Not so splendid isolation: Samsung gave us a load of new features at the NYC Samsung Galaxy S3 launch, which isn’t surprising as the phone has some of the most innovative – and some gimmicky – tricks of the past 12 months. The US version is the same, with features like Smart Stay, Buddy Photo Share and S-Voice coming to US customers a carrier at a time.
Samsung Galaxy S3 features that need another S3 to work
These features are part of the Samsung Galaxy S3 TouchWiz suite. They function straight out of the box and are independent of other products. Unfortunately a large number of these features need another phone to work – and that phone needs to be a Samsung Galaxy S3.
These particular features are S-Beam and S-Shot. If you don’t have a Samsung Galaxy S3, read on to find out about them.
Remember Touch To Share on webOS? It didn’t actually make it to market, but the idea was that if you had two webOS products – say an HP TouchPad and an HP Pre 3 – you could tap them together to share info. It was originally bale to pass URLs back and forth, which was useful. If you were reading a webpage on your TouchPad, and then needed to go out, you could touch your Pre 3 to the TouchPad’s home button, and the website would open on your phone. It also worked the other way round – you could be looking at a website on your way home, then touch your phone to your tablet and voila! Unique and way cool, but limited to URLs only. It also used proprietary tech instead of NFC, so you could only use HP-approved hardware.
With S-Beam, Samsung allows the transmission of URLs, as well as music, video and pictures. Its welcome screen says “the app [that’s open at the moment] determines what gets beamed.” Instead of the old webOS TTS coils, Samsung uses standard protocols to work S-Beam. The devices’ NFC hardware starts the connection and the data gets passed by Wi-Fi Direct. You just put the transmitting phone back-to-back with the receiving phone, tap the content you want shared and there you go.
However, the receiving phone has to be a Samsung Galaxy S3 as well. Samsung didn’t think of this problem…..or did it?
Share Shot
Just like S-Beam, Share Shot is a cool gadget. It lets you, according to the Samsung Galaxy S3 guide: “automatically share photos with other Samsung Galaxy S3 users. Connect with your friends’ devices at the start of a party, a concert, a football game, etc. As you take photos, Share Shot transmits your photos to up to 5 other devices over a Wi-Fi Direct connection.” You get notifications with each photo you receive from other Share Shot users and the pics are saved to a special gallery album. This feature was showcased – albeit with the help of DLNA – at the New York launch event: pics were snapped near the entrance and then beamed onto a large TV across the room.
You can see why Share Shot is so attractive to the more sociable among us – it makes sharing pretty much effortless, and it also gets rid of the nightmare that is badgering someone to email the great pics they too had at a party. The minute a chum takes a photo, if you both use Share Shot, it’s with you… if you both own a Samsung Galaxy S3, that is.
So, the dilemma is that while these features both have amazing applications, everyone needs to own a GS3 for them to reach their potential. Everyone carrying the same phone just isn’t that great an idea. Samsung might think it is, as it wants to sell as many as possible. This kind of exclusivity and lock-in that widgets like S-Beam and Share Shot lead to are just what drives the growth of ecosystems. Apple wouldn’t be the size it is today were it not for the integration of iTunes with iPads, iPods and iPhones.
