Samsung is set to introduce a major change to its theme store policies with Android Pie. It’s a change you won’t like if you use free themes on your Galaxy smartphone. A notice in the Samsung Themes store says that starting with Android Pie, free themes will only be usable for fourteen days after they are applied. The device will then revert to Samsung’s default theme.

Free Samsung Galaxy themes to have time limit on Pie

Samsung isn’t offering a clear explanation for why this change has been introduced. The notice states that the company has “changed the policy in order to help our designers continue to create high quality products and also to provide stable and satisfactory services for you.” That suggests Samsung wants theme makers to be able to make money by limiting free theme usage. Users will get a pop-up notification a day before the 14-day usage period for the applied theme is about to end and also 10 minutes before the device reverts to the default theme. Suggestions for other themes users can try out will also be included in this notification.

Again, it’s unclear why this policy has been introduced. Perhaps Samsung believes that the incentive to earn through themes will ensure theme designers do a higher-quality job that matches the new user interface (One UI) that Android Pie will introduce to Galaxy smartphones. The company will hopefully make things clearer in the coming days once the Android Pie beta program has started for the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus.

What’s your take on Samsung’s new policy for free themes?