With the Samsung Note 9 coming out soon, I thought I'd write some thoughts down and see if there was any interest in a discussion.
Samsung appears to have two different 'leaks' come out before their main foray into their new flagship device. I'm sort of looking at the psychology behind this, rather than take any of it at face value. The people that I know are excited about the Note 9, "I'm going to buy it the day it comes out".. this kind of attitude. While yes, sometimes it's ok to want the latest and greatest, but is it really worth it. Considering that Samsung now is putting more apps on its phone that can't be uninstalled, boot loader is locked (unrootable) and ramping up KNOX. This seems to stem from fear of locking the phone down for "security purposes".
What Samsung fails to mention is that while the Note 9 is really close to the $1000 price mark, are you really that arrogant to lock your phones down, knowing people are paying $1000 for your unit? What I would like to see in the coming months is a whole sleugh of unlocked (bootloader) phones that encourage community development. I believe that this is the future of Mobile Technology.
How people can give up their rights so freely, while Samsung slowly closes the doors to developers and forces the current development into closed loop programming, all in the name of "Security". However, we've always seen from history that people are more than willing to give up their liberties in order to feel safe, and Samsung is going to capitalize on this feeling. After the Note 2, I have never considered buying another Samsung product, simply because it seems Samsung is going the way of Apple. Android is not meant to be closed and it didn't start that way but it seems like slowly and slowly our rights to our devices are being taken away, but the problem is people don't care..as long as they have the latest and greatest. There's no real upgrades from Note 8 to Note 9, so other than Vanity, what is the reason to upgrade to the 9?