In August, Samsung announced that it would remove advertising from its pre-installed apps on Galaxy smartphones. The ads had caused much annoyance for users, displayed prominently in some of the default apps.
Fortunately, the company has made good on that promise and Galaxy owners in South Korea are now the first to experience a cleaner, faster ad-free experience. In a few apps, at least.
A report from Tizenhelp.com said that shortly after the announcement advertising disappeared from the preinstalled Weather app. And since 1 October no ads have appeared in the Samsung Pay and Samsung Health apps either.
Samsung confirmed this in a South Korean forum post. And users are saying that this has significantly improved the loading speed of the apps.
It is unclear when this change will also take effect outside of South Korea, but it shouldn’t be too long. Samsung says it will remove the advertising from its Themes app next.
Samsung listens to its own employees
Many of Samsung’s phones – especially the flagships – are expensive and buyers have been understandably annoyed by the ads in the pre-installed apps. But it was a Samsung employee that raised the issue with boss of Samsung Mobile, TM Roh, in a town hall meeting in August. Roh then announced that the adverts would be removed via One-UI updates.
According to Roh, the company was looking for new growth opportunities in both content and advertising to strengthen the Galaxy ecosystem.
Customers, of course, didn’t appreciate intrusive ads appearing in Samsung apps on devices they’d paid good money for, nor the fact that they were slowing down those apps. A Samsung spokesman later stated that criticism from its own employees was “absolutely necessary” for the company’s success and further development.
A version of this article was originally published in German on PCWelt.de.
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