TL;DR Samsung has announced a new partnership with Amazon Music to preinstall the latter’s app on select Samsung smartphones and tablets.
Amazon Music is also making its way to the Galaxy Store, with new subscribers getting a three-month free trial to the Unlimited subscription.
This is bad news for people who prefer a clean, bloatware-free experience on their smartphones and tablets.
Samsung is no stranger to preloading bloatware on its flagships, with the Galaxy S26 series being the recent example. Future buyers of Galaxy smartphones and tablets will now have one more preinstalled app to deal with.
The company today announced a collaboration with Amazon to preinstall the Amazon Music app on upcoming Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Samsung didn’t specify which of its models will get this treatment, only saying the app will be preloaded on “select” devices.
Samsung
Additionally, the two companies announced a 3-month free trial of Amazon Music Unlimited for Galaxy device owners, accessible via the Amazon Music app on the Galaxy Store. As you would expect, the free trial is only valid for accounts that haven’t previously subscribed to Amazon Music Unlimited. After the free trial, customers will be charged $12.99/month, while Amazon Prime subscribers will pay $11.99/month.
In addition to access to Amazon Music’s extensive music catalog, the Unlimited subscription also offers one audiobook on Audible each month, which sweetens the deal a little for avid readers/listeners.
Still, it’s never great to see the spread of bloat, and we already know all too well that buying an Android smartphone in 2026 also means getting used to the sheer volume of bloatware on your brand new device.
Even on Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S26 series, new owners are forced to deal with a problematic number of third-party apps preinstalled on the device. And that doesn’t even include the suite of Google apps that come preloaded on most Android devices sold today. When you’re paying $900, $1,800, or more for a new phone, that kind of compromise is still a bit hard to swallow.
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