The one cause I do not purchase Samsung telephones is bloatware

As you recognize, Samsung is a juggernaut of the smartphone business. Even in North America, the place Apple’s iPhone reigns supreme, it controls slightly below 1 / 4 of the market, relegating manufacturers like Google and Motorola to also-ran standing. Simply primarily based on the percentages, it is secure to say that should you’re searching for an Android machine as an alternative of an iPhone 16, you are most likely going to decide on a Galaxy S25 over a Pixel 9.

Whereas my day by day driver is an iPhone 16 Professional, I’ve owned just a few Android telephones prior to now. I typically take into account making the swap again, significantly once I see the digital camera specs on some newer units. However whereas Samsung is among the corporations main within the specs race, I am steering away from the model for one main cause: bloatware. And sadly, I do not suppose it should change course anytime quickly.

The bloatware dilemma

A novel proposition is not at all times one

For me, the main drawback is One UI, Samsung’s Android pores and skin. There are literally a whole lot of sensible benefits to it — it allows just a few issues that are not but constructed into Android, such because the Now Bar, which mimics Apple’s Smart Stack. On some units, it is important for Samsung’s multitasking and AI capabilities. And naturally, it offers each Samsung machine a novel look, stuffed with rounded icons and signature fonts. I am largely onboard, irrespective of my complaints about particular person options just like the Now Temporary.

The disadvantage of One UI is that in order for you the newest model of Android, it is an impediment. In the mean time, for example, the one Samsung units with the non-beta model of One UI 8 — primarily based on Android 16 — are the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Z Flip 7. Samsung is planning to carry the software program to extra units in September, however should you’ve bought a Galaxy S25 Extremely, all you are able to do till then is envy your pal with the Pixel 9, who bought Android 16 earlier this summer time.

Related delays are current with different Android manufacturers, to be truthful. However the extra software program you layer on high of units, the slower updates are prone to roll out, and a whole lot of what Samsung does feels extraneous. I would a lot quite have “naked” Android 16 as quickly as attainable than one thing custom-made a number of months later. Certainly, if I ever do bounce again into Android, it is most likely going to be with a Pixel, since I have been spoiled by Apple’s capability to replace all its appropriate units on day one. iPhone 14 house owners would naturally be irritated in the event that they needed to wait till subsequent yr to improve to iOS 26, regardless of having completely appropriate {hardware}.

One UI can be simple to forgive if Samsung averted loading every telephone with an arsenal of apps which might be redundant with Google’s, or simply plain pointless. There’s little cause to make use of SmartThings to your good house when Amazon Alexa and Google Residence are much better supported. For well being and health, Google Match and Well being Join cowl sufficient of the identical floor as Samsung Well being. You get Samsung Pockets as an alternative of Google Pockets, and do not even get me began on fluff like Samsung Free and Samsung TV Plus.

In some circumstances at the very least, it is attainable to disregard these apps, however utilizing a Samsung telephone at all times appears like I am indulging in a CEO’s deep want to repeat Apple’s walled backyard. Apple has an excuse to fill its telephones with proprietary apps, nevertheless — iOS is its personal working system. With out first-party software program, key features would both be lacking or vulnerable to being taken away at any second. Likewise, Android is already well-stocked with the whole lot it wants — which is one thing most telephone makers appear to have accepted. The Nothing Telephone 3, for example, has little or no bloatware. The worst offenders are Nothing X and Important House, which nonetheless have no direct analogues in Google’s library. If you are going to add to an OS, there needs to be some simple worth to doing it.

Will Samsung ever ditch the bloat?

By no means say by no means, however…

Wanting a disaster, Samsung is unlikely to jettison One UI. The obvious cause is that it will take an incredible quantity of effort and time to decouple the options Galaxy house owners genuinely need, and a few of them won’t survive the transition to impartial apps, regardless of the flexibleness of Android. Furthermore, Samsung has tied its company identification to the software program — if the Galaxy S26 out of the blue appeared rather a lot like a Google or OnePlus telephone, some customers could be extra inclined to see these different merchandise as equal options (gasp). To be constant, Samsung may additionally have to revamp the interfaces of non-Android merchandise. That kind of shake-up is usually a non-starter for smaller companies, not to mention megacorporations price a whole bunch of billions.

The decoupling concern carries over to a couple key apps. The Galaxy Watch presently requires Samsung Well being, and dropping SmartThings for Alexa or Google Residence would wreak havoc with the corporate’s good home equipment. Transitioning to different apps is doable, although, so the overriding issue is nearly actually the push for ecosystem management. In case you’ve bought a watch that will not work with no Samsung telephone, you are most likely going to stay with Samsung on the whole for some time. In case you’ve bought a Samsung equipment, you’ll be able to safely ignore SmartThings, however it creates the temptation to speculate extra in that platform to get essentially the most out of it. One factor I take pleasure in about my Google TV is the power to set a film night time scene for the complete room with a single voice command.

I truly do not begrudge Samsung an excessive amount of for what it is doing. That may be hypocritical, given the variety of Apple merchandise I personal that successfully demand an iPhone or an iPad. However one of many strengths of Android is meant to be the liberty from lock-in, and Samsung continues to lean too laborious within the flawed path.