The Samsung Galaxy S4. March 14th Announcement.

[puckluck2]

The best part of me switching over to Samsung when the S4 gets released is never being associated with Apple fan boys ever again.

This phone looks great and I'm looking forward to smashing my piece of junk iPhone.

[Bertuzzied]

hahhaa. I can't say anything too mean about Hothotheat since he gave me such an awesome deal with the Nexus 4 and 7!

Glad you switched back to apple!

[Thor]

Nice my brother is gonna pick this up so I can try it out and see if its worth upgrading down the road. Still very happy with the S4 and especially the camera.

My bro takes lots of pictures so we'll see what he thinks.

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

From an innovation perspective, Samsung is proving to be a complete disaster. They were effective in catching Apple in terms the overall technology of a smartphone, but without a leash to holdon to they clearly don't know where to go next. The features this phone bring are the equivalent to Willy Wonka's flavor changing bubblegum. Cool feature, what's the benefit?

More broadly, the presentation shows Samsung's belief that they are strictly driven by what will make them the most money, and despite having directly stated it dozens of times during the keynote, have no idea what people want out of a phone beyond what they can pull from other industry leaders.

The BEST part of the keynote, however, was that they failed to involve a single partner company, despite the fact that the phone wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Google's open sourced Android. Nope. All Samsung, all the time. Are you seeing the irony yet? What's the single largest criticism of an iPhone from Android users? Closed off experience, Apple telling you what you want. The entire 50 minute disaster I just witnessed was Samsung doing that the entire time, only with cheesy actors and an even worse script.

My point is that Samsung just made the final step in becoming the company they have spent $400 million in the last year trying to separate themselves from. If the reason Android is better than iOS is because of the tinkering and open-sourced OS, nothing Samsung is doing should make this phone attractive to people. Delayed software updates, bogged down Samsung apps that try to take the place of Google stock apps, and at every turn you'll have to explain to people what features the S4 has that made it a 'must own' device.

Remember the commercial earlier this year that made fun of Apple moving the headphone jack to the bottom of the iPhone? Why start that conversation if you know the next device you're releasing is virtually the same phone as the one a year ago?

The 440 PPI is an accomplishment, sure, but what's the benefit vs. a 300 PPI screen when you can't discern the pixels either way?

AC WiFi was a good step, but hardly a realistic advantage over N on a phone with LTE.

But hey, those are two things owners of the phone can use to win arguments against iPhone using friends as they decide where they want to move the clock widget to, or which Facebook album they want scrolling in the corner of their homescreen.

Apple users are too busy actually using their phones to notice, to be honest.

The Nexus line is increasingly becoming the only Android hardware worth owning. Google seems to have recognized hardware makers don't have the user experience at heart when designing phones, and good on them for it.

Samsung is a complete disaster for innovation and apple isn't?

The **** is going on here.

Apple hasn't had a good innovation in a half a decade.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I missed this but should check a recording of it in a bit.

The "raping" thing seems a bit much - can't be that bad.

Bleh, it was bad - had a hard time even getting through it. Not sure what the hell they were thinking but certainly interested in seeing the final product/tech rather than their "launch".

[anyonebutedmonton]

HotHotHeat, may I ask what you do for a living? You must work in the tech field, as I seem to see you in tech related threads all over. Just curious.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Samsung is a complete disaster for innovation and apple isn't?

The **** is going on here.

Apple hasn't had a good innovation in a half a decade.

HotHotHeat was incorrect when he said trolling is when someone is looking for an argument. Trolling is when one looking for a reaction and you just gave it to him.

No one else took the bait, man.

[3 Justin 3]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

HotHotHeat was incorrect when he said trolling is when someone is looking for an argument. Trolling is when one looking for a reaction and you just gave it to him.

No one else took the bait, man.

I know he is trolling, but as someone who has studied innovation it bugs me when people throw the term around like they actually know anything about it.

[chemgear]

Any other/better references for the Korean reaction?

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/...e-2/?hpt=hp_t3

"The initial reaction from South Korean users -- garnered Friday from 100s of comments to the news aggregator Naver -- ranges from tepid praise to complete scorn for the Galaxy S4, with negative comments currently predominating around 4:1."

So wrote our Seoul-based reader "Jake_in_Seoul" in the commentary to Friday's post Samsung's Galaxy S4: What the press is saying.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Anduril

Kind of a poor extension of his logic considering the Nokia phones slowly stayed the same for 3 plus years with slight modifications overtime, with other competitors launching quirky and more unique devices/technology to stand out. Nokia/BlackBerry would have continued to dominate with the same phones were it no for Apple releasing a well made, finished touchscreen product (revolutionary!)

Best way to look at the S4 is that Samsung isn't aiming for the S3/Note 2 users to upgrade. Just continue to hold their existing user base, and still release a highly competitive product. Just so happens that the other manufacturers have just stepped up their game to get people thinking about choices.

I can see why some people call it Apple-esque but I'd argue that alternating between revolutionary and evolutionary every year instead of releasing a slight upgrade in 6 months makes more sense when you're in a position like Samsung is.

It's based around the U.S. market and the 2-year contracts/ phone upgrades.

You revolutionize every two years and evolve in the middle years.

Attract the early adopters with the revolutionary phone, create a similar product a year later for the people lagging behind a little but still provide them a good "new" experience.

Apple didn't really get criticized for the 4 to the 4S because people realized the cycle, they got criticized when they released the 5 and it wasn't a huge step up from the 4S. More evolution as opposed to revolution.

If the industry rumors are true and Samsung really is saving their flexible OLED screen for their 2014 then that pattern would hold true.

[Igster]

Just got the S3. The S4 looks nice and there are some improvements, but to me, as others have noted, this simply looks like the S3S. Some nice software features, but these will come to the S3 anyway, so other than a bit faster processor and a little bit bigger screen, there isn't that much to get excited about or worry about an early upgrade for IMO.

I'll wait for the S5 with the flexible glass and most likely pretty new look overall.

[Fire]

Is the S5 really going to have flexible glass?

[Igster]

No one knows for sure, but Samsung has shown it off, so another year away, you would think it would make an appearance in their flagship phone.

[3 Justin 3]

Just because the glass is flexible doesn't mean the phone will be, it will still have solid stuff inside it.

The glass/screen that flexes is impressive though.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Samsung is a complete disaster for innovation and apple isn't?

The **** is going on here.

Apple hasn't had a good innovation in a half a decade.

Honest question, what defines innovation. I tend to use that word myself and I am wondering exactly how I should be using it.

Would the iPad be good innovative? That came out less than 3 years ago. Your post says 5 years, so is sounds like you don't think they have fit that description since iPhone 1 or MacBook Air.

I guess the iPhone 4 was more a redesign with new components, so I suppose that doesn't count. However it did contain Retina, which was unheard of at that time for smartphones.

I'm not trying to argue but I really can't figure out why Apple hasn't been innovative in 5 years. I could see one or maybe two years, but five years might be a stretch .

Keep in mind the iPhone5 is still by user and expert reviews the top phone out there with G3 close second. So why would Apple blow their ideas out when they are still making the top handsets in the world? Same with Tablets, they are still king there too. Laptops ditto.

I think Apple has more left, don't let a recent Samsung surge fool you. As we have seen Samsung isn't stupid either to keep pushing out innovative ideas when their margins are super fat. Slow milking is what we are in for, ala IE6 in 2001.

Until that 2004 Firefox of phones comes out I think all handset and hardware makers are gonna slow down the innovation pace. Blow all you ideas next year and then what the year after? Forget it, windows and BB are too far behind right now.

[Igster]

Originally Posted by 3 Justin 3

Just because the glass is flexible doesn't mean the phone will be, it will still have solid stuff inside it.

Sure, but flexible glass in a casing that won't move seems pretty stupid doesn't it?

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Igster

Sure, but flexible glass in a casing that won't move seems pretty stupid doesn't it?

The phone that falls onto the pavement might not think so. IIRC the videos I saw of the glass demonstrated some pretty durable qualities.

[Hemi-Cuda]

this probably doesn't matter to most people here, but this is the main reason why i won't be buying a GS4

http://www.androidcentral.com/cm-dev...-s4-should-you

i really don't care about any software features that manufacturers put on these phones. i've always preferred stock Android, and Cyanogenmod is the best stock rom out there. the real irony in all of this is that Samsung hired the creator of CM, and now wants nothing to do with the project he made

[Igster]

Did you read the update on that page though? Looks like it is not confirmed they will not offer support for the GS4.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Igster

Did you read the update on that page though? Looks like it is not confirmed they will not offer support for the GS4.

don't know where they'll get the developers from, since every dev that works on Samsung phones for CM have stated they will not touch the GS4. and even if someone does get it working, it probably won't be that usable. i'm still on ICS with my GS2 because the Jelly Bean port of CM for it has too many bugs to be a daily driver (bugs that the devs can do nothing about because Samsung refuses to release any proprietary sources). it doesn't help that Samsung completely changes the internals of the phone depending on where it's sold or through what carrier, i can completely understand their frustration in trying to develop for these devices