Who Owes Who?
Android is huge nowadays. There are many devices available from many manufacturers, but among the many, Samsung dominates.
My question is, who owes who and for what? Sure Samsung devices occupy a large part of Android, and it was Samsung that really went and marketed the hell out of their devices to graft their name into consumers heads everywhere. But even before the Galaxy S II's success the most popular Android device I remember was the Motorola Droid and Verizon's whole "Droid Does" marketing campaign. iPhones were only available on AT&T for a long time and the other options were the "Droids" and Blackberry devices (which was what I had) for all other carriers. That was a hefty bit of time for people to get into [or turned off by] Android. (Unfortunately, Android was nothing like it is now, especially not in comparison to iOS then)
With that in mind, did Samsung really build up all too much? I was never very fond of any particular OEM's "skin" which might explain why I didn't really get into Android until ICS was around. That also might have something to do with my distaste for Touchwiz, and it seems quite a large number of people out there share my feelings too. I don't think Touchwiz was as much of a selling point as it's comparatively hefty size was. People were picking between the small iPhone everyone had or the big Samsung Galaxy available and marketing itself to the same folks. Sometimes having what everyone else has is a plus and other times people want something more unique. Either way, the trend of picking a big phone basically continued and grew through today, where it's the norm, with many non enthusiast consumers on Galaxy and even Note lines for their size, as well as basic brand recognition.
I can't say Samsung doesn't deserve it's credit for being able to succeed in the ways mentioned so far, staying competitive and trendy (at risk of what seems like perpetual lawsuits), pulling off potentially risky concepts (phablets), marketing like crazy. Those are all good business.
The problem I have with Samsung begins here, where Samsung is this platform giant. Despite the fact that Android provided the platform that allowed for such success, Samsung constantly seems like it's trying to cover up the fact that Android is NOT their own... or even Android in general. I just don't get it. Instead of using amazingly useful services like Google Voice Search and Google Now, Samsung insists on using their own S-Voice and, imo at least, Google Now is made just a bit less available to do it's thing or for user's to know. This along side all the parallel apps and services like mail, browsers, app stores, media stores, and basically everything else there could be... which was supposedly addressed very recently... makes Samsung seem like a crappy manufacturing partner for Google to have. To me, I feel Samsung's been intentionally covering up Android and it's services in order to prevent users from becoming too acquainted or comfortable with such services, because perhaps there's a plan to jump ship.
I'm sure they'd say that their responsibility is to promote the benefits of their product and that promoting Android-wide features would be equally, perhaps more so, promoting their competition, especially considering the competition often has better implementation of Android's standard content. They could also say that the position of the brand has been set by the users that bought into the company; and that the manner of their advertising is simply what works for the consumer that doesn't want to be pay any attention to details about OSes and such that they simply don't care about, and that they want the product with the features they can show friends a few times and then not use. I guess I really just wish Samsung would take some initiative in fortifying it's position with Google and within a platform against the actual competition. Rather than making subtle threats in the background and inconveniences in front.
With discussions having taken place and a supposed better relationship between the two companies, I'm hoping that 2014 and many years following will show me that Samsung isn't simultaneously trying to cover up Android, and that the manufacturer can use the progress that's been made [by Android] to it's advantage... as well as everyone else in the Android [enthusiast] community.
