The Samsung Galaxy S III announcement created a tidal wave
of news and we didn't want to just post a knee-jerk analysis of what had been
announced, because there was quite a lot of information unpacked at Samsung's
London event.
The screen is essentially the same as that we've seen on the
Galaxy Nexus, with the same PenTile matrix, just.2" larger Aside from
those two features, all of the other additions are software.
In the software we get to the usual array of gimmicks and
good ideas.
Before we get to the gimmicks though, we want to note one
overall disappointment with the Galaxy S III announcement: Samsung almost
completely avoided the fact that this is an Android device.
Everything in the presentation was made out to be an amazing
feature that is only available on this Samsung device.
S Voice leverages the power of the Android voice command
service, but adds value in natural language recognition.
The Galaxy S III camera has zero shutter lag, but that is a
feature of Android 4.0, not that phone.
S Beam is simply Android Beam with the addition of WiFi
Direct for larger file transfer and,
we're pretty sure that Smart Stay wouldn't have been as easy to implement
without the built-in facial recognition of Android 4.0.
Samsung has built quite an empire on Android, so it would be
nice to see a bit more appreciation.
We won't even get into how TouchWiz completely hides the UI
improvements of Android 4.0, because that's a general disappointment with
manufacturer UIs, and not one specific to Samsung.
Anyway, on to the gimmicks! The gimmicks Let's not fool
ourselves, every successful matured platform around has its share of gimmicks,
which we define as features that make you say "wow", but don't really
add a lot as far as function or usability.
If you're showing off what your phone can do, you'll
probably use these "features", and they will be the same things that
will get you to drop down money in a store, but they don't really help your day
to day life all that much.
Apple has FaceTime and Siri, both of which seem cool, but
either aren't used all that much or have limited benefits when the feature
works.
Google brought in Face Unlock to be its gimmick/cool feature
of Ice Cream Sandwich.
HTC has its blinged out Sense UI. And with the Galaxy S III,
Samsung jumped on the gimmick train full force, and showed its own hypocrisy a
bit.
The trouble is that Samsung uses every chance it gets to put
down Apple, and even takes shots at Apple followers, but the truth is that
Samsung would love nothing more than to be Apple and have that kind of devoted
following.
While Samsung did come up with some novel and innovative
ideas with the Galaxy S III, the first feature talked about was S Voice, which
is the worst kind of gimmick, because it's really just trying to be better than
the Apple version, which doesn't work all that well in the first place.
Think about it, when S Voice was shown off in the
announcement, as well as in our hands-on demo, there was a noticeable delay
before it either launched the camera app or gave the weather.
What is the point of launching an app with your voice if it
is faster to simply tap the app icon? The choice is either to start the voice
recognition service, then say "I want to take a picture," at which
point there will be a delay while the app figures out what you want and
launches the camera, or just hit the home button and tap your camera icon.
This is the big issue with Samsung's presentation of S
Voice.
There is value in it, especially in initiating searches,
dictating messages, or perhaps playing a specific song or video but because
Samsung wanted to highlight the natural language addition, the marketing took a
hit.
S Voice adds value to the stock Android voice command option
by adding more natural language support, but in showing off the product,
Samsung chose to perform two action that would have been faster without voice
command.
It would have been far better to say "Play Somebody
That I Used to Know", and show how Android gives you the choice to play
that through any of the apps available on your device like Spotify, Music,
YouTube, etc.
It may very well make the phone more enjoyable to use, and
it may make for an overall pleasant experience, but there is no real function
behind it, which makes it a gimmick.
Keep in mind here that not all gimmicks are bad things.
Gimmicks can be delightful, but the problem is that gimmicks
strive for delight rather than usability.
Not all the announcements were bad. Samsung also came out
with some solid ideas that we'd love to see expanded through the mobile
ecosystem.
The biggest difference between a great idea and a gimmick is
that gimmicks are designed so you notice it, while truly great ideas may make
your experience better without you ever realizing it.
That is what Samsung hit with the introduction of Smart
Stay.
To have your device be able to know when you're looking and
when you aren't and control the screen accordingly is potentially an amazing
feature.
Obviously, we need to see Smart Stay in practice, but given
the facial recognition already built-in to Android 4.0, it seems likely that
this feature should work as promised.
Auto-tagging friends in pictures with easy sharing from the
gallery are another very good idea built on Android's facial recognition.
Direct Call is another idea that has a lot of potential, or
at least the idea behind it has a lot of potential.
Having devices anticipate what you want to do will be a big
part of the evolution of smartphones from here on, and a lot of that will be
tied to device gestures.
What about the phone automatically launching the camera app
if you lift the device into a picture taking position (landscape orientation at
eye level, or portrait orientation pointed at the sky (for the ubiquitous
"cleavage angle" the ladies love.
Conclusion
Overall, the Samsung Galaxy S III looks like a solid
addition to the Android ecosystem.
The disappointments were really nothing more than hoping for
more than was reasonable, the gimmicks still have their uses or can be ignored
fairly easily, and the additions are solid enough that the overall experience
should be pretty positive.
We like the evolution of TouchWiz, even if it buries the
evolution of Android, because at least Samsung is aiming for adding moments of
delight to what has been a fairly bland, if candy coated experience.
S Voice will have its uses, and its drawbacks, just like
every voice command system right now.
The good ideas are good enough that they can subtly make the
device much nicer than you'd expect on first glance.
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