From a software perspective, the most sought feature of the brand-new Samsung Galaxy S III is undoubtedly the S Voice feature, which is a similar implementation to Apple’s Siri voice assistant, which launched along with iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S back in October. That’s not the only new feature on the S III’s list of exclusives, and thankfully for those not planning to invest in the yet-to-be-released, uber powerful device, the Android community is frantically trying to extract the goodies from the ROM leaked earlier this week, and so far, it has been a pretty fruitful venture.
S Voice was the very first feature plucked from obscurity, and although it doesn’t appear to be playing ball with non-Samsung device at this point in time the intuitive folk of the Android modding community have offered just the antidote enabling most devices to enjoy the party.
As well as the voice activated personal assistant, scores of other bits and pieces have been released – so many in fact, that it’s something of a free-for-all. On the menu today, the Galaxy S III’s AccuWeather apps, native analog and digital clocks, video player, YouTube app, GTalk, FM radio, ringtones and wallpapers can all be had. Additionally, the S Voice application available has already been modified with an inclusive build.prop file, which will fools Samsung’s servers into thinking you’re rocking an S III. Links to all of the goodies can be found via this link, credits of course to XDA Developers’ member ithehappy.
Those using a Samsung-based ROM can also enjoy the S III’s TouchWiz UX launcher. Unlike the above, which are said to be working smoothly on most devices, this one is a little more hit-and-miss. The porter – XDA Developer member Smando, has it working fairly smoothly on a Galaxy S II, although since it’s still in early stages and a little rough around the edges, ensure your proceed with caution. For more info, check out this thread.
Although the Galaxy S III itself has been pre-ordered an incredible 9 million times, there has been arguably as much fuss and hype surrounding its software, and a procession of Android developers and modders have been duly queuing up to pick off what were meant to be device-specific features.
It will be interesting to see how many of the pre-orders eventually equate to sales, and subsequently whether the device winds up being a success for the Korean company. The early signs are good, but the Kindle Fire from Amazon was also massively-hyped pre-launch – only to whittle away in a vortex of mediocrity.
With the HTC One X offering comparable hardware features, Android isn’t short of a powerhouse or two, an I, for one, cannot wait to see the pair go to battle.
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