How to access content bought at the Galaxy store without opening the store?

[Joerg Poetzsch]

Imagine, you buy a car, and after you have paid for it, the dealer tells you, the shiny new vehicle will stay at the dealer, and each time you want to look at it, you are free to come there and dust it. Hard to believe, but that is, in essence, how Samsung set up the Galaxy store to work. Within the store, you have a section "my stuff" and there you can see a list of your store downloads. It is right from that list, that you can perform operations with your stuff. Of course, only such basic operations that Samsung provides options for.

For instance, you bought a wallpaper at the Galaxy store. So, from your "my stuff"-list, you can set it as system wallpaper. That works fine. But when you want to use that same wallpaper and set it as wallpaper for a specific app (as this is needed e.g., for the launcher Square Home to work properly), you are stuck. You can't access and pick the graphic files of the bought wallpaper, as it does not appear where you would expect it: in the Samsung Gallery. And I haven't found the files anywhere else on the phone storage.

Samsung's main concern when setting up the store obviously was to avoid any further use or even copying of your wallpapers and send them as a gift to your mother in law when she has birthday. They even blocked making screenshots in the store of the wallpapers when they are displayed full-screen (you see, I got somewhat creative on my own trying to resolve my problem).

Looking at the terms and conditions of the Samsung store, I found what I was suspecting: You do not buy the graphics files of your wallpapers. You do not own them after paying money. What you pay for is a license fee to use the content in the way set by the store rules. So, legally such a license deal is a valid option. It takes care of all Samsung concerns. But practically it does not let you use paid-for contents even at your own phone the way you want. Of course, if you do not agree to the terms, you are free not to use the Galaxy store. And I suspect, that will be the answer that will kill my question: I should have read the small print before grabbing the credit card.

The developer of Square Home does not have a solution, either (see attached).



So, bottom line, generally avoid the Galaxy store, if you want to own and use what you've paid for?

Many thanks,
Joerg

 

[spARTacus]

Yeah lots of crap like this nowadays. Almost a scam. In theory, the products and services are cheaper I guess via a subscription and licensing arrangement, vs downright ownership, and the cheaper cost outweighs the other disadvantages. However, not sure if anyone has actually compared to confirm that is actually true. It's kind of like the price of gas at the pump. Once it goes up, it'll never come down. Same about self-checkout and no bags anymore at stores. It's not like stores are offering a discount for customers to self checkout themselves out, or if they don't use a bag. Once the "system" realizes the good thing they have, they never look back.

I personally don't keep an active Samsung account on my Samsung phone and two tablets, and most apps in the Samsung store I think are also in google play, even the Samsung native ones. If I could go without a google account I would do that also.

 

[dlgus]

Imagine, you buy a car, and after you have paid for it, the dealer tells you, the shiny new vehicle will stay at the dealer, and each time you want to look at it, you are free to come there and dust it. Hard to believe, but that is, in essence, how Samsung set up the Galaxy store to work. Within the store, you have a section "my stuff" and there you can see a list of your store downloads. It is right from that list, that you can perform operations with your stuff. Of course, only such basic operations that Samsung provides options for.

For instance, you bought a wallpaper at the Galaxy store. So, from your "my stuff"-list, you can set it as system wallpaper. That works fine. But when you want to use that same wallpaper and set it as wallpaper for a specific app (as this is needed e.g., for the launcher Square Home to work properly), you are stuck. You can't access and pick the graphic files of the bought wallpaper, as it does not appear where you would expect it: in the Samsung Gallery. And I haven't found the files anywhere else on the phone storage.

Samsung's main concern when setting up the store obviously was to avoid any further use or even copying of your wallpapers and send them as a gift to your mother in law when she has birthday. They even blocked making screenshots in the store of the wallpapers when they are displayed full-screen (you see, I got somewhat creative on my own trying to resolve my problem).

Looking at the terms and conditions of the Samsung store, I found what I was suspecting: You do not buy the graphics files of your wallpapers. You do not own them after paying money. What you pay for is a license fee to use the content in the way set by the store rules. So, legally such a license deal is a valid option. It takes care of all Samsung concerns. But practically it does not let you use paid-for contents even at your own phone the way you want. Of course, if you do not agree to the terms, you are free not to use the Galaxy store. And I suspect, that will be the answer that will kill my question: I should have read the small print before grabbing the credit card.

The developer of Square Home does not have a solution, either (see attached).

View attachment 335591

So, bottom line, generally avoid the Galaxy store, if you want to own and use what you've paid for?

Many thanks,
Joerg

Thank you for the heads up.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

You can tell few people ever read user agreements, when you buy software or most digital content you don't actually own it, you own a license to use it subject to the owners terms.

Still good to know the Galaxy app store can have incompatibilities like this.

 

[mustang7757]

I use the galaxy store, play store and understand what works and dont with each no news here.