‘Tis a lesson you should heed:
Try, try, try again.
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try, try again.
Thomas H. Palme in ‘Teacher’s Manual’
So here goes my rant against Samsung!
Samsung had launched their Samsung Galaxy S5 along with the Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 and Samsung Galaxy Gear Neo 2 smartwatch updates on Saturday February 22nd 2014 with much noise but little fanfare from fans. Right now it’s looking like Samsung has either lost their innovation mojo or they really are coasting on empty here! A reason why it took all my courage to even write about this, as they’re barely trying this time to hide their lack of innovation.
Interestingly, and as I’d expected, the wristwatches were of course the innovation here to a point, sporting a much improved battery life and other nice fashionable features. But it’s the fact that they’re running Tizen OS, their much touted replacement for Google Android as hyped in Samsung’s Tizen OS launched to partake in Apple and Google’s App Economy that has many talking, as this is their first foray into the world with their own OS.
If this is what Tizen will look like, then getting people to rock it on their wrist is a good start to getting customer to eventually like the idea of a smartphone OS, even if one of the biggest Telecom Provider in Japan, NTT DoCoMo rejected Tizen OS smartphones from Samsung, fearing poor sales of this unknown device and unwilling to become a guinea-pig! Samsung, you now know who your real friends are!
Believe me though, despite the naysayers at NTT DoCoMo, Tizen OS smartwatches stole the show! However, it’s clear to all including myself that the Samsung Galaxy S5 is the Samsung Galaxy S4 in new clothing and the Smartwatches merely have improved their aesthetics but still haven’t addressed the synching problem as pointed out in Samsung Gear Smartwatch is too Dick Tracey and not Simple enough to want you to Rock the Future on your Wrist
Now comes another disappointment in the form of Samsung Milk, which is Samsung Free Music Streaming Service powered by Slacker Radio that oddly enough, is available only to Americans on the following Samsung smartphones:
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Samsung Galaxy Mega,
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Samsung Galaxy Note 2
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Samsung Galaxy Note 3
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Samsung Galaxy S3
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Samsung Galaxy S4
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Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini
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Samsung Galaxy S5
13 million Tracks and 200 million preset channels isn’t much to enjoy if you can’t download and listen in your MP3 Player! Most Music lovers will scoff at that offer by Samsung on their semi-improved smartphone as its far easier to just rip the songs from a CD (if they still exist in the wild), copy them form a friend or just download them from one of many torrent websites.
If you’re not a pirate then there’s the fact that there are so many free or paid Streaming Services such as Spotify, Bests Music, Pandora, Amazon Cloud Drive Player that work on ALL smartphone makes this offer look half-baked.
Apple iTunes Radio, Samsung’s obvious Target, has very little to worry about. Though Samsung has spilt some Milk on the Music Streaming Scene, it’s merely a spot waiting to be mopped up in a world with so many competing, free and device-unrestricted streaming options!