My fight with Samsung part 1

It is a common knowledge that the theory is one thing and the practice is sometimes completely different. Today Ive felt on my own skin how Samsung is trying to fool its customers. Keep on reading and please share this on any of your social network.

Some time ago I bought a Samsung tablet – Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition). Few days ago I realized that the S-Pen stylus is no longer working. The touch screen simply didnt react when I was trying to write anything on the front panel. So I took the device to the authorized Samsung service in Krakow - "W&K Wlodarski ?ukasz". 

How much I was surprised when I received a text message after 20 minutes that my device is ready to be picked up. When I came back I was told that the warranty is voided because of "unauthorized software integration". Lets now point out some important technical details.

1. In ODIN mode: CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
2. In ODIN mode: SYSTEM STATUS: Official
3. Current OS: official P605XXUCNF2
4. Kernel: official
5. Recovery: official
6. ROOTED: no!

So... what the f... hell? Where is the "unauthorized software integration"?

I asked the technician for some more details. He wasnt able to answer any of my questions. He wasnt able to show me this "software integration" and what would that be.

Lets now focus on the legal part. Warranty terms attached to my device do state about software modifications, but its a crucial ability to read it with understanding and a proper interpretation.

What does it mean? The key word in this part is "due to". So basically, there has to be a causal link (a cause ---> effect relationship). So if the modified software caused the failure, the warranty does not cover it. But if the modified software has no relation with the failure, then YOU MUST FIX IT, DEAR SAMSUNG!

The other very important thing is the burden of proof. The burden of proof is the imperative on a party in a trial to produce the evidence that will shift the conclusion away from the default position to ones own position. In simply words that means: if you say something - prove it! It is not MY obligation to prove that I havent modified the software. If you, dear Samsung claim that my warranty is voided because of software modification, you need to prove this software modification.

To sum up this first part:

1. Samsung service didnt prove their statement that I made an unauthorized software integration.
2. Samsung service didnt demonstrate a causal relationship between the unauthorized software integration (if there was one) and the device failure.
3. Samsung service refused to fix my device and the worker said "Sir you have no chance, just give up and leave".

Few minutes ago I wrote a long e-mail to Samsung support centre, explaining the whole situation. What comes next? Lets wait for a part two...

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HTC M7 next HTC flagship device

Today htcsource.com came up with a nice photo of incoming HTC flagship model - HTC M7.

Source: http://htcsource.com

In a matter of fact, this picture shows not only new, incoming device but also the main screen from HTC Sesne 5.0 UI. Obviously not much can be concluded based only on this photo, but it seems that HTC is following the fashion of angular and edgy graphic elements. The same happened to Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Personally Im not yet sure if I like it. Actually I find HTC Sense 4+ very good UI and Im not really sure if this direction of squares is good one. Maybe its just a matter of habits and in fact HTC Sense 5.0 will be an improvement over Sense 4+ when it comes to the graphic design.

This angularity concerns the overall design of the device as well. As you can see, HTC M7 is very similar to HTC Butterfly. Corners are even more tightened in HTC M7.

What else is interesting? Look at the capacitive buttons. It seems that home button and multi-tasks button are  in reversed order. Isnt it more intuitive to have home button in the middle? Also, based on this photo you can see that no % battery icon will be presented in HTC Sense 5.0. Furthermore, it seems that HTC didnt remove stock Android browser, so out of the box youll have two browsers in the system.

My final thoughts? Well... hard to say. Im excited as everyone when new HTC flagship device is almost to come. Without premature judgment I can only say that if the screen wouldnt be turned on showing HTC Sense 5.0 UI, I would blindly say that its next HTC Windows Phone device.

There are some rumors that this photo might be a fake. I guess we need to wait a bit longer to know if this is a real HTC M7 or not.

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Samsung Look Package Some Fundamentals

Again, based on the fact that the Samsung SmartApp Challenge  that has already begun on the 5^th of September and is going on currently with the last date of submission being 30^thNov 2013, which expects the use of the pen package and the look package, this is the promised article on the look package. Let us start from some fundamentals.

First, What is Look?

From the last 3 articles, we have seen that Samsung Mobile SDK is a SDK that brings 10 different small packages together into one SDK to ease the developers world. Look is a java package available as part of that same Samsung Mobile SDK. It is a package that provides specialized widgets for additional functions beyond what the Android Views already provide. And of course it builds on what the pen package already provides. In fact, Look requires that S Pen be used to access its features.

Next, then, what are the functions Look provides?

It supports

• ·      WritingBuddy – This basically helps by giving an editor when a S Pen comes closer to an area that can take an input from the pen. The user can write in this editor, which would then by recognized by the WritingBuddy and converted into a digital format for further usage! 

Quite a useful feature considering that the S Pen would lead to a lot of apps that would take a written input but the UI should still be compact with out having large canvases occupying the UI for pen inputs. 

     

      This can be used with on any view layouts and in TextEdit. WritingBuddy recognizes numbers and alpahabets and even handwriting images which would lead to usages like signature recognition etc.

• ·      AirButton – I see this feature as an advanced context sensitive menu! A set of items or images or what ever may be relevant to a particular context can be shown using an air button. 

The wow factor in this is you can creatively define the gravity, the direction and the display type making it look like a feature that was always needed but not invented till now!

Based on the user selection of a menu item / a recent item display there, the next set of actions can be invoked.

• ·      SmartClip – As the name says, SmartClip is indeed a smart clipboard, which does not just capture the selected content, but also the metadata related to the content! This metadata is converted to text that can be searched on or sent to other applications for further use.  

This is certainly an interesting feature that can be used very imaginatively to provide seamless copy and paste options between various apps and also help in capturing related content.

This feature would look more magical especially when there is metadata available with the content captured. For example, if there are URLs that are part of the content that is captured, the SmartClip can capture data from the URL too and send it to the destination app.

• ·      PointerIcon – This is a good to have feature – something that is taken for granted in many desktop apps but has found its way into a mobile through this package! 

This allows you to modify the look of the pointer when you place an S Pen on a view.

The Look Package Architecture

This diagram is taken from the Samsung documentation.

Lot of custom apps can be developed using the look package and as you see the look package is mainly an extension to the Android View package.

The Development environment

In order to develop an app that uses the look package and support all of the above-mentioned features, you need to download the complete Samsung Mobile SDKwhich can be downloaded independently or through an eclipse. Both ways of downloading the SDK and setting up the Development environment are described here.