Database Users

Will Samsung Galaxy ever become the darling?

Nexus one has been the darling of the developer community from the start. It has the most mods, the most roms and the most love from the android developers.
I was thinking if Samsung Galaxy will be able to change this because it is being rollerd out very aggressively in North America (I think Europe too). Every major carrier is getting some flavor of Galaxy S and I think it is going to show up in many consumer hands.
Samsung also made the source code open source (not sure what are the repercussions of that) and from what I've heard Samsung does not encrypt the bootloader like Motorola.
So, do you guys think Samsung Galaxy S could become a major roms/mods magnet and dethrone Nexus?

bluezz said:
Nexus one has been the darling of the developer community from the start. It has the most mods, the most roms and the most love from the android developers.
I was thinking if Samsung Galaxy will be able to change this because it is being rollerd out very aggressively in North America (I think Europe too). Every major carrier is getting some flavor of Galaxy S and I think it is going to show up in many consumer hands.
Samsung also made the source code open source (not sure what are the repercussions of that) and from what I've heard Samsung does not encrypt the bootloader like Motorola.
So, do you guys think Samsung Galaxy S could become a major roms/mods magnet and dethrone Nexus?
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Click to collapse
Not likely, the nexus one is a Dev phone, thats what it was built for. Not likely the Galaxy S will see AS MANY devs as the nexus one has, but because it is so huge (every carrier has a version of the galaxy s) that it will still probably be popular.

Never.
Skinned phones don't get anywhere near the attention of stock Android phones.

It will take some effort for Samsung to earn people's trust that they won't just abandon the device like they've always done previously. That won't happen with just one device release. If a pattern develops, then perhaps. But even still, its not a developer phone, and that's a huge difference. But it may be very popular so we'll see.

Samsung has a shoddy record so far for supporting their Android devices, and devs don't take skinned phones as seriously as stock phones. I don't see Samsung taking over for a while. In fact, I don't see ANY phone in the pipeline that could be considered the spiritual successor to the Nexus One, and the Dream/Magic before it.
Motorola/Samsung may get the bulk sales and marketing budgets, but HTC is still the home of "real" Android.

+1 It doesn't look too good for Samsung catching up with HTC & the Nexus anytime soon.

Would the same rom work on the different version of the galaxy s or the dev have to code differently for each variant?

You'll get what you have with the G1.....A bunch of roms based off Cyanogen Mod Kanged with a theme and a few apps

[DISCUSSION] Coming from a Nexus One (N1)...

I was considering the Nexus S (NS) seeing how unlocking the bootloader, rooting, flashing of customs ROM is almost the same.
However, paying an extra SGD$200+ for the NS over the Galaxy S just seem stupid with their hardware being so similar and in some case, thumping the NS. (And seeing how with NS being out, it's possible, the Galaxy S would also have more frequent updates instead of waiting for Samsung)
Coming from being a N1 user of about a year, would i be disappointed in the Developers' support for the Galaxy S if i do choose to get it to replace the N1 which i have sold?
How different is it to flash stuff on the Galaxy S as opposed to the N1? Are the custom ROMs for the Galaxy S every bit the same level of quality as say the ones cooked up for the N1?
Thank you.

Imo native AOSP power from google will always be better than samsung stuff. Though the SGS has become a decent phone recently. Samsung seems to make efforts to get rid off the lags. supercurio blessed us with native ext4 filesystem support. Benjamin dorbell came up with a opensource flash tool on mac/linux/windows: Heimdall. In short: if you choose to use 3rd party software right away and never ever install KIES or anything, you'll enjoy the Samsung Galaxy S.
(make sure you clean up the samsung bloatware with "Sgs tools" app from market.)
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Until now, all the roms except Cyanogen mod are based off Samsung's relatively poor default UI. And Cyanogen mod isn't ready for prime time yet, unlike the multitude of roms available for N1 and it's brother Desire. Without putting down their efforts, current SGS roms (less the incomplete Cyanogen) are basically theming and beautifying the current SGS roms, and removing/adding available APKs, nothing like the MIUI, Sense and AOSP roms available on N1 and Desire.
It will always have slower support than Nexus, which has a much bigger dev base, most of the devs start with shots in the dark.
Remember, Samsung is mostly a hardware company, they need to keep selling phones for profit. Software updates will end at some point - An official Google phone will please you much more if updates are your game.

exactly thats why we hope for a good outcome of supercurio and teams work on a nexus s port. this would make the sgs independent from samsungs poor software development.
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kenkiller said:
Until now, all the roms except Cyanogen mod are based off Samsung's relatively poor default UI. And Cyanogen mod isn't ready for prime time yet, unlike the multitude of roms available for N1 and it's brother Desire. Without putting down their efforts, current SGS roms (less the incomplete Cyanogen) are basically theming and beautifying the current SGS roms, and removing/adding available APKs, nothing like the MIUI, Sense and AOSP roms available on N1 and Desire.
It will always have slower support than Nexus, which has a much bigger dev base, most of the devs start with shots in the dark.
Remember, Samsung is mostly a hardware company, they need to keep selling phones for profit. Software updates will end at some point - An official Google phone will please you much more if updates are your game.
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Cyanogen for froyo sgs has been abandoned, they will try with gb again I think but not guaranteed success. If they manage to port nexus s gb to sgs I would imagine that porting future google updates would be easier.. But that also is not guaranteed.
But i agree with you.. A modded sgs is one of the best android phones at the moment.
I dont think there is an easy answer at this point.. But imo, as it's 200 cheaper get it for now and then save the other 200 to go towards the next gen android phones.. I think the nexus s hardware will become out dated pretty quickly.
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Worsty said:
I was considering the Nexus S (NS) seeing how unlocking the bootloader, rooting, flashing of customs ROM is almost the same.
However, paying an extra SGD$200+ for the NS over the Galaxy S just seem stupid with their hardware being so similar and in some case, thumping the NS. (And seeing how with NS being out, it's possible, the Galaxy S would also have more frequent updates instead of waiting for Samsung)
Coming from being a N1 user of about a year, would i be disappointed in the Developers' support for the Galaxy S if i do choose to get it to replace the N1 which i have sold?
How different is it to flash stuff on the Galaxy S as opposed to the N1? Are the custom ROMs for the Galaxy S every bit the same level of quality as say the ones cooked up for the N1?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want a GPS that works, SGS isn't the way to go. If I hadn't already got a SGS I'd undoubtedly get the NS.

Thanks guys for the input. I'll do some more reading and hopefully 2.3 gets ported to the Galaxy S in the coming weeks.
If that happens, i'll definately get the Galaxy S over the NS.

[Q] no official ics for samsung i9000??

Samsung hasnt confirmed that there would be a official android 4.0 update for samsung i9000. So does this mean we will not get it as a official update? Cuz there is alot of other samsung phones that have been confirmed.

The SGS is almost 2 yrs old,so I'm assuming Samsung might have given up on us.But then again,till it's confirmed,nobody can know for sure.Besides,even if the official ICS for SGS is out,we're gonna end using the custom ROM anyway
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Maybe if we make a few more threads about this we will get an answer? We're probably only 10-20 more threads away if we just keep at it.

Hopefully Samsung hears the pleads of i9000 users and gives us an official update so the devs have a Easyer time giving us the roms.
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I will look forward to getting an official answer to this question.. but SlvrWolf~XP makes a good point...

It will probably be unlikely for Samsung to update our Galaxy S i9000 to ICS since we've already gotten update TWICE (not many phone brand and models got such privilege, Eclair > Froyo > GingerBread). And Samsung may want to make both Galaxy S I and S II (with Nexus S) differentiated so that more people are encouraged to buy the newer phones...

I think SGS will not get ICS
Read today info from Samsung Mobile https://www.facebook.com/notes/sams...ch-upgrade-for-galaxy-devices/328795820483403

Yeah, they just announced on twitter too, seems like Galaxy S is not in the update list.
Well, a port from ICS on the Nexus S should work just fine.
I wonder what their reasons are for not updating the Galaxy S, obviously it's not platform limitations since the Nexus S got it, shame on Samsung, hope they loose lots of costumers .
(BTW I have a Nexus S but I'm pissed for Samsung's attitude!)

MFire said:
shame on Samsung, hope they loose lots of costumers .
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Click to collapse
Things is who are they going to lose customers to? HTC and Motorola phones from early-mid 2010 aren't going to get it either. The answer for updates is to get a Nexus phone from...oops.
The whole landscape of branded devices sucks not just Samsung, but I guess 'the grass is always greener' and people will just move to another manufacturer with little or no research into the facts of whether they are actually better for updates or not. If we take a look:
Moto announced a list of devices...not even the Atrix dual-core phone released in early 2011 was included, although it may be added. Anything from 2010 you can probably forget it.
On the HTC side the phone that came out at the same time as the SGS, at least around here, was the Desire. They had a heck of a time getting gingerbread to run on that apparently, ICS is probably out of the question, so no improvement there.
Basically anywhere I look only phones released within the last year are getting ICS officially. The grass isn't always greener, although I suspect many will jump over the fence without taking a very close look. Again the only real answer is a Nexus, unfortunately this iteration is a bit disappointing so myself I'm going to try and hold out for the next one although I admit at this point a year seems very far away.

and think of it from a business POV st's not good business practice to have complete support for an old platform, I mean look at MS the ONLY reason they still support XP is because of businesses, though that's slipping away furthermore 2 year contracts are common place for phones nowadays due to most being smartphone related so people who own the SGS back in 2010 are now due for an upgrade anyway so it won't bother the main bulk of consumers.
Personally I'm planning on waiting it out for the SGSIII so regardless the i9000 gets it for most is irrelevant.

Not a surprise for me and I don’t care what Sammy is doing.
Long live CM9

Well the thing is not other do... the thing is Galaxy S is still with a shi#y firmware after all this time. Not even on its "death" there is not a stock rom to make it perform as it should. Cmon' take a look at CM7... now imagine a Samsung built ROM based on it, even with all that crappy TouchWiz.. great camera, 720p recording, great battery life, fast as light.
Now... how can I buy another phone from them, knowing that maybe it will never work as it should. When SGS was released everybody said how fast it is, king of the hill... wth, it was crawling... Unfortunately, Samsung has Gorilla glass, has Amoled, low prices.... HTC has gread build quality, no Gorilla, no low prices, high performance....

Very disappointed by Samsung.
This is a high end device released in 2010 and already abandoned.
The S1 is perfectly compatible with ICS, this is pure business, or how to force
people to buy a new phone they don't need. Planned obsolescence, just like apple (but even Apple or HTC offer better software support...)
Of course there will be unofficial roms, but imho it's never the same quality as an official one.
Next time i'll choose an official google nexus device.

Samsung forgot his smart baby snif
Cyano is here, fortunatly, to give GS1 users a good Ics experience

Samsung lost me as a customer if they choose not to update the SGS. I've already said I'll never buy a Samsung phone in the past because of their lack of support and lack of timely updates, but this now goes to anything Samsung.
I have a Samsung laptop and a Samsung TV, both of which I'll be replacing with a newer model in the coming weeks, but now those replacements will not be Samsung models.
I wouldn't be upset if there was a hardware compatibility issue like lack of memory, but there isn't.
It's perfectly capable. As for this 18 month thing, fine. Let them use that. But my i9000m only has 2.3.3 while the rest of the world has 2.3.6. They stopped updating my phone a long time ago, so they didn't even give me 18 months since they stopped me at 2.3.3 with all it's problems.
HTC even gave some of their older phones gingerbread by scaling down HTC sense to accommodate hardware limitations. Yet Samsung won't with no limitations for ICS.
The Galaxy Nexus was a phone I was thinking about, but no longer. I'm not going to line Samsungs pockets anymore. I'll wait to do my upgrade to the Next Nexus that hopefully will be made by a different manufacturer.
Samsung screwed their update processes with the million incarnations of our phones. Updates are too hard and lengthy for them to complete because of this, so they are taking the easy way out.
Samsungs war with Apple? They just sent a lot of SGS owners their way. At least you know your phone well always get updates provided the hardware is capable, even if they have to scale it down like they did on the 3GS.
I for one will never buy Apple, but count me in the camp of never buying Samsung again too if I don't get ICS officially from them.
My apologies for my rant.
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Here i come apple, samsung made me to. 3GS is older than sgs and it runs iOS5 from this year. Something android phones can just dream on.

I agree with you Greeced.
The SGS has been well maintained to date.
But the samsung's update policy is just catastrophic.
In some countries, people don't even have an official gingerbread update trough Kies.
Samsung sold millions of SGS in the world (the device is still available in most countries). Their policy is unacceptable. And it's too easy to blame the operators.
Next time i'll choose an official google nexus phone (regardless of the manufacturer) because they are always good phones and it's a guarantee to have a long-term support.

To everyone that says "x company will lose sales", while that may be true, how many of the millions sold are used by people who have knowledge or interest in the latest android? Many buy the phone and enjoy it and use it, and just don't care or aren't particularly bothered by the update pattern.

What I find amazing is that the Galaxy S Plus isn't even on the list and that's what, 6 months old?

zbal said:
Very disappointed by Samsung.
This is a high end device released in 2010 and already abandoned.
The S1 is perfectly compatible with ICS, this is pure business, or how to force
people to buy a new phone they don't need. Planned obsolescence, just like apple (but even Apple or HTC offer better software support...)
Of course there will be unofficial roms, but imho it's never the same quality as an official one.
Next time i'll choose an official google nexus device.
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Click to collapse
I believe that is the mentality that they want the market to have...mission complete.

Samsung Not Bringing ICS To Galaxy S. Help Us Outrage!

Sign Our Twitition Here
Dear Samsung,
Before us, you were a nobody in the Android Arena. HTC and Motorola ruled the landscape. We turned around your fortunes. Ice Cream Sandwich is touted as the biggest change to Android in a long time. Its beautiful, its fast and we want it. After reading this we are disappointed. You say that our hardware will not support it, we ask you how does the similarly specced Nexus S run it so smoothly? You say our hardware is insufficient to run Ice Cream Sandwich along with your TouchWiz smoothly. We will remind you that we have one of the best GPU's around. Given that ICS supports hardware acceleration, we feel that you are being a bit lazy with your coding. We are sure you can manage to make even a TouchWized ICS run smoothly on our devices. If you remember the HTC Desire, HTC had said that it would not run Sense UI and Gingerbread. After a lot of uproar, HTC decided to give their users the option of running an unskinned Gingerbread on their Desires. It voided their users' warranty, but at least it gave them an option. Since most of your Galaxy S devices will already be out of warranty or almost out of warranty, we feel we deserve at least this much. Bring a de-Touchwized Ice Cream Sandwich to our devices. Its the least you can do. Yours Sincerely,
The Galaxy S Family

sorry to burn your boat this will not help any body get Samsung to update our galaxy s to ics all Samsung want is to buy a new phone

There's already a well established petition here http://www.change.org/petitions/www...ndwich-version-for-users-of-the-samsung-i9000

If you really want ics, try teamhacksung ics. Its much better than what Samsung could put out.
Its beta but i am using it daily without major issues.
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I've been on ICS since a month. Tried out all the ports. Its not for me. Its for people who don't want to or cant dabble in custom ROM's, which is pretty much 99% of the 15M+ SGS users.

TouchWiz my a##!! We don't need useless touchwiz UI with ICS, as it makes ICS look ugly. I am cursing myself now that I should have waited for SE Neo instead of going for SGS !! Now our devs are our only hope!
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We won't get ICS and we won't see samsung update without touchwiz. Ofcourse Samsung uses touchwiz on every new and older phones.
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HTC uses Sense UI in each and every device of theirs. Yet they made an exception with the HTC Desire and offered their users a way to upgrade to GB and remove Sense.

wGRV said:
TouchWiz my a##!! We don't need useless touchwiz UI with ICS, as it makes ICS look ugly. I am cursing myself now that I should have waited for SE Neo instead of going for SGS !! Now our devs are our only hope!
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dont do this. Xperia neo is rubbish compared to sgs.
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Samsung is shooting herself in the leg.

I do not think that SGS+ will not get ICE CREAM SANDWICH.
Why? because if i9023 (Nexus S) receives the upgrade,and it is, then why should not i9001(0) get the upgrade to?because the technical specifications of the i9001 exceeds specifications of i9023 (http://www.gsmchoice.com/en/porownanie/5020/5023/5101/0/)

mammenj said:
If you really want ics, try teamhacksung ics. Its much better than what Samsung could put out.
Its beta but i am using it daily without major issues.
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Click to collapse
yeah but if there was a official Rom put out, then it would save the Devs the headache of having to build the Roms themselves using resources off other devices, they could then focus on the actual speed and reliability of the Rom instead of having to go through the headache of trying to port everything to the phone themselves

Instead of signing petitions, why not all of us just posted at their Facebook, Twitter and their customer service support. Seeing since so many (like 5000+) had signed the petition. If the 5000+ went to spam their facebook and twitter I guess somehow they will notice it?

I like your idea just swamp the crap out of their pages with the exact question...
i recon thats a statement

Join us in our cause to make Samsung support their customers, rather than just spit in their faces.
We've spent our well earned money on a device that was clearly overestimated, and now it's manufacturer thinks it can just throw it all away and not support our needs for a brand new Operating System which we have been waiting for for months.
Apple has always been supporting it's customers by enabling them to upgrade features and whole Operating Systems even if they own much older devices (up to 2 years back), I wouldn't want to think Samsung isn't capable of the same thing.
Join our cause and be heard.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bring-Ice-Cream-Sandwich-to-Samsung-Galaxy-S/185448618218473?sk=wall
P.S.
I would also like to post the petition link on this page, does anyone know who's the person who thought about it so we can work together on this?

They can't come up with a valid excuse else than financial ones not to put out an offical ICS rom. If it's purely financial, it means they're just treating customers like money bags. If that's the case, customer outrage is perfectly acceptable and justifiable.
So, outrage everywhere i'd say. The noisier we are more chances there will be someone actually listens.
Don't be shy, spam everywhere. Samsung's facebook, tweeter, customer support, every petition available, etc. That's what i'm doing. And if they still aren't doing anything, i'll just change my brand. Plenty of android devices (or even apple?) to chose from. No one cares for a company who doesn't care for his customers so screw them.
By the way, OP is well written and explains everything someone should expect them to do in this situation, well done.

I agree with everyone, and further more, this is not a cheap device, it's still a high end device just 15 months old.
If you buy an expensive phone on 24 month contract next time, should it be Samsung?
I guess we already spent the money so there's no need to court us. I'm not sure I would do it again.

For next phone i have two choices:
1) Buy high end android phone and be in same lame ass situation like this one
2) Buy iPhone and be settled for three years
What do you think i will do?

For me the disappointing thing about all this is Samsung's insistence on such a heavy Touchwiz layer on top of ICS.
When I saw ICS I hoped they might abandon TW as so many features from that were implemented in ICS anyway.
I had decided to upgrade my SGS to a SGS II to get ICS as it is a superior device to the Nexus S in my opinion.
Then I saw the ghastly overlay of TW which just drags ICS down. All this just forces me to go the custom ROM route to get a version of ICS that isn't unnecessarily bloated.
I actually like TW on Gingerbread but now I think Samsung has lost the plot just when they looked set to topple the iPhone.

F.ck you samsung. SGS FOR SALE. I hate my phone and samsung.

Samsung TW vs Apple IOS

Apple with every launch of a new IOS version, its features are replicated from 3GS to latest Ipad.
Whenever Samsung launches a new TW it completely forgets the past, breaks android evolution (ex. ICS in SI), most likely won't update TW in SII (and forgot to fix camera firmware issues), most software innovations (crap or not) in SIII are not followed through older gen.
Most likely leaving the "dirty" work for developers to clean Samsung mess.
This alone is probably the strongest selling point of Apple, which looks after older models.
What's your feedback on this? Shouldn't we demand more from Samsung?

a few things..
1) whats your point?
2) you compare a launcher/UI to a whole OS
3) what are you complaining about?
Youre in a great community here. and when the time comes (of this yet to be released device..) there are a few people who will gladly pick that work up I believe..
4) dont think this can be a serious discussion without flaming.. so I guess this will be closed shortly..

This is an android forum and noone gives a rat's ass about iphones.
Theyre overpriced, ugly and terribly limited devices.
Close this thread please.

Just thought of this, and how Samsung in one year time will likely "forget" SIII.
Thinking again about it, maybe it's better to delete this post. Sorry about this guys.

pacc said:
Just thought of this, and how Samsung in one year time will likely "forget" SIII.
Thinking again about it, maybe it's better to delete this post. Sorry about this guys.
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Click to collapse
You of all people should know they won't because you just installed JW5 on your S1 didn't you.
You received selected android 4.0 features and s2 additions on a i9000 2.3.6 rom. This is as good as it gets. Look at other manufacturers like sony or motorola or htc. None of them give you these kind of benefits.
The i9000 and i9100 are extremely popular and very very successful devices. No wonder they keep pushing updates for them. Be glad of what you have. I own multiple devices, S1 and S2 included, and both of them are definitely my favorites.
They are free and open, they have great displays, looks, sdcard slots. Performance wise they basically declass every other phone including my gnex which fails miserably in that aspect. Everything from the launcher, browser through games and calculation heavy applications run great.

In addition, Apple could give a rat's ass about older models. They'll give them enough to keep most complaints at bay but otherwise, they want your fresh earned money for the newer stuff. Siri ring a bell?

Thanks for your opinion, of which I agree to almost everything.
This thread should be closed, don't know exactly what was in my mind.

this forum is full of hysteric overreacting wenches on steroids ..
He asked a legitimate question about Samsung policy in handling their franchise, not about your sisters bra sizes to throw a hissy fit like that ..

General stuff to general thread