Samsung may be the world's largest manufacturer of Android devices, but over the past few years, the company has worked hard to create a unique software experience for its own devices. Now, Samsung has masked the original appearance of the Android system through customized user interfaces and alternative apps, adding a large number of unique features (sometimes even redundant functions) to the operating system.
The technology website The Verge believes that Samsung's first annual developers conference next week in San Francisco, California will show how much the company values software as a way to distinguish itself. In addition to developing applications for the Android system, Samsung also hopes developers will specifically design products for its hardware devices. This move by Samsung might benefit its customers, but it could also further exacerbate the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem.
Curtis Sasaki, Senior Vice President of Samsung Media Entertainment Center, said in an open letter to developers that the company is "committed to accelerating Android application development." He has been emphasizing this point during interviews.
Sasaki said, "Many developers go to app stores and see millions of apps there. How do they stand out among so many products? How do they differentiate themselves from others and become widely known?" He believes that developing applications on top of Samsung’s platform can solve these problems. He stated, "Samsung has been strongly promoting product innovation. If developers can fully utilize Samsung's innovations, they can significantly differentiate themselves from others, and they can also create better user experiences by using our products."
Sasaki mentioned that the new tablet-specific application Twitter launched for the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is a good example. This app was specially developed for the Samsung platform. He said, "Now you can write tweets using the tablet stylus, and the product supports multi-window operations. Because we now have excellent hardware to support the platform, we can achieve remarkable things that other devices cannot. Establishing a meaningful experience through multitasking and multi-window operations is an example of this."
Of course, such an experience might be significant for Samsung and its customers, but other Android tablet users still have to use enlarged smartphone apps on their tablets. This shows that Samsung plays a crucial role in today's Android market. After all, Twitter could have developed a tablet app compatible with all hardware instead of creating a full application exclusively for Samsung.
Sasaki repeatedly emphasized in the interview the need to establish a unique differentiated experience for Samsung devices. Given Samsung's dominant position in the Android market, this idea makes sense. Sasaki believes that it is precisely this status that attracts more developers' attention. He said, "I think users have an expectation that they want to get the best experience proportional to their investment."
Sasaki hopes that Samsung devices can provide users with the best tablet experience. He said, "As the largest manufacturer of Android devices, we have a great opportunity to use our capabilities in hardware and software development to provide users with such an experience."
Indeed, besides Android phones and tablets, Samsung also produces other hardware products, and the company hopes to use this to achieve differentiation. Sasaki believes that the increasingly popular "multi-screen experience" is another task that only Samsung can accomplish. He said, "We want to do more than just transmit content from the tablet to the TV. How do you create a differentiated and enhanced exclusive experience?" Sasaki said that Samsung has done a lot of work in this area, and multi-screen functionality will be one of the highlights of this conference.
This makes sense because Samsung holds a large share in the smartphone, tablet, and television markets. Sasaki said that Samsung wants to provide "not only mobile technology channels, but also learn how to develop application products for televisions, enterprises, and even gaming."
In his letter to developers, Sasaki wrote, "The most important point is that we are constantly seeking excellent software. A significant part of Samsung's future major innovations will be constructed by you (developers), and these innovations will bring permanent and positive changes to the way we work and entertain."
However, Sasaki did not mention that Samsung hopes these innovations will be built on Samsung's own hardware and software. Although Samsung is currently still focused on Android, five years from now, Samsung might adopt a customized version of Android, replacing Google services with Samsung services, similar to Amazon's Kindle Fire operating system, or Samsung might directly replace the Android system with its own operating system. Samsung's developer conference may be seen as the beginning of a fundamental shift in the Android market.