Samsung Wants the Upcoming Tizen OS on Every Product

Samsung has made clear that it has big hopes with its upcoming Tizen OS. In an interview with CNET, Samsung Mobile division head J. K. Shin said that smartphones aren’t its target with Tizen. After splashing in that industry, they would like to see it in further markets including cars as well, describing the idea as “cross category”.

“There are many convergences not only among IT gadgets, including smartphones, tablets, PCs, and cameras”, Shin said, “but also among different industries like cars, bio, or banks. Cross-convergence is the one [area] Samsung can do best since we do have various parts and finished products.”

Samsung actually isn’t the only company trying out its luck in cars as Apple has already made some great strides in that business lately.

With Tizen, Samsung will try to shrug off its reliance on Android operating system where it is the undisputed leader, but nonetheless dependent upon Google when it comes to development, among other things including leadership rights.

Tizen has got some nice reception already but might see itself at the back of the crowd in the beginning.

Shin strongly believes that Tizen has the potential to become the third operating system for the company alongside Android and Windows Phone. He also said that a lot of interesting development is currently going on in the tablet division right now.

“There will be good news on the tablet soon,” he said. “Please wait and see.”

Samsung has already killed its Bada operating system (which wasn’t totally unsuccessful after all and got better sales than Windows Phone for quite a time) to dedicate more effort into Tizen, so it’s only natural that the company is very excited with it.

Credits to CNET for this story.

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Samsung Releases the Galaxy NX for $2000

A while back, Samsung announced the world’s first mirrorless camera running on Android in the Galaxy NX but they declined to reveal its pricing. But it has been revealed now as the camera has gone on sale in Europe, for $2000 along with an 18-55mm kit lens.

That puts it in the territory of more “serious” DSLRs, a lot of whom are critically acclaimed including Canon EOS 70D, Nikon D600 and Sony Alpha SLT-A77V. Good thing is that none of those can run on Android, which is perhaps the only reason why you’ll buy this camera for such a huge price.

The Specs

The Samsung Galaxy NX comes with a 20.3 megapixel sensor, DRIMe Image Signal Processor and burst shots at up to 8.6fps. The maximum shutter speed it can attain is 1/6000 sec and it also has an electronic viewfinder at SVGA resolution. The NX also does 1080p video and features a Xenon Flash.

At the back you get a 4.8 inch HD touchscreen, where the OS running is Android 4.2.2 customized with Touchwiz. The power comes from a 1.6Ghz quad-core processor, 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage, expandable via a microSD card.

The camera supports LTE, Wifi and Bluetooth. For editing, it comes pre-installed with several software tricks under its sleeve, including Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The battery powering the camera is of 4360 mAh.

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Samsung Galaxy S4 captivates audience at Lux Style Awards

LAHORE: 29 July, 2013- Samsung Electronics, a market leader and award-winning innovator in the electronics industry, was the technology and giveaway partner of the 12th Lux Style Awards (LSA) 2013, held at the Expo Center, Lahore on 4th July, 2013.

 

LSA is one of the most respected and prestigious award shows in Pakistani entertainment industry. At the glam night, Samsung honored style and entertainment by presenting all the winners with its most talked about cell phone “Samsung Galaxy S4” in addition to the LUX Trophy they received. Both the presents and the winners showed awe and appreciation at their names displayed on S4 handsets as they arrived on the stage to receive their awards.

The Galaxy S4 is undoubtedly the world’s best Smartphone. It has crossed over 20 Million units’ global sale in just two months. Leading actress and Samsung Galaxy Brand Ambassador, Humaima Malik and show host, Ahmad Ali Butt presented the amazing features of Galaxy S4 at the awards ceremony, showing how the Galaxy S4 makes life easier and helps capture precious moments such as the LSA.

The Galaxy S4 offers remarkable features such as Dual Shot, in which both the front and the back cameras can be used for taking remarkable pictures. Further, it offers the world’s only Full HD Super AMOLED Display, which an unmatched viewing experience. Also, the Galaxy S4 allows for non-stop sharing and fun with the Group Play feature as it allows you to share music, pictures and play head-to-head games. The Galaxy S4 offers something for everyone, be it travelers, business professionals or students.

Managing Director, Samsung Pakistan, Mr. John Park presented the award- Best Song of the year to Mr. Sajjad Ali. Best TV Play (satellite) award was given to Producer Momina Duraid by Mr. Farid Ullah Jan, Samsung Business Head Mobile Phones – Pakistan & Afghanistan.

The Galaxy S4 isn’t just packed with great features; it is also the most stylish phone around. With an exquisite design, the phone is available in Black Mist & White Frost with more colors coming. In addition to LAS 2013, Samsung Galaxy S4 has received a tremendous response in Pakistan as Samsung not only held a fabulous launch event in Lahore in early May, it has also taken the Galaxy S4 Roadshow to Karachi, Islamabad to share it with the people of Pakistan.  Notably, Galaxy Experience zone was also set up at the awards for the guests where they experienced a variety of Galaxy series devices.

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Samsung is Now the World's 14th Largest Company by Revenue

According to a new report by Forbes, Samsung is now the world’s 14th largest company in terms of revenue. It beats Apple by 5 spots, which is at 19th position with a revenue of $178.6 billion to Apple’s $156.5 billion.

Samsung climbed 6 ranks from 20 while Apple took a quantum leap to jump from 55th to 19th position. It also made double the profit than Samsung, 41.7 billion dollars to 20.6 billion profits made by Samsung.

The list also includes several other tech companies, headed by Toyota at 8th, Phillips at 16th, AT&T at 34th, HP at 43rd, Honda at 45th, IBM at 62nd, China Mobile Communications at 71st and Microsoft at 110th. Amazon is way down at 149th and Nokia, further still at 274th. Here’s the entire list.

Still, comparison between Samsung and Apple will be invalid as Samsung makes a variety of products including home appliances while Apple is almost exclusively a computer and software company.

The list is still topped by Shell, the Petroleum company at $481.7 billion and Wal-Mart at $469.2 billion.

Also one thing to note will be that the profits are only for these companies’ fiscal years which ended on 31st of March 2013 so anything which has happened sooner than that hasn’t made it’s way into that report.

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Samsung Announces Galaxy S4 Mini

Samsung yesterday announced the compact with many of the advance features of Galaxy S4, the Galaxy S4 Mini.

Samsung is marketing S4 Mini as powerful yet compact version of company’s bestselling smartphone, Galaxy S4.

Samsung galaxy S4 mini comes with 4.3 inch qHD Super AMOLED screen and runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean on top of Samsung’s extensive TouchWiz customizations.

The Galaxy S4 mini boasts powerful performance, equipped with a 1.7GHz dual core processor. It comes along with a 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.9-megapixel HD front-facing camera.

Here are the complete specs for Galaxy S4 Mini:

• Processor: 1.7 GHz Dual-Core Processor
• OS: Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean)
• Display: 4.3”qHD (16:9 wide view) Super AMOLED
• Dimension: 124.6 x 61.3 x 8.94mm, 107g (3G Dual SIM version:108g)
• Memory: 8GB Internal memory (User Memory approximately 5GB) ＋ microSD (up to 64GB), 1.5GB RAM
• Camera:
  • Rear : 8 megapixel
  • Front: 1.9 megapixel
  • Camera Features: Sound & Shot, Night(Low Light Shot), Best Photo, Best Face, Beauty Face(include Live Beauty), HDR (High Dynamic Range), Panorama, Sports, Continuous Shot
• Connectivity:
  • WiFi 5.0GHz a/b/g/n
  • GPS ＋ GLONASS
  • Bluetooth® v4.0 (LE), NFC(LTE version only)
  • IR LED (Remote Control)
• Sensor: Accelerometer, Light, Proximity, Gyro, Magnetic
• Battery: 1,900mAh
• Other features:
  • Group Play: Share Music, Share Picture, Share Document,
  • Play Games
  • Story Album, S Translator
  • S Travel (TripAdvisor), S Voice™,
  • S Health (Downloadable from Samsung Apps)
  • Samsung Adapt Display, Samsung Adapt Sound
  • Safety Assistance, Samsung Link, Screen Mirroring, HomeSync, Smart Switch
  • Samsung KNOX

Samsung hasn’t released any info regarding the availability or price of S4 Mini.

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Galaxy S4 is the first smartphone to support Verizon's upcoming LTE expansion (update)

The first smartphone to take advantage of Verizon's upcoming AWS spectrum is already out in the wild. Bloomberg reports that Samsung's Galaxy S4 will be able to support AWS on Verizon when it launches later this year. The phone will require a software update to activate support for the spectrum, which is being used to increase LTE coverage in different areas. Verizon announced that devices with AWS support would ship by July — likely before the network itself launches — and it's certainly met that deadline.

However, Verizon has taken its time in rolling out the new spectrum. While the company has continued to purchase licenses, it only recently announced that it intends to have some of the AWS spectrum up and running by the end of this year. According toBloomberg, that launch will begin in major cities, including New York, where network congestion has become a problem as more consumers adopt LTE.

Update: Verizon tells us that the Lumia 928 and the BlackBerry Q10 will also support AWS when the spectrum launches later this year. Like the Galaxy S4, both devices will require a software update to make this happen. And while these will be the first smartphones running on the expanded network, the carrier currently has five other devices with support built in, including two mobile hotspots and two Samsung tablets.

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Google to Launch Galaxy S 4 with Stock Android

At its famed I/O Conference, Google, instead of announcing a new Nexus smartphone, Google has announced that it will be selling the Galaxy S 4 instead with stock Android OS. The phone will come with the same specs as the original Galaxy S 4 with the only difference being the original, skin-free Android UI instead of Samsung’s own Touchwiz with Nature UI.

The phone will also lose the exclusive Samsung apps but will come with an unlocked bootloader so there won’t be any end of possibilities. And of course, the updates will be coming to this phone before any other existing Android device on the market, thanks to Google’s trusty, uncompromised support.

The phone will come with 16 GBs of expandable storage and will be available for $649 or Rs. 70K at launch. The version of Android running is unknown though as Google might announce a new version of Android in the very conference this phone was announced it but we can’t say that for sure.

The phone will be available at Google’s own Google Play Store initially.

In case you’ve forgotten, these are the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S 4:

• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean customized with Samsung’s Nature UI
• 5 inch display with Full HD resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels
• Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection and super sensitive screen
• 7.9mm thick
• Weight: 130 grams
• Octa-core Exynos processor with 8 cores and PowerVR SGX 544MP3 GPU
• 2 GB RAM with 16/32/64 GB expandable storage
• 13 megapixel rear-camera with HDR and 1080p Full HD video recording
• Optical Image Stabilization
• 2 megapixel 1080p Full HD front-camera
• Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB 2.0, USB-OTG, IR Blaster, Wifi Hotspot, GPS
• 2600 mAh battery
• Available in White Frost and Black mist colors

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Apple To Samsung: The S4 Infringes on Our Patents

A new salvo has been fired in the ongoing Apple-Samsung war.

In a US District of California filing yesterday, Apple added the new Galaxy S4 smartphone to a list of 22 Samsung products the company claims infringe on its iOS patents, giving Apple more ammunition for next year's patent trial.

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then these two should be happily married. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. Both are pointing the finger and this seems to be a showdown based in part on Samsung elbowing in on Apple's iPhone market and the coming change to Samsung's own operating systems.

Spencer Chen, senior director of business development at Appcelerator, says Apple is trying to protect its own profit margins and get Samsung products off the shelf. And even if they can make that happen for a short period, it could translate into huge dollars.

"Their mobile businesses are literally living or dying by quarterly earnings calls," Chen says. "It's probably worth it to Apple to proceed with this tactic given the speed and competitiveness of the handset market. Consumers won't care. They just want the best value given the choices they have in front of them at the time."

Chen says the other major reason this is important is Samsun's evolution, moving away from reliance on Android and syncing up products to better battle rival Apple.

"They (Samsung) are investing in their own mobile OS, Tizen, with other technology partners (e.g. Intel)," he says. "This is big because Samsung devices in the future will be truly vertically integrated a la Apple's products. Samsung will be able to completely control and monetize the entire stack: hardware, OS, software, and third party services."

The ironic part is that to add the S4 to the list Apple filed back in August of last year, they will have to eliminate one of the allegedly infringing devices from the suit. That's because there's only so many infringing devices Apple can name, as per Judge Lucy Koh's request.

Conversely, Samsung says Apple products, including its flagship products: the iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, and Apple TV, infringe on its patents. However, they have yet to add any new items to their list.

So why are they fighting? Both Apple and Samsung have hugely deep pockets, and Chen says this battle is as much for the rest of the market as it is for them. All this legal fighting is a degree of posturing, says Chen.

"Not only do they have the resources," he explains, "but both parties are establishing that they will exercise their rights in the legal system to protect their IP."

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Android Tops Sales Charts in Q1 with 30 % Smartphones From Samsung Only

Gartner has released stats for smartphone and mobile phones sales for first quarter 2013, according to which Android smartphones grabbed 75 percent share from total smartphone sales, while Samsung sold 30 percent of these smartphones in first three months of current year.

Out of total 210 million smartphones sold in first quarter, 156 million devices were running on Android platform.

Smartphones sales grew by 50 percent or 63 million units during first quarter, as compared with duration last year, and reached 210 million units. This is almost half of overall mobile phones’ sales that stood at 425 million units.

Gartner said that more than half of the phones, i.e. 226 million unit were sold in Asia Pacific only.

Samsung remained the top mobile phone seller. Its share of smartphones reached 30.8 percent, up 3.2 percentage points from the first quarter of 2012. Samsung is poised to further strengthen its position with recently launched Galaxy S4.

Nokia’s mobile phones share dropped by 4.9 percent, naturally due to lesser sales of feature phone during the quarter. Nokia sold 5.1 million units of Windows phones.

Check below tables for more details:

Vendor Wise Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company	1Q13 Units	1Q13 Market Share (%)	1Q12 Units	1Q12 Market Share (%)
Samsung	100,657.7	23.6	89,284.6	21.1
Nokia	63,215.2	14.8	83,162.5	19.7
Apple	38,331.8	9.0	33,120.5	7.8
LG Electronics	15,615.8	3.7	14,720.4	3.5
ZTE	14,606.6	3.4	17,379.7	4.1
Huawei Technologies	11,114.8	2.6	10,796.1	2.6
TCL Communication	8,515.9	2.0	7,396.6	1.7
Sony Mobile Communications	7,955.5	1.9	7,898.4	1.9
Lenovo	7,778.9	1.8	5,820.6	1.4
Yulong	7,478.8	1.8	3,146.6	0.7
Others	150,550.6	35.4	150,229.40	35.5
Total	425,821.6	100.0	422,955.4	100.0

OS Wise Worldwide Smartphone Sales in 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System	1Q13 Units	1Q13 Market Share (%)	1Q12 Units	1Q12 Market Share (%)
Android	156,186.0	74.4	83,684.4	56.9
iOS	38,331.8	18.2	33,120.5	22.5
BlackBerry	6,218.6	3.0	9,939.3	6.8
Microsoft	5,989.2	2.9	2,722.5	1.9
Bada	1,370.8	0.7	3,843.7	2.6
Symbian	1,349.4	0.6	12,466.9	8.5
Others	600.3	0.3	1,242.9	0.8
Total	210,046.1	100.0	147,020.2	100.0

Vendor Wise Worldwide Smartphone Sales – 1Q13 (Thousands of Units)

Company	1Q13 Units	1Q13 Market Share (%)	1Q12 Units	1Q12 Market Share (%)
Samsung	64,740.0	30.8	40,612.8	27.6
Apple	38,331.8	18.2	33,120.5	22.5
LG Electronics	10,080.4	4.8	4,961.4	3.4
Huawei Technologies	9,334.2	4.4	5,269.6	3.6
ZTE	7,883.3	3.8	4,518.9	3.1
Others	79,676.4	37.9	58,537.0	39.8
Total	210,046.1	100.0	147,020.2	100.0

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