Samsung Galaxy S4– All the rage

The Galaxy only evolves slightly but it makes iPhone 5 look more and more out of date.

• Samsung launched the Galaxy S4 with much fanfare but admitted that the device is really an evolution rather than a revolution.
• Larger screen, industry leading pixel density, faster processor with 8 cores and some funky software tweaks were the leading features of a device that I am sure will sell in substantial volumes.
• The US version will use a Qualcomm snapdragon while the international versions will use Samsung’s in house silicon strongly points to the fact that Samsung still has some ground to make up on its in house LTE radio.
• Apple was fast to stick its oar in with a pre-emptive strike just ahead of the launch.
• Phil Schiller, defacto No 2 at Apple, was up on stage attacking Android as both fragmented and with new products being out of date almost as soon as they ship.
• These are all true but older software can be updated and fragmentation is not stopping Android from dominating the smartphone market yet. 
• It is strange that Apple failed to highlight by far the biggest weakness of Android, which is the fact that it generates far less traffic than an equivalent priced device on iOS.
• Bottom line is that Apple is clearly on the back foot, feeling the need to defend its turf with sniping attacks.
• This also highlights what the Galaxy S4 really does: It makes the iPhone 5 look old and out of date especially when it comes to the screen.
• There are other little innovations like the preview function by hovering a hand over the screen and the pausing of videos of the front camera detects the user’s eyes move away.
• Eye tracking is a feature that Samsung is going to focus on as an area of differentiation but it is going to have to make sure that it works well.
• I think Samsung still has a lot of work to do the much mooted scrolling feature does not seem to have been introduced and the hand tracking technology on its smart TVs is awful.
• Net net, this puts Samsung further ahead of Apple in the technology game but this is where it differentiates and how it hopes to make up for the fact that the Android ecosystem remains inferior to iOS.
• A minor update from Apple to the iPhone 5S is probably not going be enough this year.
• A more radical upgrade is required but I think Apple is fully aware of that.