Samsung confirms it’s removing ads from its stock apps later this year

Samsung has confirmed that it will stop showing ads in default apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme. It follows comments made by its mobile chief TM Roh in an internal town hall meeting reported by Yonhap. “Samsung has made a decision to cease the advertisement on proprietary apps including Samsung Weather, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Theme,” the company said in a statement given to The Verge. “The update will be ready by later this year.”

“Our priority is to deliver innovative mobile experiences for our consumers based on their needs and wants,” the company said. “We value feedback from our users and continue our commitment to provide them with the best possible experience from our Galaxy products and services.”

In our review of this year’s Galaxy S21 Ultra, we said it was unforgivable that Samsung would choose to show the “kind of ad that’s normally at the bottom of a crappy, overloaded website” in its default weather app. Yes, it’s been possible to dodge or disable these ads and switch to non-Samsung versions of each app, but you shouldn’t be expected to have to do that after spending $1,199 on a flagship smartphone. They’re part of the reason why Samsung’s otherwise clean One UI software has started to feel messy over the past year.

Samsung did not share a specific date for when the ads would be removed from its software, but Yonhap previously reported that the change will be made via a forthcoming One UI software update. 9to5Google has published a collection of screenshots if you want to see just how bad Samsung’s apps currently look.