The Samsung app ecosystem is pretty vast, and while some of the offerings are pretty useful, others have similar functionality to Google’s suite of apps, thus becoming somewhat redundant. Samsung Free is one of these services, which has been available on Samsung Galaxy devices for a while now, but has not seen much traction. We recently learned about the company transitioning away from the Samsung Free moniker and rebranding the app to Samsung News. That was set to occur this week, and right on cue, the South Korean electronics giant has officially unveiled the revamped version of the app.
Previously, the app offered access to live TV, news, games, and podcasts. The Samsung News app, which is now seemingly in beta, has only three bottom bar icons titled News, Podcasts, and Following. The News tab offers a list of curated content from Samsung’s media partners. Publications like Bloomberg, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Politico, New York Post, The Daily Beast, and many others should appear here.
Meanwhile, the Following tab lets you control the publications you want to see, and the Podcasts tab lets users find the podcasts they’ve subscribed to or catch some new ones.
In its current form, Samsung Free offers the Watch, Listen, Read, and Play tabs. The Watch and Play tabs are getting the boot, with the company directing users to check out its other apps like Samsung TV Plus and Game Launcher to fulfill those duties.
A crucial addition to the Samsung News app is Daily Briefings, which offers users a glimpse at the breaking news stories in the mornings and evenings. The company says it is pairing up with “a team of experienced news editors to bring users the top headlines of the day,” though no additional details were provided.
Samsung says US customers will see the update right away, with the app icon for Samsung Free switching to News as of April 18. If you’ve previously deleted Samsung Free and would like to check out the new avatar, you can get the app from the Galaxy Store. Availability appears to be limited to the US right now.
The reasons for Samsung Free’s unpopularity are unclear. Perhaps Samsung simply didn’t spend enough time talking about it, or the service got lost in the plethora of Samsung features that are discussed with each major software refresh. Samsung Free launched with One UI 3.0 back in late 2020 as a successor to services like Bixby Home and Samsung Daily.
