User interface
The phone employs the proprietary Samsung TouchWiz 3.0 user interface. Unlike TouchWiz 3.0 on the Samsung Wave, it allows up to seven homescreens. However, different from other Android user interfaces, TouchWiz 3.0 allows users to add, delete and rearrange homescreens. The program launcher is also different from other Android user interfaces in that it has an iOS-like program menu which allows customization of shortcuts. In addition, three of the four shortcuts at the bottom of the screen can also be customized.
The Epic 4G features a specialized version of TouchWiz based on TouchWiz 3.0. Because of the Epic 4G's QWERTY slide-out keyboard, the homescreen needed to be able to rotate into landscape mode. The other Galaxy S TouchWiz 3.0 devices do not support this feature.
The most important aspect of all three generations of TouchWiz is the widget interface. The most prominent widgets that come with the Galaxy S are the Daily Briefing, weather clock and the Buddies Now widget. In addition to Samsung widgets, standard Android widgets can be added and removed from the homescreens.
Bundled applications
Other provided software includes the Layar Reality Browser, a program that visualizes GPS direction, and Aldiko, an ebook reader. The phone also comes with various upgraded versions of software that came with Samsung's previous generation of smartphones (such as i8910HD and i8000 Omnia II).
Media support
The Galaxy S comes with support for many multimedia file formats, including audio codecs (FLAC, WAV, Vorbis, MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, MID, AC3, XMF), video codecs (mpeg4, H.264, H.263, Sorenson codec, DivX HD/ XviD, VC-1) and video formats (3GP (MPEG-4), WMV (Advanced Systems Format), AVI (divx), MKV, FLV).
Updates
Android 2.2 upgrade
Google Play Store on Samsung Galaxy S
When launched, the Galaxy S had Android 2.1 ("Eclair") installed. An official upgrade to Android 2.2 ("Froyo") began rolling out worldwide in November 2010.
Canada received the 2.2 upgrade for select carriers on December 10, 2010.
According to Samsung the 2.2 upgrade has come to the USA in 2011 for most versions of the handset (AT&T Captivate, Verizon Fascinate, T-mobile Vibrant, Sprint Epic). The 2.2 upgrade was released for T-Mobile on January 20, 2011. It enabled stock Android features that had previously been disabled such as Wi-Fi Clling and Mobile AP.
Verizon's Fascinate was upgraded to Android 2.2 in April 2011. Verizon's Continuum variant was upgraded to 2.2 in February 2012.[citation needed]
Android 2.3 upgrade
An Android 2.3 ("Gingerbread") update became available for Nordic countries, The Netherlands and Germany on April 16, 2011. The update reached UK, India and HongKong by the start of Nov, 2011. Singapore received the update in June. Australia received the update in August. The Samsung Epic for Sprint started receiving the Gingerbread update on November 9, 2011 and the update was released for the Samsung Galaxy S 4G on November 15. As of December 1, 2011, the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon has been updated to Gingerbread 2.3 (Droid-Life).
T-Mobile in the USA made the 2.3 upgrade available on November 15, 2011. Currently this update is only available on T-Mobile's 4G model (SGH-T959V). It's unknown at this time if T-Mobile USA will produce a 2.3 update for its original Samsung Galaxy S (SGH-T959). The SGH-T959V update is available at http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-1810. On January 10, 2012, AT&T provided an update to Gingerbread (2.3.5) to the owners of the Captivate (SGH-I897). The update was possible through a manual update using Kies Mini.
Android 4.0 and later
An official update to Android 4.0 was never released, as Samsung felt that the Galaxy S did not have enough memory (RAM) to run the TouchWiz interface on top of Android 4.0. In lieu of Android 4.0, Samsung released a "Value Pack" update for the Galaxy S in March 2012 in South Korea, which maintains the 2.3 (Gingerbread) -based operating system, but includes new features from TouchWiz 4.0 (some of which backported from 4.0) such as face unlock, improvements to the launcher, the ability to take still photographs while recording video, and a redesigned photo editor.
However, unaffiliated developers associated with Cyanogenmod produced unofficial updates based on Android 4.1 and 4.2 for the Galaxy S and its variants. These updates are developed from Android Open Source Project code.
Unofficial
The Galaxy S is partially supported by the Replicant project.
The Galaxy S4 ships with Android 4.2.2 and Samsung's TouchWiz Nature user experience. Eye tracking features have been extended on the S4; the new "Smart Scroll" feature can be used to scroll while looking at the screen by slightly tilting the phone, and "Smart Pause" allows the video player to pause videos if the user is not looking at the screen. "Air View" implements gestures and other functionality (such as previewing images or messages) by holding or swiping a hand or finger slightly above the screen. The "Group Play" feature allows ad hoc sharing of files between Galaxy phones, along with multiplayer games and music streaming between Galaxy S4 phones. The "Adapt Sound" and "Adapt Display" functions can automatically adjust settings for the screen and sound system for optimal quality.[citation needed]
The camera app implements numerous new features (some of which were first seen on the Galaxy Camera), including an updated interface, and new modes such as "Drama" (which composes a moving element from multiple shots into a single photo), "Eraser" (which takes multiple shots and allows the user to remove unnecessary elements from a picture), "Dual Shot" (which uses the front-facing camera for a picture-in-picture effect), "Sound and Shot" (which allows the user to record a voice clip alongside a photo), "Animated Photo", and "Story Album" among others. Other new pre-loaded apps include WatchOn (an electronic program guide that can utilize an infrared transmitter on the top of the phone as a TV remote), S Translator, the workout tracker S Health, S Voice Drive, S Travel, and an optical character recognition app. A new enterprise-oriented feature known as Samsung KNOXallows the phone to be separated into modes for personal use and business use, and gives the business mode high security. It supports the aptX codec which improves Bluetooth-headset connectivity.
The ChatON app has basic features which are auto friends registration, text chat, and multimedia deliver, and put new features which are My Page, voice/video chat, and translate. The main function of ChatON is divided into Multimedia, Group Chat, Trunk, and Animation Message. ChatON can send text, picture, video, and audio as multimedia. Users use the personal profile into My Page. They can create group chat rooms just by selecting more than 2 buddies. All the contents that have been shared in each chat is saved into each trunk. Animation Message turns some simple drawing and stamping into short moving videos.
The phone employs the proprietary Samsung TouchWiz 3.0 user interface. Unlike TouchWiz 3.0 on the Samsung Wave, it allows up to seven homescreens. However, different from other Android user interfaces, TouchWiz 3.0 allows users to add, delete and rearrange homescreens. The program launcher is also different from other Android user interfaces in that it has an iOS-like program menu which allows customization of shortcuts. In addition, three of the four shortcuts at the bottom of the screen can also be customized.
The Epic 4G features a specialized version of TouchWiz based on TouchWiz 3.0. Because of the Epic 4G's QWERTY slide-out keyboard, the homescreen needed to be able to rotate into landscape mode. The other Galaxy S TouchWiz 3.0 devices do not support this feature.
The most important aspect of all three generations of TouchWiz is the widget interface. The most prominent widgets that come with the Galaxy S are the Daily Briefing, weather clock and the Buddies Now widget. In addition to Samsung widgets, standard Android widgets can be added and removed from the homescreens.
Bundled applications
Other provided software includes the Layar Reality Browser, a program that visualizes GPS direction, and Aldiko, an ebook reader. The phone also comes with various upgraded versions of software that came with Samsung's previous generation of smartphones (such as i8910HD and i8000 Omnia II).
Media support
The Galaxy S comes with support for many multimedia file formats, including audio codecs (FLAC, WAV, Vorbis, MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, MID, AC3, XMF), video codecs (mpeg4, H.264, H.263, Sorenson codec, DivX HD/ XviD, VC-1) and video formats (3GP (MPEG-4), WMV (Advanced Systems Format), AVI (divx), MKV, FLV).
Updates
Android 2.2 upgrade
Google Play Store on Samsung Galaxy S
When launched, the Galaxy S had Android 2.1 ("Eclair") installed. An official upgrade to Android 2.2 ("Froyo") began rolling out worldwide in November 2010.
Canada received the 2.2 upgrade for select carriers on December 10, 2010.
According to Samsung the 2.2 upgrade has come to the USA in 2011 for most versions of the handset (AT&T Captivate, Verizon Fascinate, T-mobile Vibrant, Sprint Epic). The 2.2 upgrade was released for T-Mobile on January 20, 2011. It enabled stock Android features that had previously been disabled such as Wi-Fi Clling and Mobile AP.
Verizon's Fascinate was upgraded to Android 2.2 in April 2011. Verizon's Continuum variant was upgraded to 2.2 in February 2012.[citation needed]
Android 2.3 upgrade
An Android 2.3 ("Gingerbread") update became available for Nordic countries, The Netherlands and Germany on April 16, 2011. The update reached UK, India and HongKong by the start of Nov, 2011. Singapore received the update in June. Australia received the update in August. The Samsung Epic for Sprint started receiving the Gingerbread update on November 9, 2011 and the update was released for the Samsung Galaxy S 4G on November 15. As of December 1, 2011, the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon has been updated to Gingerbread 2.3 (Droid-Life).
T-Mobile in the USA made the 2.3 upgrade available on November 15, 2011. Currently this update is only available on T-Mobile's 4G model (SGH-T959V). It's unknown at this time if T-Mobile USA will produce a 2.3 update for its original Samsung Galaxy S (SGH-T959). The SGH-T959V update is available at http://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-1810. On January 10, 2012, AT&T provided an update to Gingerbread (2.3.5) to the owners of the Captivate (SGH-I897). The update was possible through a manual update using Kies Mini.
Android 4.0 and later
An official update to Android 4.0 was never released, as Samsung felt that the Galaxy S did not have enough memory (RAM) to run the TouchWiz interface on top of Android 4.0. In lieu of Android 4.0, Samsung released a "Value Pack" update for the Galaxy S in March 2012 in South Korea, which maintains the 2.3 (Gingerbread) -based operating system, but includes new features from TouchWiz 4.0 (some of which backported from 4.0) such as face unlock, improvements to the launcher, the ability to take still photographs while recording video, and a redesigned photo editor.
However, unaffiliated developers associated with Cyanogenmod produced unofficial updates based on Android 4.1 and 4.2 for the Galaxy S and its variants. These updates are developed from Android Open Source Project code.
Unofficial
The Galaxy S is partially supported by the Replicant project.
The Galaxy S4 ships with Android 4.2.2 and Samsung's TouchWiz Nature user experience. Eye tracking features have been extended on the S4; the new "Smart Scroll" feature can be used to scroll while looking at the screen by slightly tilting the phone, and "Smart Pause" allows the video player to pause videos if the user is not looking at the screen. "Air View" implements gestures and other functionality (such as previewing images or messages) by holding or swiping a hand or finger slightly above the screen. The "Group Play" feature allows ad hoc sharing of files between Galaxy phones, along with multiplayer games and music streaming between Galaxy S4 phones. The "Adapt Sound" and "Adapt Display" functions can automatically adjust settings for the screen and sound system for optimal quality.[citation needed]
The camera app implements numerous new features (some of which were first seen on the Galaxy Camera), including an updated interface, and new modes such as "Drama" (which composes a moving element from multiple shots into a single photo), "Eraser" (which takes multiple shots and allows the user to remove unnecessary elements from a picture), "Dual Shot" (which uses the front-facing camera for a picture-in-picture effect), "Sound and Shot" (which allows the user to record a voice clip alongside a photo), "Animated Photo", and "Story Album" among others. Other new pre-loaded apps include WatchOn (an electronic program guide that can utilize an infrared transmitter on the top of the phone as a TV remote), S Translator, the workout tracker S Health, S Voice Drive, S Travel, and an optical character recognition app. A new enterprise-oriented feature known as Samsung KNOXallows the phone to be separated into modes for personal use and business use, and gives the business mode high security. It supports the aptX codec which improves Bluetooth-headset connectivity.
The ChatON app has basic features which are auto friends registration, text chat, and multimedia deliver, and put new features which are My Page, voice/video chat, and translate. The main function of ChatON is divided into Multimedia, Group Chat, Trunk, and Animation Message. ChatON can send text, picture, video, and audio as multimedia. Users use the personal profile into My Page. They can create group chat rooms just by selecting more than 2 buddies. All the contents that have been shared in each chat is saved into each trunk. Animation Message turns some simple drawing and stamping into short moving videos.