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Samsung is removing those pesky ads from its apps (Updated: Samsung confirms)
- Samsung will reportedly remove ads from pre-installed Samsung apps.
- Mobile chief TM Roh apparently announced the news at an employee meeting.
Update: August 18, 2021 (8:35 AM ET): News first emerged out of Korea yesterday that Samsung reportedly planned to remove ads from its own apps. Now, the company has confirmed this news to Android Authority.
“Samsung has made a decision to cease the advertisement on proprietary apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme,” the company told us in a response to an emailed query. “The update [to remove the offending ads – ed] will be ready by later this year.”
Original article: August 17, 2021 (5:41 AM ET): One of the more annoying practices on smartphones today is that some companies offer ads in their Android software. Notable offenders in this regard include Realme, Xiaomi, and Samsung. But now, the latter company has reportedly announced a change of heart.
Samsung mobile chief TM Roh told employees at a “town hall meeting” that the company has decided to remove ads from pre-installed Samsung apps, Maeil Business News reported.
“We decided to delete ads from basic apps such as Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Themes,” Roh was quoted as saying, according to a machine-translated excerpt. The comment was apparently in response to an employee’s question regarding ads in pre-installed apps.
More reading: The best Samsung phones of 2021 so far
According to the news outlet, Roh said that the ads would be removed via One UI software updates. But it’s unclear whether this will happen in the next big update or further down the line. There’s also no word if this change will be confined to Korea or if it applies to global markets too.
We’ve contacted Samsung to find out which apps are affected and whether this is a global change. We’ll update the story if/when the company gets back to us.
Nevertheless, this would definitely be a step in the right direction for the company. We conducted a poll just over a year ago when news first surfaced of ads coming to One UI, and over 90% of polled readers said they’d refuse to buy a Samsung phone if it had ads. This might not represent the average consumer, but it still shows that a notable number of people hate the practice.