Exclusive: Samsung is finally removing bloat from TouchWiz

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The fact that Samsung's phones and tablets come with a lot of software features is both an advantage and a curse. These features certainly come handy, but on the flip side, they have resulted in Samsung's software becoming extremely bloated and heavy. With the Galaxy S5, the company started removing some unneeded apps and features, and made some of them downloadable so that they wouldn't get in the way but still be accessible if someone wanted them.

It has been reported that Samsung is working on optimizing its software for the Galaxy S6 to near-Nexus levels, and we now have exclusive info that the company is removing every add-on feature that can be downloaded as an application, and slimming down the software by a wide margin in the process. We're unsure which features and apps will be affected by this – Samsung builds in both standard apps and integrates some functions in the settings menu (like Smart Stay). The latter are less likely to be removed, but we're guessing that apps like Story Album, S Translator, or even S Voice will become downloadable apps instead of being pre-loaded on devices.

S Health and other such selling points will most probably stay on as pre-loaded apps, but the removal of stuff that most people never/rarely use would still be a huge move. Of course, simply removing features won't do anything to speed up Samsung's software, but combined with an optimization of code – as Samsung is said to be doing – it is easy to see just the Korean manufacturer is moving toward the goal of making its next flagship (and future devices) as fast as possible.

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

First Samsung device: SGH-D500

Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief.

Phone Galaxy S6 TouchWiz

Exclusive: Samsung removing bloat from TouchWiz, making most of it downloadable

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

First Samsung device: SGH-D500

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