An Android developer’s adventures to the Samsung-land, Part 1 — Why?
I’ve been Android developer from Android 2.x times. Since my very first Android phone, Motorola Milestone (known as Droid in the US) I’ve been against any sort of skinning of Android. I’ve always used stock-Android devices as my daily drivers and avoided things like HTC’s Sense but I’ve always felt special allergy towards the Samsung TouchWiz. Of course, we have Samsung devices for testing in the office but I don’t think they’ve ever left the office.
I’ve often been (half) joking that whenever I open the Samsung Galaxy S6 if have to struggle to keep my lunch. The UI is horrid.
Samsung market share
Importance of Samsung is hard to deny when looking at their sales numbers and amount of devices they produce.
Android developer’s toolkit
The largest portion of Android users use Samsung devices. As an Android developer I feel that without understanding how these devices really work I cannot really perform in my job as well as I think I should.
Now, the issues reported with Pixel 2 XL made me cancel my preorder. I feel like this is the perfect time to take the leap and force Samsung on me. So I did.. I went and bought a Samsung Note 8. This will be my daily driver until Pixel 3 XL ships.
I recently forced myself to use iOS for a month to have a peek into the iOS user’s life. You can find my blog about it here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/collection/wRo9LE
Not a review, a developer’s perspective
I’ll not be reviewing the device. What would be the point? There’s million+ reviews out in the web.
No, in this series of posts I’ll be writing about Samsung from developer’s point of view. Especially, from the point of view of a Samsung virgin and a stock-Android-purist.
I will be writing about what tweaks I end up doing to my own apps that I didn’t think about before diving into Samsung ecosystem. I have first few already drafted and hoping to publish them about once a week.
Read: “Part 2, UI”
