Perhaps the biggest gripe many of us still have with Samsung’s interface is the sheer amount of unnecessary and duplicate apps that come preinstalled on Galaxy phones. While the count has come down a bit over the years, we're still looking at a lot of redundancy. That could be further toned down in the future as Google and Samsung are reportedly in the process of cutting a deal to promote Google Assistant and the Play Store over Bixby and the Galaxy Store.

As per Bloomberg, Google is trying to persuade Samsung into dropping Bixby and the Galaxy Store from its phones and defaulting to Assistant and the Play Store instead. Reuters sources believe that the search giant is offering a lucrative ad revenue-sharing deal to get Samsung to make the jump. As the ongoing pandemic has impacted many of Samsung's income streams, it may find itself in a position to give Google's offer some serious consideration.

If the deal goes through, this move would give Google access to millions of potential users, given Samsung makes for a big chunk of global smartphone shipments. But perhaps the biggest winner here would be all the Galaxy phone users who will finally have an easier option to switch away from Bixby. Google Assistant is a far a superior voice assistant, and Bixby simply doesn’t come close even after years of playing catch-up. As for the app store, Samsung’s first-party Galaxy Store does offer some exclusive apps and games, but those could be easily moved over to the Play Store.

It’ll be interesting to see how this all pans out as both Google and Samsung are maintaining that there's no current plans for making any changes like this in their respective statements. This development comes at a time when Google is facing lawsuits against its controlling market position in different regions, including in the US more recently.

Source: Bloomberg, Reuters