Android's development pace is slowing down, as is iOSes. Smartphones are not an innovative platform any more. It used to be that OSes got major new features like universal voice dictation, universal search, and turn-by-turn navigation, but in the last couple of years the two major platforms have been getting very iterative improvements; performance upgrades, visual polishes, proprietary assistant apps...

That's because the smartphone market is slowing undergoing commoditization. We're only a few years away from when Samsung could realistically swap out Android for another OS that looks on the surface to be the same and not many people will notice.

and not many people will notice: unless they try to run their favorite Android apps - starting from the Google ones - and they discover that they're not there...

This implies that people buying a new phone actually have detailed knowledge about the underlying OS. But a lot of sold Android smartphones are cheap ones. I know lots of "mormal" people that barely know Android is powering their phones. They will not miss their favorite apps because they have none and seldom install new apps on their phone. Thats the "mass market" that Samsung could address with its own OS.

Ok, leave alone the "apps" - let's talk about the functionality. Where are my maps, with turn by turn navigation? Where is that translation thing that my nephew has got? I think that most people who buy a smartphone, paying good money for it, want to do "things". Many of the most interesting things you can do with Android phones (for free, too) are Google powered. Even Apple has a difficult time replacing them on iOS, and my guess is that they're much better positioned than Samsung in that respect.

But most of the profit in smartphones is made on the higher end. And those users do use apps, i think.

That's the Symbian market and it's shrinking rapidly. I don't think they'd want to compete there with Tizen