Even Samsung says that good hardware cannot make up for poor software, as it prepares to launch its
flagship smartphone
Korean giant Samsung is due to unveil its high-end Galaxy S5 Android smartphone on 24 February in Barcelona, using a big budget event to showcase a device expected to have a bigger screen and a metal body.
The Galaxy S5 will replace the 5in Samsung Galaxy S4, which garnered mixed reviews on its release in April last year. Critics focused on Samsung’s bloated, gimmicky software and plastic construction, which detracted from an overall solid high-end Android smartphone.
The launch event, at the annual mobile industry conference Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona at the end of February, is expected to be a much more low key affair than the 2013 launch of the Galaxy S4, which saw Samsung take over part of New York’s Times Square.
Among other devices, it is widely expected that Samsung will announce the Galaxy S5 at the event with a larger 5.25in screen, improved camera, as well as the option for a metal body. There is also the possibility that Samsung will follow Apple’s lead and fit the Galaxy S5 with a 64-bit processor allowing for more memory.
‘We’re not as good as we are in hardware’
The key development for Samsung’s next flagship smartphone is expected to be in software.
Samsung admitted that its mobile software, including that found on the Galaxy S line of phones, was poor in November, and pledged to work “very hard” to produce improved software. The electronics company dedicated half of its research and development workforce to the software issue, with software engineers numbering around 40,000 of its 326,000 employees worldwide.
“Even though we’re doing the software business, we're not as good as we are in hardware,” said Kwon Oh-hyun, vice chairman and chief executive of Samsung Electronics.
Dismissed as gimmicks
Samsung has attempted to differentiate its Android smartphones and tablets from the competition by packing them with features, part of the software customisations made to the standard Android experience called Samsung “TouchWiz”.
These additional features such as “air gesture” (to move pages without touching the screen), “air view” (to enlarge previews without touching the screen) and “smart scroll” (to scroll through pages using eye movement) have been dismissed as gimmicks critics, who don't see them bringing any value to users.
The TouchWiz software additions clutter the Android experience, making using the smartphones far more complicated and leading to confused users. The bloated software has also impacted the battery life of Samsung’s devices, with many of the features taking their toll on the battery without significantly adding to the experience and slowing the smartphones and tablets down.
Many users of Samsung’s smartphones and tablets have taken to removing the software by “rooting” or significantly modifying their devices, risking voiding their warranty, as the TouchWiz software is not removable without modifying the underlying Android software.
Flatter, more standard Android-like appearance
The Galaxy S5 is expected to benefit from Samsung’s reworking of its software, although the extent to which TouchWiz will have been modified is unknown. Recent alleged leaked images of Samsung’s upcoming software indicate that it will take a flatter, more standard Android-like appearance.
A simplified approach to the additional software and removal of the gimmicky features in preference of ones that provide a genuine enhancement to everyday usage would go some way to making Samsung’s Android phones more user friendly.
Samsung has brought forward the launch of the Galaxy S5 as sales of its predecessor have failed to live up to expectations. The Galaxy S4 onlymanaged to keep pace in terms of sales in 2013 year-on-year compared with the Galaxy S3 from 2012. The smartphone market as a whole expanded by around 50% over the same period, while Apple’s iPhone sales grew by 16% to 102m in the first nine months of 2013.
While Samsung makes a large range of smartphones and tablets, including budget offerings like the Galaxy Ace line, a lot is riding on the success of the Galaxy S5. The larger Galaxy Note 3 with a 5.7in screen, although plagued with similar software issues to the Galaxy S4, has beenoutselling the smaller device recently, despite the phablet being considered a niche product by many.
More business than extravagance
The smaller event planned by Samsung at MWC indicates a more low-key approach for the Korean company; somewhat of a comedown from its 2013 marketing budget which exceeded the GDP of Iceland at $14bn.
Samsung could be learning from failures in last year’s marketing bonanza, which did not always pay off. Product placement on ITV’s popular X-Factor talent show brought complaints from UK viewers, while a Samsung-sponsored short-film contest finale at the Sydney Opera House was criticised heavily for blatant product placement in a string of ‘behind the scenes’ videos.
Last year’s New York launch of the Galaxy S4 was also criticised for being sexist, spurred by its portrayal of women who simply chatted about jewellery and nail polish while the men in the display discussed the new Samsung phone.
• After poor reviews, Samsung’s David Eu, head of the Samsung Open Innovation Centre, likened the Galaxy Gear smartwatch to unripened fruit
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