I spend most of my time utilizing a wonderful iPhone 16 Pro Max, which suggests I get to stay most of my existence utilizing the expertly tailor-made iOS 18 expertise. Sometimes, although, I exploit the equally unbelievable Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, a flagship telephone now operating Android 15 and OneUI 7.
In some ways, the S25 Ultra is the same as the iPhone; the platforms are inclined to look and work in kind of related methods. There is, although, one important manner by which they differ and, to be sincere, I’m uninterested in it.
As chances are you’ll bear in mind, until you personal a Google Pixel Phone, you are unlikely to get a pure Android expertise. Third-party companions, similar to OnePlus, Motorola, and Samsung, customise their skins for the platform.
For some, that is the fantastic thing about Android: it may be many issues to many individuals, and within the case of Samsung, this expresses itself within the type of OneUI.
It’s a beautiful platform that now provides issues similar to deeply built-in Samsung Galaxy AI, Samsung Health, and the vigorous Now Brief Widget, which provides info and chatty aphorisms like, “The day rolls on.”
Duplication of effort
Where the expertise is much less grand, although, is in duplication. For each app the place Google and Android ostensibly have you ever lined, suppose, Photos, Contacts, and Chrome; Samsung’s OneUI has a replica. Some, like Internet and Contacts, are simple to disregard.
Others, like “Gallery,” are much less so as a result of they embody core options like Generative AI picture enhancing. Some, like Sketch to Image, which lets you scribble on a photograph so as to add parts like a photo-realistic hen flying or a canine sitting subsequent to you, are enjoyable if not filled with utility. But Gallery pales compared to Google Photos’ highly effective search capabilities. When I would like to seek out a picture, I’ll at all times go there.
There’s additionally Google’s essential Play Store, but it surely does not have all of the Samsung Apps you want – that will be the “Galaxy Store.”
I’ve realized to stay with most of this duplication, however the different day I stumbled right into a little bit of doppleganger mess that examined my endurance.
In the hours earlier than an trade occasion, I obtained an e mail on my iPhone with a hyperlink so as to add the invite to my digital pockets. I clicked on the hyperlink, considering it might open Apple Wallets, however I used to be thrust right into a Google login. It was then that I noticed the hyperlink was for Google Wallet. Everyone’s Wallet app icon appears alike as a result of there’s actually just one visible metaphor for a pockets: a stacked group of bank cards.
I picked up the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, opened the e-mail, and chosen the Google Wallet icon. That’s after I found, to my shock, that Google Wallet will not be pre-installed. I put in it after which signed in to my Google account.
I then used the worldwide Google search on my S25 extremely to seek out the Wallet app, and I bought three outcomes:
- Samsung Wallet
- Google Pay
- Google Wallet
Note how Samsung’s Wallet seems first; that is no accident. Someone not paying consideration may open that hyperlink first after which search in useless for the invite or airplane ticket they simply added.
On an iPhone, this may by no means occur. You get one utility app, although, you may definitely add extra if you happen to select. But that ought to be the default: Core platform apps solely, and never ones that align solely together with your particular model.
I get that Samsung desires to construct an ecosystem, however as a member of the Android household, it ought to settle for that it’ll by no means personal that ecosystem. There will at all times be this duplication downside, until Samsung stops making an attempt to repeat these apps and lets Google and Android take the wheel.
After all, are we shopping for Samsung Galaxy telephones for OneUI apps or, finally, for that {hardware} expertise, together with issues just like the cameras and a beautiful, practically bezel-free display screen?
1+1 = an excessive amount of
I do know that Samsung is kind of happy with its taste of AI, however to be sincere, I do not suppose it may well sustain with the OpenAIs and Googles of the world. As it stands, the most effective bits of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra AI expertise are from Google (Gemini).
For some, my perspective is the other of what they need. They love selection, and the truth that all Android Phones are subtly or frustratingly totally different in some way pleases them. That the Photos, Internet, or Wallet apps are totally different on each platform is, they suppose, an thrilling plus.
Sure, you retain considering that. I, then again, will dream of the OneUI replace that’s paper-thin and combines all the elemental and finest bits of Android whereas solely including options Google would not do in any other case.
It is ironic that Samsung calls its platform “OneUI” when in actual fact the expertise is the mixture of two UIs dwelling below one flagship roof. It’s nonetheless too crowded an area, and I would really like Samsung to kick a couple of duplicate tenants out.
