More reasons Samsung doesn't care about us

[yahoowizard]

DailyTech - Samsung Galaxy Player Confirmed, Ready for CES
I guess they're really putting a lot into their new Samsung Nexus S phone, and now this. I'm sure a day or a week of hard work into their old Galaxy S lineup in the US can get us Froyo considering the international phones already have a working version of it, but nope, I guess we're just going to be abandoned here. Just my 2 cents.

 

[shoman94]

Well... coming out with new products is priority for them.... they are in business to make money. I understand that. It stinks for us though but not having an update is not the end of the world. I'm still running stock 2.1 but have everything setup the way I want it. I can't really complain... it does everything I need it to do.

 

[iffrett]

DailyTech - Samsung Galaxy Player Confirmed, Ready for CES
I guess they're really putting a lot into their new Samsung Nexus S phone, and now this. I'm sure a day or a week of hard work into their old Galaxy S lineup in the US can get us Froyo considering the international phones already have a working version of it, but nope, I guess we're just going to be abandoned here. Just my 2 cents.

Clearly you've never worked for a large company before. They have different departments devoted to different things. Just because they're releasing new products doesn't mean the company put 100% of its resources into it. They have departments for the sole purpose of dealing with phones, software, and other products. You know what multi-tasking is?

 

[saintdanbert]

The Froyo update involves two issues for me. The most important are the bug fixes and other operational defects known to improve on Captivate running 2.2 vs. 2.1. Yes, there will be new features and other operational improvements -- better battery life, newer kernel, etc -- but that hold very little value for me compared with the "maintenance release" aspects. [ASIDE: In **my** perfect world, there would be an update manager similar to what is available for desk and laptop linux where we could get fresh packages that fix troubled areas without an all-in-one update.]

So long as so many players create and defend their walled gardens and force us to "root" or "side load" or "jail break" to get REPAIRS, the android world will continue to be disappointing to many linux users and open-source-minded folks.

Joyeaux Noel,
~~~ *<;-}( )( )// Dan

 

[Jack45]

The reason I purchased a Captivate was because it was the only high-end Android choice available from AT&T. Had Nokia not been asleep at the wheel, they would have been my first choice - as they have been for 15 years. When it's time for me to choose another device and there's a high-quality Android alternative to Samsung with a customer-centric company behind it, you can be sure that will be my selection.

So, if Samsung believes that the decisions benefiting them today are more important than the strategic decisions rooted in customer satisfaction, they will pay the price in dwindling customer loyalty and, therefore, will experience lower revenue from ongoing operations.

The chickens will come home to roost.

 

[yahoowizard]

Clearly you've never worked for a large company before. They have different departments devoted to different things. Just because they're releasing new products doesn't mean the company put 100% of its resources into it. They have departments for the sole purpose of dealing with phones, software, and other products. You know what multi-tasking is?

I do understand all of this, but if it takes them 5 months and they haven't even DECIDED on what to tell their customers what the new update is going to be and give out a date, then I can't really say they've been working on it. I really don't mind if they were like, okay, we're getting Froyo for you in 6 months, then we know they're working on something. Rather, here's the response I got last week
"

Thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately, we are unable to speculate when/if this software revision might be available due to the fact that this might lead to inaccurate information and confusion. Although we still don​

 

[Dennis_Bham]

That link says the "Galaxy Player" has GPS ....

yea, right ... sure it does ...

 

[reinbeau]

The reason I purchased a Captivate was because it was the only high-end Android choice available from AT&T. Had Nokia not been asleep at the wheel, they would have been my first choice - as they have been for 15 years. When it's time for me to choose another device and there's a high-quality Android alternative to Samsung with a customer-centric company behind it, you can be sure that will be my selection.

So, if Samsung believes that the decisions benefiting them today are more important than the strategic decisions rooted in customer satisfaction, they will pay the price in dwindling customer loyalty and, therefore, will experience lower revenue from ongoing operations.

The chickens will come home to roost.

I too am a Nokia fan, and I dearly wish they had had something as intriguing as the Captivate when I decided to upgrade to a smartphone. Samsung has shot themselves firmly in the foot with the Captivate. I know they're in business to make money, but they need to learn that loyalty makes them even more money than constantly churning out 'new' and 'better' rather than 'new' and 'supported'.

That link says the "Galaxy Player" has GPS ....

yea, right ... sure it does ...

My thoughts exactly!

 

[jdCaptivate]

Did you just skip right over this?

Samsunghub is reporting that Samsung has confirmed a new, Android-based media player based on the popular Galaxy S line of smartphones.

Which means pretty much, a lot of its features can and will be applied to the Galaxy S phones.

So your assumption that it means they're abandoning the Captivate, is ridiculous.

 

[contradictions]

Did you just skip right over this?



Which means pretty much, a lot of its features can and will be applied to the Galaxy S phones.

So your assumption that it means they're abandoning the Captivate, is ridiculous.

The Galaxy Tab gets 2.2, Captivate users haven't seen anything from that yet. Nexus S users now have 2.3. What have Captivate users seen so far? With all these new products arriving and being announced, there has been no significant news about the older products that were sold in the U.S. as being "upgradeable to 2.2".

 

[jdCaptivate]

The Galaxy Tab gets 2.2, Captivate users haven't seen anything from that yet. Nexus S users now have 2.3. What have Captivate users seen so far? With all these new products arriving and being announced, there has been no significant news about the older products that were sold in the U.S. as being "upgradeable to 2.2".

The Galaxy Tab is an answer to the iPad. Its not a phone.

The Nexus S, is being marketed by who? Go ahead... say it... GOOGLE. Which means, it will have whatever the latest version of Android is, over ANY phone, by ANY maker.

 

[shoman94]

The wait itself doesn't really bother me but the fact that everyone else in the world besides the US is getting Froyo on their Galaxy based phone. I don't blame at&t at all since no other carrier is getting it on their galaxy based phone. (Or am I wrong?) I know many people have blamed at&t.

What about the update is plaguing the US version? That's really the question IMHO.

 

[Andrewdroid]

So seems like everyone's been getting it except good ol' USA. I feel so left out of the loop here.. it's like we're New Zealand or something!

&#9835;All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us!&#9835;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2mwHJbB7xY

 

[jdCaptivate]

And this is typical of the US for everything electronic. Look at the phones they have available in Korea and Japan. They blow everything we have, out of the water. They're 6 months to a year ahead of us, on the tech availability. Then it moves West to Europe and finally us.

I don't know why people are shocked. Its been this way for at least 20 years.

 

[shoman94]

And this is typical of the US for everything electronic. Look at the phones they have available in Korea and Japan. They blow everything we have, out of the water. They're 6 months to a year ahead of us, on the tech availability. Then it moves West to Europe and finally us.

I don't know why people are shocked. Its been this way for at least 20 years.

Definitely not shocked...just bothered.

 

[tylerdurdin]

BTW guys, but whatever the number of countries is that you think already got 2.2 divide that by the number of your choice. The U.K. just got it, Canada is just getting it, not to mention countries that did get it are running buggy pieces of crap. For everyone that does not have froyo yet your going to be pretty let down when you see what you are actually getting. I can just see the posts from people complaining about bugs and features that suck. I cant wait to see how let down people are when they find out gingerbread is like a maintenance release.

 

[mttfrog13]

the real reason samsung or the carriers like at&t don't care about us is that the majority of people don't know or care about froyo. Thing about it.....only us power users who use this website even know what froyo or even the android OS really is, and we are what, less than 10% of the galaxy s users? The rest of the phone users are just moms, non tech savvy people, and teen girls who just care that their texting works. The cost-benefit ratio of spending the extra time to get froyo out just isn't good enough for at&t or the other carriers to rush froyo out.

I could (i hope) be wrong. I'm sure that a higher proportion of android users are more tech savvy than iphone users so maybe samsung just wasn't prepared for this type of demand from its users. Also, the era of superphones is still new, so they might not be keen to the idea of having to push out software updates in such a rush to satisfy their users.

I would've assumed that the whole point of releasing a unified line of Galaxy S phones was that since they are all mostly the same, it would be easy to update all of the phones at one time, hopefully minimizing the fragmentation issue. But even still, I still can't put a finger on why it is taking so long when other countries have all received froyo before us. I mean can it really take that long for at&t to update their crappy bloatware apps that noone uses anyway?

 

[Dennis_Bham]

It is ALWAYS about money. It is ALWAYS about profitability. The *vast majority* of android users don't know or care what OS is on their phones. It costs money to get new OS code ready to go on the carrier's phones. It costs money to support and fix the inevitable problems that new OS code causes. Call center traffic increases which costs money. Support staff has to be trained on the new OS, which costs money. Manufacturers and carriers weigh their options and make decisions that supports their bottom line. If there is little or no profit in upgrading their existing phones, then they are not motivated to do so. If the manufacturers and carriers get more return on their investment by introducing new hardware with new OS features into their product stream, then they are going to choose that path over upgrading their existing products.

Those of us who know about android OS upgrades and the reasons why we want them are in the tiny minority of android users. Alas, we are often disappointed in the actions of the manufacturers and carriers. However, we are fortunate in that we have the resources to make our phones do what we want them to do with the support of forums like XDA and this one.

 

[sremick]

BTW guys, but whatever the number of countries is that you think already got 2.2 divide that by the number of your choice. The U.K. just got it, Canada is just getting it, not to mention countries that did get it are running buggy pieces of crap. For everyone that does not have froyo yet your going to be pretty let down when you see what you are actually getting. I can just see the posts from people complaining about bugs and features that suck. I cant wait to see how let down people are when they find out gingerbread is like a maintenance release.

2.2 = Froyo
2.3 = Gingerbread

And I'm fine with a "maintenance release", as this phone needs some "maintenance". Being able to run the ever-growing list of apps that require 2.2 is reason enough for me.

The *vast majority* of android users don't know or care what OS is on their phones.

They can care. Or they might care if they found out what the new version let them do. Blame the market (Google, carriers, etc) for not informing them... not them for being naive.

Case in-point would be iOS on the iPhone. Unarguably still the most-popular smartphone amongst the techno-clueless unwashed masses... and yet you would be blown-away about how many were up on what iOS 4 let them do that iOS 3 didn't (or who were bitter that they couldn't install iOS 4 on their older device). Hell, my friend who doesn't know "iOS" from "ion" complained regularly that the latest update didn't let her do video recording on her older 3G like it did for her friends with a 3GS.

Ask an Android user "you only have Android 2.1. Do you want 2.2?" and their eyes might glaze over. But ask them "would you like your phone to be snappier?" or "Would you like Flash?" and the answer would be "yes!".

 

[tylerdurdin]

^^^^^ Yes, I am VERY aware of what 2.2 and 2.3 =. My point is only that for alot of people froyo is going to do nothing. Everyone I talk to thinks froyo is something it is definitely not, it is nice having flash on my phone but could I live without it? Most likely. I am more interested in getting an official GPS update. Lets face it 1 hour after the official release this forum will be flooded with people complaining about bugs, crappy features, its not faster and last but not least when are we getting Gingerbread. Gingerbread is a joke (unless copy and paste is something that tortures your very existence)and that is why I refered to IT as a maintenance release.