Samsung Ditches Ads In Pay And Health Apps

No matter what brand of smartphone you prefer, one thing that all smartphone users have in common is the loathing of ads. No one wants to pay hundreds of dollars for a high-end premium smartphone only to have the manufacturer hit them with ads at every turn. Unfortunately, despite what users want, Samsung has been doing that with some of its apps.

Specifically, Samsung was serving ads to users in its Samsung Pay and Samsung Health apps. However, that changed with Samsung promising last month that it would remove advertising from its default apps. Previously, ads disappeared from the weather app, and Samsung has now removed ads from Pay and Health.

Samsung has confirmed the removal of ads in those two apps in South Korea. Many users complained about being deluged with ads in these apps, with Samsung serving ads at the top of the app's main screen, in the middle, and at the bottom. Smartphone owners complained heavily about spending a significant sum of money to purchase the device but not getting an ad-free environment.

Samsung confirmed the removal of the ads in South Korea by stating the banner at the top of the Samsung Health app be removed starting October 1. Interestingly, some users say after the ads were removed, performance in those default apps increase. For instance, in Samsung Pay, users report faster payment completion.

The next default Samsung app that is expected to see ads get removed is Samsung Themes. Ads generate significant amounts of revenue for manufacturers, and the temptation to slam users with as many ads as possible has proven too much for many to resist. It's nice to see a major manufacturer like Samsung realizing its error and making moves to correct it.