Ars Technica have a liveblog of the upcoming Samsung launch event coming up in about 5 minutes. Expected new devices: Note 5, and the Galaxy S6 Edge+.
Edit: liveblog just started here.
Multi-window feature on Samsung S3 and Note 2
So if you’re like me, at some point recently you got an Over-The-Air ROM update and noticed a blue tab appeared on your screen with a list of apps in it. I wish features like this would have some additional popup help. At first I thought this was nothing but a quick-link type of thing for your most used apps, but then I also noticed the ‘Multi-window’ feature that also appeared in the pull down menu. Still none the wiser, I only just recently came across an article here that explains how it works.
In short, you open your first app from the slide out drawer. Then, drag a second app from the drawer out into the middle of the screen, and you’ll notice the top or bottom half of the screen will highlight. When you release, you now have two windows with a dividing slider in between, and you have two apps running in the foreground. Huh, that’s pretty cool! Not useful all the time, but definitely handy if you want to compare something in email with something in your browser side by side at the same time. Very cool!
Sad day for manufacturers and consumers of ‘rectangular devices with round corners’
Samsung have said the final court ruling in the patent case with Apple is ‘a loss for the American consumer’, and I can’t help but agree.
In a statement after the ruling, Samsung continue:
“It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies”
That one statement for me sums up the ridiculous nature of his patent lawsuit. So what next, is Apple going to continue to sue every other phone manufacturer who manufacturers a device that is essentially a rectangle with rounded corners? To avoid infringing on Apple’s patents on rectangles, all other phones must be square, or circular, or any other shape but not a rectangle? This is the ridiculous part of this case. Imagine if someone was able to patent the shape of a car? A house? A table? A TV?
Can Samsung get Apple’s case dismissed using examples in SciFi as ‘prior art’
This is an interesting story to keep an eye on: Samsung are claiming that examples of tablet-like computers in SciFi films like 2001 mean that there are examples of ‘prior art’ and therefore Apple’s lawsuit is invalid. I hope they win. I’m tired of hearing about Apple’s lawsuits, they’re becoming as bad as Microsoft and Oracle.