on a wider range of hardware in a move against the fragmentation charge. Having a major Android player like Samsung rolling out devices running their own user interface flies directly in the face of these efforts.
Analysts are not entirely surprised the Magazine UX is still present. As mentioned, the Samsung and Google talk about a new era of cooperation realistically came too late for Samsung to make a change to the new tablets. The next “test” of the relationship between the two could come during Mobile World Congress 2014 when Samsung is expected to announce the Samsung Galaxy S5.
Do you think Samsung and Google can turn the page on this most recent issue surrounding Magazine?
source: ComputerWorld
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