Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III “Security” Update Removes Search Functions
Early Monday we posted a story applauding Samsung for bringing its second update for the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III in such a short time following the release of the device. Samsung has reported this update bring new security enhancements to the device. However, over on the XDA forums we’ve learned that there are more to the update than just “security enhancements.” The good news, this new update may have fixed the Google Wallet issues. The bad news, Samsung has removed the ability to use the Google search to search apps, contacts, bookmarks, etc. You will only be able to search the web. We’ve heard this type of update will likely be coming to the Galaxy Nexus due to the patent lawsuit with Apple. Is this Samsung trying to cover their butts to avoid further lawsuits? Potentially a really smart move for them, and a lame move for us. Sucks that they have to remove this pretty useful functionality. Also stinks that they haven’t brought the notification bar brightness adjust yet. If you’re rooted, there are probably simple solutions around this. An already reported fix is just replacing the new GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk with the old. If you’re not rooted, you haven’t received the update yet, and you like to use the Google search for finding apps, contacts, etc., you might want to think about avoiding the update. Just a heads up. What do you think of the update? Does this make you even more upset at Apple? Or are you just glad Samsung is taking precautions to avoid future hick-ups and lawsuits? I just hope Samsung can come up with some innovative solution soon to return the search functionality to their devices.
It's sad that Apple has actually managed to strike fear into it's competition, making them take desperate measures such as this. But understandable.
In the pre iphone era you didn't hear so much about patent violation lawsuits because there wasn't so much patent violation going on. Think about Palm OS, Blackberry OS, Symbian and Windows Mobile, they shared a few things in common but they were very different operating systems.They didn't steal from one another, they just kept improving on their own.
In terms of form factor the handsets all had special characteristics, only palm had a silent switch button, only blackberry had a trackball and in general all phones had their own specific features.
Look at an iPhone, and look at a galaxy smartphone, the s and s ii looked very very similar to an iPhone, even the icons grid looked the same. That's what's allowing Apple to find legal ways to sue them.You didn't see Apple file a law suite against the Palm Pre and you're not seeing Apple sue Microsoft for any Windows Phone, that's because both webOS and Windows Phone are new, original, concepts.
And you have to understand Apple as well, they lost the PC market share battle because Windows copied Mac OS, they probably want to avoid this happening again in the mobile space.
Samsung should just make sure it's not such an easy target, especially since it's the biggest competition that Apple has. Plus, they had the chance to avoid this by purchasing webOS from HP, even if they didn't want to use it (which is stupid) they could have at leased used the patents that Palm had. Would have costed them less then the lawsuits and their consequences.
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