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The Samsung Galaxy S6 will come with a new version of the TouchWiz UI that offers pre-installed Microsoft apps in place of the usual Samsung efforts, according to one report.
We're all expecting a radical new hardware approach from Samsung when it launches the Galaxy S6 one March 1. But there are rumours that its software could be in for a bit of a facelift too.
SamMobile claims that the new version of Samsung's TouchWiz UI will cut down significantly on the infamous bloatware that has blighted previous Samsung smartphones.
According to the website's inside source, this will include the removal of all pre-installed Samsung apps. It's not clear precisely which apps this would include, but it could mean that the likes of S Voice, S Health, and S Note are made available as optional downloads from the Galaxy Apps store.
That's not to say that the Galaxy S6 won't come with its fair share of pre-installed apps. But what's interesting here is the claimed source of those apps.
Apparently, Samsung has pre-loaded a number of Microsoft apps onto the Galaxy S6. These will include Microsoft OneNote, OneDrive, Office Mobile (complete with a free Office 365 subscription), and Skype.
This could be related to the two companies recently settling their legal differences over Samsung's non-payment of patent fees relating to its use of the Android OS.
Related: MWC 2015: What to expect from the Barcelona expo
Such a deal would certainly appear to fall in line with both companies' wider ambitions - Samsung to break away from Google's influence, and Microsoft to simply break it.
Elsewhere, the report claims that the new TouchWiz on the Galaxy S6 is "amazingly fast," even when compared to the Lollipop update running on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. This despite the fact that Samsung has apparently adopted a lot of Lollipop animations.