Google apparently negotiating with Samsung to push Assistant over Bixby
- Technology
- July 29, 2020
Google and Samsung are in conversations for a deal that would give the US tech monster’s services more prominence on Samsung phones to the expense of those from the Korean maker, as indicated by a report by Bloomberg. The deal would supposedly include advancing the Google Assistant and the Play Store over Samsung’s own other options.
Samsung is the world’s biggest cell phone organization and by a wide margin the main Android handset producer in the US. While its phones use Google’s Android operating system, Samsung has reliably attempted to work out an ecosystem of its own software that runs on Android, including the Bixby voice assistant and the Galaxy app store. Google’s own products are as yet accessible on Samsung’s phones, yet Samsung has ventured to remember dedicated buttons for its hardware trying to make Bixby the most available option for clients.
Google and Samsung have conflicted over the cell phone producer’s Android customizations previously, and Samsung supposedly consented to restrain some of its TouchWiz changes in 2014. While it seems as though Google despite everything may not be happy with what’s happened from that point forward, Samsung will take some convincing this time. Potential terms of the deal haven’t been revealed, yet as Bloomberg notes, Google has a multi-billion-dollar agreement with Apple to be the default search provider in the Safari browser.
Another twist in this story is that the news comes as Google is joining other tech giants in endeavoring to convince US lawmakers that it isn’t manhandling its power. The Play Store and Google’s mandatory service bundling on Android phones have gotten elevated antitrust investigation, and a deal with Samsung could subvert Google’s argument that the Android platform empowers strong competition.
“Samsung remains committed to our own ecosystem and services,” a Samsung spokesperson tells Bloomberg in a statement. “At the same time, Samsung closely works with Google and other partners to offer the best mobile experiences for our users.”
“Like all Android device makers, Samsung is free to create its own app store and digital assistant,” a Google spokesperson says. “That’s one of the great features of the Android platform. And while we regularly talk with partners about ways to improve the user experience, we have no plans to change that.”