IronRain

Even if they manage to get big players like Spotify to develop apps for them, a lot of people - at least on the Android side - have smaller, niche apps for audiobooks and podcasts that would never bother to port their apps to GM services. Heck, even Apple Music and YouTube Music wouldn’t bother. I smell an upcoming BOGO deal on their overstocked dealerships, just before they get another bailout check.

I’m a big fan of Podcast Republic. Great dev, feature-rich, and a much improved UI from when I first started using it.

Great dev too! I suggested a few improvements awhile back, and not only did he respond back, he had it implemented within the next update. And a one time payment instead of a subscription, which automatically makes this highly customizable app better than most of its peers.

My favorite notes app has been UpNote. Has most of what you’re looking for. Folders (and subfolders), cross device syncing, cross-platform, offline access, and search. It’s also smoother than it’s closest comparison, Zoho Notes and OneNote, each of which had stutters and microlags when I used them, especially as you accumulate more notes. There’s also a lifetime purchase if you don’t like subscriptions.

That’s actually genius! I didn’t even think it had that much functionality! I wish I could include things like “please add sources and Yelp links to all recommendations.” That would make it 10x as useful, but if it were to happen, it would probably be paywalled.

Tried it yesterday - first time trying any sort of Chat AI, actually - and the app is smooth, if barebones. I’ve actually found it to be pretty useful as a suggestion bot - best sci-fi books, best zombie movies, etc.! It fills the +Reddit Googling I did before. I’m just hoping for more user customization going forward!

Wasn’t Samsung holding ~30% share in the US? I was trying to find more concrete numbers, but Google isn’t Google anymore. What I could find says that North America is their #1 revenue producing region, which leads me to believe that the majority of their revenue is coming from their S series. This is conjecture, but absent more public data, it’s what logically makes sense to me. And since the US is the major market to not be on universal contactless payment systems, I would assume would benefit it’s customers the most.

SD Card - The consumer has about as much control as trusting their data to cloud storages or even at-home NAS or hard drive set ups. They could get robbed, or they could have another daily data breach somewhere. Safety with your SD card contains similar risks. And like you said in your other response to another user, Samsung already mines your data, Knox or not. So why not include an SD card, so that people can save $200 on storage teirs (corporate greed aside)? If the hacker really wants my SD card data anyways, they’ll get to indulge in my vast library of audiobooks, podcasts, music, movies, and files that would make absolutely no sense to them, even if they were corporate spies. So congrats to them. Pictures and videos would be painful to let them peruse, but that could be said about any stolen phone or data breach.

It doesn’t have a SD card slot, unfortunately. At the moment, only Sony Xperia still carries it on the flagship level, so I’m eyeing that one for now. Fortunately, my N20U is still going strong, so I’ll see what the field looks like when I upgrade. I guess whichever OEM decides to include a $0.50 piece of hardware will probably get my $1K+.

I respectfully disagree, and I know this is a hot button topic. But isn’t the fact that it IS a controversial topic that has trawled for 3+ years on various tech forums not evidence that it’s a popular enough feature(s) to warrant consideration?

SD Card: If companies are so afraid of liability, they could simply have an initial warning dialogue about potential hardware failures. Why cripple a portion of your userbase because of the fault of others? I know it’s anecdotal, but I have used 9 SD cards across various devices (including my current N20U and Tab S8 Ultra) without ever encountering an issue. I also back up my data as is proper data management. And just as the car company in your example would say to the idiot who filled it up with the wrong gas, they would refer them to the user manual (warning dialogue in this case), and dust their hands of the matter. And let’s be honest, this is just a blatant cash grab to force customers to buy the larger storage sizes.

Mag-Stripe: There are still more shops that don’t have the standard contactless payment where I live than there are that do. And I’m in Southern CA. Big box stores are not an issue, but the mom and pop shops that I frequent don’t have it set up. I’m sure this is an issue that will eventually be solved, but it’s just frustrating that the option was taken away from us.

Dilution of Features: Samsung already makes a huge range of phones. From $120 semi-disposable ones to $2K Folds. The consumer is confused enough. From A series, J, S, M, Fold, and Flip, every price is covered. And yet, what’s the flagship (mainstream) phone? The S23U? For $1400, you get an extra camera compared to the S23+. You get a larger screen - which used to be the Note’s job - plus another camera from the base 23. That $400-600 difference adds up to 1 camera (plus some sensors) and a larger screen and battery. Point being, the reason why I gravitated to the Note series before was because of all the jammed packed features in a single phone. I didn’t have to decide if I wanted to feel FOMO for saving $400 and losing an extra camera. What I paid was what I got, and I knew I got the most bang for my buck.

I know this is controversial, but this is the hill I’m dying on. Samsung’s reputation was built on “everything but the kitchen sink” when they were competing with LG, HTC, etc. Now? They’re a naming convention from Pro and Pro Max away from another lawsuit with Apple. Who, by the way, brought SD cards back onto their flagship laptop series!

As someone who exclusively used Samsung flagships as their daily driver (GS2 > Note 4 > Note 8 > Note 20 Ultra), I was a Samsung absolutist and fanboy. But their decisions since the N20U has been frustrating, and has had me eyeing other brands for the first time.

To start about what I love about them: fantastic hardware with solid software. I don’t mind their excessive features, because they become so useful, Android/Google adds them to stock 2-3 years later. So it’s like a decent beta test for some awesome utilities, like saying “smile” to take a photo with the camera when you can’t reach the shutter button. I think several phones now offer this.

What has me eyeing something else for my next phone: shitting on their hardcore power users and greedily taking away options. The removal of the SD card (critical for my usage), the dilution of their features across different models (base, plus, ultra), removing the magstripe, etc. are all anti-consumer with NO benefit to their customers. Even if your typical customer doesn’t use a specific feature, it strips the option away from those who do, and it’s not like the savings go towards the consumer. If not for these decisions (among other, smaller infractions), I wouldn’t be contemplating other brands.