There was one big thing missing from Samsung’s weird-yet-campy Samsung Galaxy S 4 unveiling last week: Google, the creator of the operating system the S 4 is running. While the Galaxy S 4 has Google’s latest build of Android, Google has gone largely unmentioned. At the Samsung launch event, Android was hardly even a footnote. Yet there’s a lot of overlap between Android and some of the new S 4 features that Samsung showed off. That’s because Android is an open ecosystem that allows other developers to build on top of it. But it’s not just enough to build a phone that has the stock Android features — manufacturers have to be able to take that one step further, whether that’s with their own apps and services or a unique twist on Android’s basic services. Samsung added some next-generation functions to the S 4, such as the ability to recognize fingers that hover over the screen or track whether a user is looking at the screen.
About Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named LinkedIn’s “Top Voice in Technology,” he covers tech and business for Good Day New York, is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular daily business blog. He's a bestselling author, and the creator of the popular, free online course, Generative AI for Execs. Follow @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com.