Photo by Brennan King / The Verge
Google and Samsung are in discussions for a deal that would give the US tech giant’s services more prominence on Samsung phones at the expense of those from the Korean manufacturer, according to a report by Bloomberg. The deal would reportedly involve promoting the Google Assistant and the Play Store over Samsung’s own alternatives.
Samsung is the world’s biggest smartphone company and by far the leading Android handset maker in the US. While its phones use Google’s Android operating system, Samsung has consistently tried to build out an ecosystem of its own software that runs atop Android, including the Bixby voice assistant and the Galaxy app store. Google’s own products are still available on Samsung’s phones, but Samsung has gone as…