Samsung Galaxy S3 Premium Suite 'Jelly Bean' upgrade features detailed
Company keeping some features a secret for a reveal next week
Samsung has released details of its Premium Suite upgrade for the Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone, which brings features previously exclusive to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 to the smaller high-performance Android handset.
Arriving as part of an upgrade to Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, the Galaxy S3 Premium Suite offers upgrades not found in non-Samsung Android phones - the better for the company to fight the popularity of Google's LG-manufactured Nexus 4 device. Features found in the Premium Suite include a system for predicting future actions called Page Buddy - plug in headphones and have the music player start automatically, for example - and a contextual menu which places your most frequently used options closer to the top.
Other upgrades over a stock Android handset include a contextual tagging system which extends the geo-location feature of the Android camera app with the ability to add details on the date, location and even the weather, and a multi-window system that allows two applications to be opened side-by-side - a great use of the Galaxy S3's high-resolution display. Finally, the system gets an upgrade to the in-built browser to make text size easily customisable and page sharing faster, a new Auto Share Shot mode for the camera that allows pictures to be quickly transferred to devices supporting S-Beam or other near-field communication (NFC) capabilities, and a Facebook news ticker for the lock-screen.
These aren't all of the features promised in the Samsung Galaxy S3 Premium Suite, however: Samsung is teasing the details out piece by piece, posting a video detailing what it claims is around half the facilities available as part of the upgrade. Information on the other features, likely to include the smart-rotation and customisable notification features of Samsung's Galaxy Note II, is due to be released some time next week.
As the update rolls out, it will be made available to all Samsung Galaxy S3 owners free of charge, either as an over-the-air update or using Samsung's own KIES updating software.