Taking a look back at seven days of news across the Android world, this week’s Android Circuit includes the leaked case design for the Galaxy S7, Google working with Samsung on TouchWiz, some advice for Samsung's 2016 plans, my initial review of Sony's Xperia Z5 Premium, Cortana losing her voice activation in Android, a comparison of popular smartphone chipsets, a beginner's guide to Android Wear, and how to tweak your screen to maximize battery life.
Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many things that have happened around Android in the last week (and you can find the weekly Apple news digest here).
Leak Confirms Galaxy S7 Design
Case manufacturer DHGate is offering a new case for the unreleased and unannounced Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Plus on its website, and it offers more evidence on the design of Samsung's flagship family's design for 2016. It's going to echo the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge:
Building cases for unreleased smartphones early is a gamble that the physical information is correct – get it right and you’ll be one of the cases available at launch when people go looking. Get it wrong and you’re left with a lot of stock that not only doesn’t fit the new handset, but rarely fits any existing handset either.
...It also confirms that the Galaxy S7 family will continue to follow Samsung’s current design language of strengthened glass on the front and rear of the smartphone, with thin metal edging carrying the buttons and ports around the sides. The plans and the case show the S7 family using microUSB for connectivity and not USB-C, and do not feature any flaps or gaps that would suggest a return of microSD for expansion (although with a number of manufacturers adding microSD cards into the SIM tray in a piggyback arrangement that’s not a definite indicator).
Google Offers Help To Samsung Over TouchWiz
Also coming out of South Korea are reports that Samsung and Google are working together to improve TouchWiz. Samsung's UI sits on top of Google's version of Android and is, for many people, the only experience of Android they have. The two Android giants are reportedly going to be working together to improve TouchWiz so it offers 'greater fluency' and a 'non-delayed operating experience'.
That will give Android a much better reputation when the next South Korean flagship arrives with improves to TouchWiz, it gives Google input into the design process that previously delivered the Magazine UX from Samsung (something that Google was not at all happy about), and it helps keep the look and feel of Google’s vision of Android.
Samsung is struggling with Android at the moment, and there is a danger that 2016 could see it rely more on mid-range handsets for revenue and profit if the Galaxy S7 does not turn the ship of flagship handset sales around. If Samsung were to fall into this ‘pile em high and sell em cheap’ model, Google would lose a vital ally in the high-end Android flagships.
More thoughts from myself on this here on Forbes.
Six Steps For South Korean Success
There's lots of advice for DJ Koh in his new role as head of Samsung's mobile division. I contributed a few earlier in the month, and now Android Central's Andrew Martonik has thought about six steps Samsung needs to do in the next year to remain on top of the smartphone pile in terms of unit sales, and to return there in terms of influence.
When the year comes to a close, it's a great time to look at what we're going to expect in the new year. We always like to play armchair quarterback when we analyze and talk about companies in the Android space, but after following Samsung closely for several years we think it's a good thought experiment to lay out what we think the company should do in 2016.
It may not all happen right away, but we can dream, right? Here's what Samsung needs to get moving on in 2016.
The six include a focus on software, addressing the duplicated services, dealing with updates, imaging technology, the physical UI, and a SIM-free approach to sales.
Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Reviewed
The largest smartphone in Sony's flagship Xperia line is the Xperia Z5 Premium, an Android smartphone with a SnapDragon 810 CPU, 3GB of RAM, an IP68 water- and dust-proof rating and a 5.5 inch screen with 4K resolution. My first review of the monster handset is online, although that 4K screen isn't always what it seems:
The Xperia Z5 Premium actually stays at an effective resolution of 1080p throughout the interface and when reporting the screen size to video sites like YouTube. 1080p looks great, it has to be said, but it’s still 1080p – finding anything usable in 4K (as opposed to short video demos of butterflies) may be an ongoing issue.
That’s not to say that a 5.5 inch screen running 1080p by doubling up pixels is a bad thing to have on a smartphone, but out of the box it does feel like over-engineering for the sake of it, rather than for a practical reason. Ask me again in a few weeks how it’s working out. Right now I love the screen but it’s not offering me any more than the iPhone 6S Plus, and offering less than Samsung’s various top-end handsets.
More thoughts from my first day with the Z5 Premium here.
Android Loses Cortana Voice Support
A curious clash of code has seen the Android version of Cortana temporarily lose its voice activation feature (reports Emil Protalinski for Venture Beat). The key phrase 'Hey Cortana' was causing a clash with 'OK Google' on many handsets. The latest update of the Android app has paused the voice feature, although other functions have been improved. Microsoft are confident that Cortana will return in the near future:
“We’ve received user feedback that the ‘Hey Cortana’ feature is conflicting with Android voice search and are temporarily disabling the feature while we evaluate a solution,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat.
In other words, “Hey Cortana” is conflicting with Android’s “OK Google” feature. Some users understandably would like to use both, but in some cases, the microphone has difficulty keeping up. It’s a bit odd that this issue didn’t get flagged during the Cortana for Android public beta program, which debuted in August. The good news is that Microsoft says it is “temporarily” disabling the hands-free feature, indicating that the company hopes to get it working properly at some point in the future.
That leaves Windows Phone and Windows 10 smartphones as the only voice-powered Cortana platforms over the holidays, as the iOS version of Cortana never switched on its voice activation feature.
The System On Chip Fight
Lying at the heart of every Android device is the processor assembly. Known as the System on Chip (SoC) the leading suppliers are Qualcomm (with the SnapDragon range) and Samsung (with its Exynos range). Gary Sims pits the leading SoCs against each other, throwing Intel's Atom into the list as well, to see who comes out on top through various tests.
Getting performance tests right is hard for several reasons. First, replicating the exact same conditions for each test run is difficult as even variations in temperature can alter test results. Second, benchmarks tend to be artificial and don’t reflect real world usages. Therefore when testing it is good to use benchmarks like AnTuTu and Geekbench. But it is also important to simulate real world scenarios like launching a game while monitoring the performance. To further augment these tests I have written a couple of apps. The first one tests the SoCs processing power by calculating a large number of SHA1 hashes, performing a large bubble sort, shuffling a large table and then calculating the first 10 million primes. The second app uses a 2D physics engine to simulate water being poured into a container and measuring the number of droplets that can be processed in 90 seconds. At 60 frames per second the maximum score is 5400.
The full results can be found At Android Authority.
A Beginner's Guide To Android Wear
Damien McFerran looks over the Android Wear ecosystem with a getting started guide on Know Your Mobile that could be a great reference to anyone receiving one of the Google-powered smartwatches as a present. From the user experience and lack of home screen, to pairing and watchfaces, this will get your wrist jumping to the sounds of... lots of notifications!
Google has been careful to make the Android Wear OS as easy to use as possible – it’s as unlike a phone OS as can be. There are no app icons, no fiddly menu icons and no keyboards. The UX has been kept deliberately simple and is based around swipeable cards designed to only appear when you A) need them, or B) call them up.
If you’re not doing anything Android Wear will simply display the date, time and weather. From here you can flick left or right through cards to access anything from Hangouts to Spotify. Need directions or want to find out how far you are from an ATM? Just say, “Okay, Google…” and ask.
And Finally...
It's worth repeating Android Authority's battery saving tips here, because they are not widely known. Your screen is a huge brain on your battery, so what's the best way of maximizing battery and keeping a readable screen? Team AA has been investigating!
Well, it wasn’t easy, but we have the answer(s). The important takeaways from this analysis are: black uses noticeably less power on AMOLED displays, AMOLED displays use less power than LCDs, and bright colors are the most efficient for an LCD panel. Hopefully this knowledge will help you extract every last bit of life out of your precious phone.
The full study can be found here!
Android Circuit’ will round-up the news from the Android world every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future, and of course read the sister column in Apple Loop! Last week’s Android Circuit can be found here, and if you have any news and links you’d like to see featured in Android Circuit, get in touch!
