This week has been an interesting one for the South Korean smartphone giant, Samsung. To start off the week, the company announced a new partnership with Google in a move that shocked the mobile world. Later in the week, Samsung announced an update for Galaxy S8 units, and later, a developer figured out how to remap the dedicated Bixby hardware button, not for the first time. Just before the week concluded, we received insight on Samsung’s quarterly earnings, which surprised us yet again.

Samsung announced a new partnership with Google a week or so ago, but not for a reason you may think. The two technology companies announced a deal that has and will continue to bring about change to the availability of Google’s Play Music service on Samsung devices. We know Samsung likes to have their own version of everything, and we mean everything, hence why the company pre-loads its phones with a ton of software and prioritizes its own apps and services over others. This will no longer be the case for Play Music.

The app is set as the default music player on Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphones, and will come as the primary music service on future Samsung Galaxy devices. Samsung has also given an exclusive deal to Galaxy S8 buyers, who can upload double the number of songs (up to 100,000) without even a paid membership. Speaking of which, Samsung has also given out a three-month free trial of premium access to Galaxy S8 owners. Pixel owners haven’t even been given this! Whether or not Samsung will continue to support its own music app in the future as alternative choice for customers remains to be confirmed.

Later in the week, Samsung issued yet another update for Galaxy S8 smartphones. Though this one includes display and Wi-Fi fixes, the first update included a fix to the Bixby button’s vulnerability. Customers figured out a way to remap the hardware key that would normally trigger Samsung’s new and incomplete Bixby assistant. However, Samsung later patched the issue and made it clear that Bixby is to be the only app registered with the Galaxy S8 button. But users didn’t give up their hopes to use the button for the Google Assistant instead, which is also pre-loaded on Samsung’s latest flagship models.

This week, a developer by the name of Dave Bennett solved the case with BixRemap, a new app available in the Play Store that Samsung is probably looking to have banned. The app essentially bypasses the Bixby assistant by launching Google Now (or an app of choice) layered on top of Bixby once the dedicated hardware button is pressed. So are question for you is, are you that desperate to have the Google Assistant or some other voice assistant? Samsung is putting a heck of a lot of work into creating Bixby, and it seems like it will do most of which the Google Assistant does.

Despite some hate that seems to exist for Samsung’s app collection, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 are performing better than expected on the worldwide market, exceeding pre-orders of the Galaxy S7 pair by 30%. These are staggering numbers especially given the Galaxy Note 7 debacle that caused a hit to the company’s brand last year. It doesn’t seem like most people are that upset about it, as the new smartphones set a record for most pre-orders ever received by an Android smartphone. Samsung also reported higher than expected results for Q1, which failed to include the majority of Galaxy S8 pre-order goodness since sales opened late in the period. Despite the fact, Samsung reported operating profits of $1.8 billion, revenue of $44.7 billion, and a net profit of $6.8 billion in total (up 46% from last year). Thanks to increased sales in the company’s semiconductor division, the quarter set a record for the second highest (profit) ever received by Samsung during a three month period.

Given Samsung and Google’s recent partnership, would you like to see more OEM apps replaced in exchange for some from Google? What’s the brand of your current phone and do you think it has too much OEM bloat? Whose apps would you rather have, Samsung, Google, or a mixture from both? If you answered some of each, which has Samsung done better and what are those that Google has done a better job with? Why do you think so? Let us know and feel free to drop a comment below this post. The poll will remain open all week. We look forward to hearing your response.

Below are the headlines from this week. Click each to be redirected to the full story.

If you want to hear our opinions on Samsung and their situation with Google, come to chat with the DT during our next Connect+ Live Chat Session. See the upcoming schedule here.