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Samsung's New Galaxy S III Phone Offers 4.8-Inch Screen, Siri-Like 'S Voice' Feature

Digital Skunk said:
It's not like anyone streaming video and surfing the web on their phone is expecting amazing battery life. Surfing the web and talking on the iPhone kills the battery dead!
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Precisely!

When I decide to shop for a new Laptop, tablet, or smartphone, I never base my decision on battery life. I don't even waste time thinking about it. There's far too many variables, and a multitude of A/C outlets available to me wherever I am. That plus the in-car charger I have, is my assurance of continuous use.

Furthermore each of my Androids in the Galaxy Series have a convenient new feature, it's called a User Replaceable Battery. :eek:

Being very mobile and having used Apple laptops and other battery powered devices for so many years, it's simply not a big deal. By not concerning myself with battery run times, I'm free to enjoy a wide variety of devices.

It's as simple as that.
 
ixodes said:
Furthermore each of my Androids in the Galaxy Series have a convenient new feature, it's called a User Replaceable Battery.
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Why would someone who never cares about battery run times at all, because other variables are too significant and charging sources too plentiful, think that a user replaceable battery is a 'convenient new feature'?
 
Carouser said:
There's no hierarchy of materials where you can rank 'break resistance' as simply as some stupid rock/paper/scissors game. Thus I never said that 'glass is as break resistant as plastic'; only that ixodes' post was a willful mischaracterization as to the quality and reliability of Apple products, like many of his other posts. 'Made with glass' doesn't in itself mean fragile, gg lilo777 as always.
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If I drop my 4S from 2ft or off a table by accident with no case (as has happened with my 4 and some employee's when they didn't have a case on it), the phone is fubar'd. I don't even know how many screens I've had replaced for employee's some of which I did myself before mandating they must be used with a case or the cost will be on them. I have some that have Android phones, and none of those has had a screen replacement and none have a case either, no doubt that plastic body takes way more abuse.

I like the feel of glass and metal, but it transfers energy when dropped which shatters the glass easily. The day after I got my GSII I was at a bar and course had some drinks in me lol, went to say bye to someone and ended up throwing my phone in the air and across onto the cement... all it got was a tiny scuff mark on the top left corner of the body.
 
Virtualball said:
Some of the things Samsung launched today:

  • S Voice
  • S Cloud
  • Scan and Match
  • Display sharing
  • S Pebble
  • Retail stores

In other news, Apple has had these for awhile:

  • Siri
  • iCloud
  • iTunes Match
  • AirPlay
  • iPod Shuffle
  • Retail stores

Also:

Image

Image
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Sorry to burst the old list above but let us review your list:

[*] Samsung has had retails stores throughout the world since the mid-90's
[*] My S2 has has sharing with both PC and Mac since it's release AND it isn't as locked down as Apples Still is
[*] S Voice has is also on my S2 since I got it, what's more I'm in the UK so it actually works over all of the net, and can answer most Q's including those about retail and destination, unlike Siri which is a dead pig outside the states
[*] whispers: I could go on AND add gazzillions of functions a locked down device like an iPhone can't even dream of, but I wouldn't want to deflate you.

(has anyone mentioned the fact that Androis has had notification window years ahead of Apple .... Hmmm ... Just asking?)
 
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What else is new, everyone is just copying Apple. Tim Cook was right - companies need to stop using Apple as the world's design house.
 
Virtualball said:
Some of the things Samsung launched today:

  • S Voice
  • S Cloud
  • Scan and Match
  • Display sharing
  • S Pebble
  • Retail stores

In other news, Apple has had these for awhile:

  • Siri
  • iCloud
  • iTunes Match
  • AirPlay
  • iPod Shuffle
  • Retail stores
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Sorry sir, but this is ridiculous.

It is true that Apple were "first" to "introduce" a "voice assistant" as a major element of the OS, however:
Google introduced cloud functionality way earlier than the release of iCloud, and Androids version is still much better in my opinion. iCloud was simply better advertised and is not as richly integrated as what Android offers.
Display sharing has also been around for a while and it was never an Apple invention.
Samsung had retail stores for ages.
There have been thousand iterations of small MP3 players like the S Pebble, and iPod Shuffle wasn't the first one.

And I don't even want to start mentioning things that Apple "borrowed" from Android, like the legendary Notification System, because there's no use, I don't want to start another stupid discussion about who "borrowed" what from whom. Many companies copy from each other, including Apple, and people who try deny it simply don't want to face the truth. I understand this is a forum about Mac products, but I expect from people here to be more realistic.

But you will still get blindly devoted fans like the following:
smoledman said:
What else is new, everyone is just copying Apple. Tim Cook was right - companies need to stop using Apple as the world's design house.
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*Sigh*
 
smoledman said:
It's perfectly ok for Ive to take inspiration from an industrial designer of appliances. What is not ok is Samsung copying Ive's work.
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So pretty much, it's ok to copy (err i mean draw inspiration) when Apple does it... but not when its competitors do the same.
 
danahn17 said:
So pretty much, it's ok to copy (err i mean draw inspiration) when Apple does it... but not when its competitors do the same.
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Except Ive followed Rams' principles of design, not copied a smartphone or a laptop. But Asus literally copied the Macbook Air and Samsung copied the iPhone verbatim.
 
smoledman said:
It's perfectly ok for Ive to take inspiration from an industrial designer of appliances. What is not ok is Samsung copying Ive's work.
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Whilst I do agree that lots of Apples ideas are used in other manufacturers products, I don't agree that its not okay (to a certain extent). Apple didn't make the first touch screen phone, use voice as a search tool first or do a whole range of other things first, but they did take the ideas and expand on them which is how humanity develops.

Samsung and Apple seem to have two pretty different approaches to design. Apple uses high quality innovative (not necessarily better, but different at least) casing materials and then puts less advanced, more tested technology into the rest of the phone and ties it up brilliantly to a simple UI and App ecosystem.

Samsung use more advanced components and build more powerful (high end) phones and then use cheaper (not necessarily worse) casing materials like plastic. Then its tied into Android with touchwhizz (a space heavy addition to Ice Cream Sandwich (120mb for ICS or 800mb for ICS with touch whizz).

Neither approach is better or worse as there is a market for both. Obviously Apple get better returns but they have built a market which any company would dream of.

Personally I have an iPad as its really simple and great at surfing the web on, its great at what it does. I then use an android phone as it can be customized and also I can tether it to my iPad for free(carriers charge £7pm for this privilege on the iPhone in the UK). I love having my widgets on the screen and I like the little extras that droid has that do come in really handy (google maps navigation etc).

I don't really buy the whole argument that Apple are built to a higher standard than Samsung. Yes they are heavier, but that's because they use glass and metals where Samsung use plastic. Plastic is a good material for mobile phones, its light, cheap durable and easy to work with. Many of the iPhone components are made by Samsung so this argument carries no weight with me.
 
flyingacedude said:
Neither approach is better or worse as there is a market for both. Obviously Apple get better returns but they have built a market which any company would dream of.
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Obviously Apple's approach is better because they make 80% of the mobile industry profits. Let's face it, nobody can compete against their:

industrial design + iOS + apps + packaging + accessories + stores

formula is unbeatable.
 
smoledman said:
Obviously Apple's approach is better because they make 80% of the mobile industry profits. Let's face it, nobody can compete against their:

industrial design + iOS + apps + packaging + accessories + stores

formula is unbeatable.
Click to expand...

Its better for Apple. Not for consumers.
 
smoledman said:
Obviously Apple's approach is better because they make 80% of the mobile industry profits. (snip)
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Better for whom? Apple, sure. Carriers and consumers, not so much.

Apple makes most of the profit partly because they don't make lower priced, lower profit phones.

Apple relies on carrier subsidies to make their phones affordable, while keeping their own profits high. Some carriers have already dropped the iPhone because of this. This always leads to an immediate drop in sales.

In many countries where phones aren't subsidized, the iPhone is barely a blip these days. Only 9% of smartphone sales in Portugal, under 6% in China, 5% in Greece, under 3% in India. Affordable Android devices dominate in such countries. Windows Phones are even outselling the iPhone in China now.

This is why some analysts predict that Apple will drastically lower the price (and profit margin) on their older 3GS in order to woo the huge unsubsidized world market away from Android et al. Apple can certainly afford it.
 
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...Consumers don't benefit from Apple getting 80% of the mobile industry profits, Apple does.

If they were to compete in the same way that other companies do then prices of there products would drop sooner and so consumers would get cheaper products. As it is they keep tight control over prices so its hard/impossible for carriers/shops to offer anything but the fixed price. Other companies allow shops to have greater control over price = a better deal for consumers.
 
What I find more interesting than the usual android vs ios debate, is the sheer amount of attention the S3 is getting from both consumers and the media. To me, it's on scale with an iPhone launch! I mean, Samsung had 9 million pre-orders for the S3 and that didn't include the U.S.!

Good or bad, Samsung has a winner on their hands. The fact that a site dedicated to iDevices has a 30+ page thread, with nearly 1300 posts about the device, says something right there.
 
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