The human touch

The smart phone “reveal” has become a bona fide global event. Every year, thousands of tech journalists gather as major cell phone makers unveil their latest jaw-dropping models, like the Monolith being displayed to awe-struck anthropoids.

I’m no different. When Samsung unveiled a sequel to its mega-successful Galaxy S2 in London on May 3, I was there, camera in hand, fingers ready to fly across the smooth Super AMOLED screen.

Galaxy S3 claims it’s several evolutionary steps beyond even the wildly popular S2. Imagine: a phone you don’t have to pick up to unlock, activate, command and search with. You simply tell Galaxy S3 what you want; it understands you. With a voice recognition feature called S Voice that makes Siri seem like a doddering, hard-of-hearing lola, Samsung S3 has devised a cell phone that responds to your every word — in eight languages. Tell it who to call, which video to play, which photo to send to a friend. Along with face recognition, S Voice is part of a line of human-friendly features that will personalize your phone in ways heretofore only dreamt of.

Running on the hugely popular Android 4.0 (a.k.a. Ice Cream Sandwich), the S3 already earns pogi points among the technoscenti; those gathered in Earl’s Court (a music shrine where Led Zeppelin, among other rock gods, have held court) wanted more, though: they wanted convincing that Galaxy could outdo itself yet again, and really retain that magical perch of smartphone charisma that all tech companies now covet. One ring to rule them all? More like one ringtone.

Blue and white blobs drifted across the big screen at Earl’s Court, London, foreshadowing the Pebble Blue and Marble White Galaxy S3 models.

“With the Galaxy S3, Samsung has maximized consumer benefits by integrating superior hardware with enhanced smartphone usability,” JK Shin, president and head of the IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung, told a crowd of journalists from around the world at the product launch on May 3. “Designed to be both effortlessly smart and intuitively simple, the Galaxy S3 has been created with our human needs and capabilities in mind. What makes me most proud is that it enables one of the most seamless, natural and human-centric mobile experiences, opening up a new horizon that allows you to live a life extraordinary.” Onstage, the big reveal was preceded by a huge wraparound graphic of blue and white blobs (foreshadowing the S3’s Pebble Blue and Marble White designs), floating and merging against a white space, like a high-tech lava lamp.

We got a chance to lay our own hands on the S3 after the presentation, and if you’ve never seen hundreds of journalists dashing across a stage in a mad rush to test a phone’s features, it’s quite a sight. First of all, you notice the S3 is bigger: with a 4.8 inch HD Super AMOLED display and 1280x720 resolution, watching videos and scanning your photos becomes an even sleeker, sharper experience. No longer rectangular, S3 has oval corners now, resembling the Galaxy Nexus (though still smaller than the almost-tablet-size Galaxy Note). It’s easy to handle, with pebble contouring on the back providing a firm grip.

What sets it apart, though, is a raft of “humancentric” features meant to make the Galaxy experience more of an extension of your body. From the gentle ripples onscreen when you first touch its surface, to the face recognition sensors that determine exactly what you’re doing or wish to do, the S3 is said to be inspired by nature: wind, water and light.

That makes for nice phone wallpaper, but the real proof comes in the way S3 obeys your commands, master. We saw videos of the S3 being stirred alive by a female voice: “Wake up… What’s the weather?” S3 instantly blinks alive and displays current weather conditions.

With Best Photo and Burst Shot, you can capture action moments or choose your favorite mid-air pose.

Even more impressive, S Voice is an “advanced natural language user interface” that stands to rival other voice command functions out there. We weren’t able to fully test S Voice on the floor, but you can reportedly command your phone alarm to, say, shut up for five more minutes simply by saying “Snooze” (a bonus for those who hate fumbling around for tiny buttons). Tell S3 to play a song; S Voice calls it up for you from your library instantly. It even reportedly composes and sends e-mail, takes and organizes photos and arranges schedules, all without lifting the handset.

Even more stirring, the Galaxy wakes up when you blink; it sleeps when you do. The Smart Stay facial recognition feature recognizes how you are using your phone — reading an e-book, or surfing the net, say — by having the front camera identify your eyes; the phone stays lit for continued viewing pleasure.

Samsung calls this an “enriched interactive experience.” We call it cool.

The sharing options on Galaxy S3 are impressive, too. S Beam improves on Android Beam by allowing you to share video files of up to 1GB with other S3 phones in as little as three minutes, or MP3s of up to 10MB within two seconds. Just hold the phones together, and presto. Better yet, it works without a Wi-Fi or cellular signal. Buddy Photo Share meanwhile allows photos to be simultaneously shared with all your friends pictured in an image directly from the camera or the photo gallery.

Look, no hands: Galaxy S3 offers the hands-free S Voice option to command your phone to navigate, answer e-mail, make or answer calls.

With AllShare Cast, users can wirelessly connect the S3 to a television screen and instantly transfer smartphone content to a larger display. Great for gamers, AllShare Play allows you to instantly share files between S3 and your DLNA-supported tablet, PC and TV sets regardless of the distance between the devices. The Group Cast feature allows you to share your screen among multiple friends on the same Wi-Fi network; you can share comments with co-workers and witness real-time sharing on your device. The preloaded Dropbox application also supplies 50GB of free storage for two years for not just image and music files, but also video content. And content uploaded to the Dropbox can be automatically synced with other devices, or instantly uploaded through data networks without Wi-Fi access.

Samsung is clearly responding to the fan clamor by offering a phone stuffed with even more goodies. “It’s packed with intuitive technology,” noted Shin, such as Pop Up Play, a feature that allows you to play videos in a smaller window that you can drag anywhere on the screen while other tedious chores, such as sending e-mail, are ongoing; there’s a feature called Best Photo that clicks off eight photos in sequence and selects the best one (perfect for capturing sporting events or those popular “jump shots” when traveling); beyond that, Burst Shot takes up to 20 shots per click; there’s Smart Alert to keep you informed of missed calls and messages; an advanced Photo Tag feature allows you to visit a friend’s social network simply by touching their tagged photo; and with Direct Call, the S3 motion sensor will dial a friend without you lifting the device (handy in traffic).

Galaxy S3’s Social Tag function instantly takes you to a person’s social network when you touch the photo.

All in all, breathless Galaxy fans were finally able to resume breathing activities as Samsung launched a phone that seems a worthy successor to its popular S2. Shin, who promised all the new extras would not stress battery life (a tech on the floor told me a new battery location inside the phone will reduce its workload) called S3 the “next big thing.”

Judging by fan reaction at Earl’s Court, that may be accurate. As the oddly comforting screen presentation informed us about the S3, “It hears what you say… It sees what you see… It knows what you want.”

It’s enough to make you believe in Santa Claus again.