In what might be the most inadvertently silly tagline in smartphone history, Samsung says the Galaxy S III is "designed for humans." No one's designing phones for cats, so Samsung is obviously being more figurative here, meaning that the user interface and features on the phone better meet what people really want to do.
Until we get a our hands on the thing, we won't know that for sure, but Samsung detailed many of the features meant to make the Galaxy S III more human-friendly. Several of them have a social component as well, since one of the main things we do with smartphones is make and maintain connections with others.
[More from Mashable: Samsung Reveals Galaxy S III]
The phone's high-performing Exynos 4 Quad processor, six separate sensors, and wireless tech such as near-field communication (NFC) all enable its abilities. But "humans" don't care about any of that. Do the new features on the Samsung Galaxy S III address the needs and desires of today's smartphone customers? Let's take look:
S Voice: This is Samsung's Siri clone, letting you control the phone with your voice. It's unclear what the limits of S Voice are (Siri has been infamously criticized for not working as advertised), but Samsung has chosen to emphasize just a few simple tasks users can peform with voice: unlocking the phone, hitting snooze on an alarm, playing songs, sending texts and scheduling events.
- Smart Stay: Tapping your screen to stop it from timing out before you're done reading will never happen on the Galaxy S III, according to Samsung. Smart Stay uses the phone's front-facing camera to monitor your eyes, so it knows when you're reading, watching video or doing anything where your attention is on the screen but not actively doing anything with it.
- Face Recognition With Auto Tagging: If your cellphone camera can recognize faces, why not let it assign names to them and automatically tag your photos? The Galaxy S III does this, letting you quickly share (via email or picture message) to all the people in the photo with just a couple of taps -- assuming their faces are already associated with your contacts. It's not clear how this would translate to tagging on Facebook, but it seems like a no-brainer.
- S Beam: No need for the cloud if you want to share files on the Galaxy S III. You can transfer files up to 1GB to another person's phone just by tapping them together. The connection is made via short-range near-field communication (NFC) and the files are delivered over Wi-Fi Direct. The feature is limited, though: Both phones have to be Samsung Galaxy S IIIs.
- Direct Call: This is a simple change, but probably a welcome one for many. If you're texting someone and decide you want to call them instead, just hold the phone up to your ear. The phone automatically places a call to the person with whom you were just texting.
- AllShare Cast: The link between phones and TVs is getting stronger with features like AllShare Cast. With just a few screen swipes, the phone easily lets you mirror what's on your device (photos, videos and the web) to the bigger screen. It's a great idea -- and where the world is going -- but like S Beam, it has a similar limitation of needing Samsung equipment to work -- either a TV or a special dongle.
The Samsung Galaxy S III has many welcome features, following in some areas (like voice control) and leading in others (social tagging). We can't wait to see the U.S. model, which Samsung says will be able to connect to LTE networks. While the timing of the launch hasn't been announced, Samsung says it'll be available this summer.
What do you think of the "human" features of the Samsung Galaxy S III? Is it what you've been waiting for in a smartphone, or are you not impressed? Share your thoughts in the comments.
[More from Mashable: BlackBerry Music Gateway: Streaming So Simple Your Grandma Could Do It]
BONUS: Samsung Galaxy S III in Pictures
Galaxy S III
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This story originally published on Mashable here.
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