Though Samsung has tried to subdue the millions of Froyo-less Galaxy S users with words of consolation, the whole fiasco keeps on rolling and snowballing as it goes. Samsung may be the current Android-powered device leader in terms of sheer numbers, but when it comes to customer satisfaction, I'm almost certain those numbers are falling rapidly.
Something they could have avoided by a real answer, has risen to be a slew of bad press for the South Korean company. Back on Friday we ran a poll that asked, “Are you frustrated that Samsung didn't get Android 2.2 to the Galaxy S devices by the end of 2010?” The results are far from surprising, but they still tell a lot about what Samsung may face in the future.
Out of 2,005 votes, 57% of users voted “Yes! This will be the last Samsung smartphone I buy.” While 2,005 users is a tiny number in comparison to their 10 million shipped Galaxy S devices, 57% is still a large number that reveals a lot about how customers feel right now. Many have completely lost faith in the manufacturer. That faith isn't likely to be restored when 2.2 is received either, considering the update has been available to most other devices for 4-6 months now. By the time that US Galaxy S owners finally get their helping of 2.2, users of other devices from different manufacturers will likely be welcoming their Gingerbread updates.
On the other end of the spectrum, 33.2% of users voted “Yes! That said, I'll still consider them in the future.” This, I believe, it due to the great experience users have received with their Galaxy S device, regardless of what OS version they're running. The Hummingbird processor and Super AMOLED displays do serve up quite the mobile treat.
Other than being 8 months late on the release of the update, Samsung has further enraged users by answering their woes with very uninformative, generic answers. They have let it remain a mystery as to why nearly everywhere else in the world has Galaxy S devices running Froyo, but US customers are stuck on 2.1. Rather than directly stating what the holdup is, they revealed that they are “running tests due to complexity/unique functionality,” as if it should mean something to users.
One thing I'm certain of, is that their update to Gingerbread needs to go a lot more smoothly than the Froyo update. There are already thousands – probably millions – of upset customers that won't stick around for much longer if they can't get relatively quick updates. They'll be ditching their TouchWiz devices for something by HTC, Motorola, or any of the numerous other manufacturers. If you had to do it over, would you choose a Galaxy S device again given the way they've handled their Froyo update? If not, what would you go with?
Image via AndroidAndMe
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