One of the biggest
problems facing Google and Android for a long time now has been fragmentation
with smartphone makers working on their own UI skins and customization to
differentiate their products from others. These UI elements, however, also lead
to slow OS upgrades, which is visible from Google’s Android version
statistics that are released every month. In a bid to change that, Google could
be working with Samsung to help with its TouchWiz UI, unconfirmed reports
suggest.
Samsung,
which is the world’s largest smartphone maker, is feeling the impact from commoditization
of Android smartphones as Chinese rivals are adding to their market share by
offering lower priced smartphones.
Samsung still sells the
majority of Android smartphones, though Lenovo and Xiaomi are catching up. That
means TouchWiz is the interface most Android customers will use something
Google no doubt doesn’t enjoy. Even on high-end smartphones, TouchWiz still has
memory struggles, despite the Galaxy S6 and Note 5 being packed with 4GB of RAM
each.
At the same time, more
Google influence on Samsung’s software team might improve and eventually move TouchWiz
to a more “stock-like” interface. Motorola, OnePlus, and LG have already started
sticking to Google’s prefered UI design, with small changes and improvements
instead of massive customizations.
The Korean smartphone
maker’s intentions haven’t gone unnoticed in Mountain View and
discussions seem to have been happening from as long as January 2014 when
Samsung showed off its Magazine UI at CES, much to the displeasure of Google’s management.
Samsung and Google then reached an agreement where Samsung backed off a little
when it came to coming up with its own apps that rivaled Google’s core
services.
Things looked good for
a while, when Samsung announced a flatter, less bloated version of TouchWiz UI
later that year with the Galaxy S5. The smartphone maker, however, also
partnered with Microsoft to have its Office suite and cloud services
pre-installed and prominently displayed on the home screen, which again undermined
Google.
Google helping Samsung
optimize TouchWiz UI could possibly be a win-win situation for both the
companies. Samsung would get some much-needed UI help that would make the user
experience more in sync with the latest Android UI and could also lead to
faster roll out of OS updates. For Google, it would ensure that its largest
partner sticks to Android and more importantly, to its vision of Android.
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