The Galaxy S4 ships with Android 4.2.2 and Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz user interface. The overall look and feel hasn’t changed much since the Galaxy S3, but the phone does come with a host of new features and experiences including Smart Scroll and Smart Pause, AirView, and TV remote control functionality.
Of course, older TouchWiz enhancements such as multi-window apps (long-press the back button) and Smart Stay are still present, as are Android Jelly Bean standards like Google Now (accessible by long-pressing the settings soft key) and multi-tasking (hold down the home button).
One interesting addition is a revamped Easy Mode. Samsung introduced this feature on older models, but it mostly consisted of simplified widgets laid out on a traditional Android homescreen. With the GS4, Easy Mode is a separate launcher designed to emulate a feature phone interface while giving access to basic smartphone functions. The idea is to ease older folks or first-time smartphone users into the new ecosystem. Easy Mode can be enabled at setup or easily toggled via the Settings menu.
While much of the hardware and software feels iterative compared to the Galaxy S3, Samsung did a great job in terms of enhancing the user experience. Better yet, many of the features debuting with Galaxy S4 will find their way to late model Samsung devices by way of over-the-air updates.
Smart Scroll and Smart Pause
In previous TouchWiz versions, Samsung introduced Smart Stay, an “eye tracking” technology that determined when a user was looking at the display and smartly prevented it from turning off automatically. WIth the Galaxy S4, two new features have been introduced based on the same concept, Smart Scroll and Smart Pause.
In reality, all three of the features function using the phone’s front-facing camera and rely more on facial recognition than eye tracking. With Smart Scroll, the GS4 determines the position of the users head and will scroll a web page or other content up and down accordingly. Smart Pause will automatically pause a video when a user looks away from the screen.
The concepts are novel, and when they work they create a fluid, intuitive way of interacting with your phone. The problem is, the new tech is not without its hangups. Sometimes it doesn’t react at all to eye or head movements. Other times it only works in certain lighting conditions. In general, the services were spotty at best. With some refinement, however, they could be killer.
AirView and Air Gesture
In addition to eye-tracking features, Samsung has introduced two other “hands-free” ways to interact with the Galaxy S4. The first takes AirView, first introduced with the Galaxy S4, and extends it beyond the S Pen. With the Galaxy S4, users can simply hover their finger over certain fields to access pop-out content. It’s especially apparent in the calendar app, where hovering over a date will provide a quick glance at scheduled events, no need to leave the main calendar view.
Air Gesture takes the touch-free concept a step further, using a dedicated sensor located near the Samsung logo above the display to detect hand movements corresponding to certain actions. For instance, waving your hand over the sensor when receiving a phone call will answer the phone in speaker mode, perfect for taking a hands-free call while driving. Air Gesture can also be used to scroll and navigate web pages in the browser.
But just like Smart Scroll and Smart Pause, responsiveness varies. The features are also hurt by a lack of integration into more services and applications, but hopefully Samsung will work with developers to allow others to take advantage of the features. FlipBoard is one third-party app featuring AirView support. The app comes pre-installed on the Galaxy S4.
Group Play
Group Play is Samsung’s all-in-one service for sharing photos, document, and presentations with a group of other Galaxy handset owners. With the Galaxy S4, Samsung is touting a feature that allows you to you play a song across a group of phones (think back to the commercial Samsung launched showing a basketball team getting hyped up for a game by syncing an Icona Pop tune across their devices).
The feature allows you to either send a stereo stream of the song to all devices or the person initiating the Group Play session can assign each device to act as a left or right speaker. It works, but the feature seems a bit gimmicky. It’s main downfall is that it is limited to users with a Galaxy handset, which could create some awkward moments when someone in a group is left out because they don’t own a Samsung phone.
Group Play, though, is probably best served for sharing a PowerPoint presentation or something along those lines (though again, the platform limitation detracts here).
Samsung WatchOn
The Galaxy S4 is the first Galaxy handset to feature a built-in infrared blaster, and Samsung puts it to good use. We have seen the functionality offered in previous Samsung tablets, alongside a combination of Samsung’s WatchOn app and the third-party Peel. With the GS4, the experience is refined to create a single service that allows users to navigate their TV guide and control a television or set-top box all from within a single app.
Setup is extremely simple. Enter some information about where you live and what TV service provider you use, go through a simple dialog to pair the Galaxy S4 with your home entertainment hardware, and you’re ready to go.
The app allows you to find currently playing shows based on a recommendation system or through a full TV guide. You can also search directly for content, and anything that isn’t available via your cable provider can be rented or purchased as part of Samsung’s video on demand service. This also includes tying into your Netflix account. If you have a newer Samsung TV, you can even bounce video back and forth between your phone and television.
If the service suffers at all, it has more to do with the amount of control it provides over TV hardware. Remote functionality is a bit limited. You can’t set up DVR recordings via the WatchOn app, and it’s a bit disappointing that streaming between devices is limited to Samsung’s WatchOn-enabled line of devices. But for folks without a dedicated smart TV solution already in the living room, WatchOn offers a similar experience using the hardware users already own.