If you exclusively use Samsung apps on your Galaxy phone, you're part of a very small group

Samsung makes several stock apps for its Galaxy phones. From Samsung Gallery to Samsung Notes, Samsung Calendar to Samsung Internet, and many more — Galaxy phone users have the option to remain entirely within Samsung’s ecosystem if they want. However, that’s not what most of them prefer, at least not exclusively.

We conducted polls across the Android Authority website, YouTube channel, and X (formerly Twitter) account to ask Galaxy users how they use Samsung apps on their phones. The results showed that while Samsung apps are indeed getting more popular with Galaxy customers, very few users rely on them exclusively.

The results were mostly unanimous across all three platforms where we conducted the polls. On our website, only 9% of the total 2,600 voters said that they only use stock Samsung apps on their Galaxy phones. 64% of the voters said they use a mix of Samsung and alternative apps, the latter mainly consisting of Google apps. 27% of the survey takers stay completely away from Samsung apps and only rely on alternatives.

“Dialer, contacts, messages, gallery, calculator from Samsung. Mail (Gmail, ofc), browser, calendar, and app store from Google,” said a user, echoing what we’re seeing across comments on our polls.

This sentiment was also reflected in our YouTube poll, which garnered a little over 4,700 votes. However, we found that a larger chunk of our YouTube audience rejected Samsung apps outright in favor of other options.

“I have a Samsung S20 phone, but I prefer using the Google apps or alternatives to the Samsung apps. If there was a way to uninstall them, I would,” commented one Galaxy user who took our YouTube poll.

“I use the essentials like phone app messages app, gallery app, camera app, clock calender calculator apps, and the health app,” said another Galaxy user.

On X (formerly Twitter), Galaxy users once again expressed how they use both Samsung stock apps and alternates instead of sticking solely with apps from the South Korean company. From the 990 votes the poll gathered on the platform, 43.6% said they don’t use Samsung apps at all.

While the polls reflect how Galaxy users don’t prefer putting all their eggs in Samsung’s basket, the comments show that Samsung is definitely going in the right direction when it comes to pushing new features to its native apps.

“I use all the native Samsung Apps now as they are much more feature-rich. Only Gmail and Google Messages are the exception,” said a user.

With One UI 6.1, Samsung is also bringing more innovative AI features to older flagships, positively affecting user perception of its apps.

“Samsung Calendar plus Reminder is actually the reason I went for S24 over Pixel 8 – priceless month view with everything listed, good widget, and doesn’t pester me to use an online calendar like GCal does. I have also grown to like the built-in AI translate/dictation/rephrase/gallery features – I just flip the Process data only on device switch, and it’s like an iPhone in terms of privacy, except without all the Apple railroading,” said a Galaxy S24 owner.

“I do use Google’s apps, but they are becoming progressively worse. As the features in Samsung apps catch up and become more integrated with themselves, I might find myself switching back,” a user commented.

So, while the scales currently don’t tip in favor of Samsung apps, it’s not like users don’t find them helpful. In fact, if the trend that we’re seeing continues in this direction, we might even see more users exclusively relying on Samsung apps and ditching the alternatives.