From the Editors Desk: Thoughts on the Galaxy S3 Announcement

I don't often write editorials here at AndroidNZ. It's not that I have nothing to say so much as I have neither the time nor the energy. I just find editorials draining. You can't pad them with ludicrously detailed physical descriptions of a device, or hide behind some benchmarks. It's laying open your own personal thoughts to scrutiny, hoping your insights aren't too rudimentary, or just plain dull. There's a degree of investment inherent to the editorial that just isn't present in most of the other content a blog casts into the web. I suppose then it's appropriate that my first real editorial here is, in many ways, really about investment and perspective (or in this case a perspective on the loss of perspective).

In the end it took something momentous like the Galaxy S3 announcement to force my editorial hand, I figured you just can't call yourself an Android blog if you say nothing about the S3 prior to it's announcement. Despite the imperative to say something, I'd just feel too cheap doling out some stale speculation on it's specs. So hit me up after the break for what I hope will be a thought provoking read, one that maybe even has something fresh to say about the S3.

Is this how the S3 will look?

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking about the impending Galaxy S3 announcement. You know, like you probably are too (which is to say obsessively). Quite apart from musing on the latest dubious leak of the day, I realised that this product launch means something to me. I can see how that might sound like an odd admission, coming from a tech writer, so let me speak to that for a moment. Now obviously I'm hugely interested in a myriad of new gadgets at any one point in time, I spend an unseemly amount of time scouring various obscure corners of the interwebz and poring over my my overstuffed RSS reader to glean fresh information on them. The difference here is investment. Emotion. It bugs me to admit that to myself, and causes me some discomfort to admit it to a wider audience, but there it is.

No sooner had that rather disquieting thought bubbled to the surface of my self-awareness, another thought followed: this is how iOS fans feel once or twice every year. 


*Insert paragraph break for readership to really absorb that thought*

I turned that thought over in my head for some moments, looking at it this way and that, ultimately finding it inescapably sound.

To my way of thinking that really is something. For me that thought throws the opportunity and risk Samsung faces with the S3 announcement into sharp relief. Samsung has an unprecedented opportunity to really, really, nail it here with the S3. Corollary to that is the risk of failure at an unprecedented magnitude. As a brand this is a crystallising moment; ascend to unthought-of giddy heights of consumer prestige, or be crushed by the weight of consumer expectation. Simply: Will this be Samsung's crowning achievement, or their 4S?

The road to this moment in time for Samsung started a couple of years ago with the progenitor of the Galaxy line, the original Galaxy S. It was a great handset with few legitimate rivals in the Android realm that year, even despite some not insignificant flaws. They built on that last year with the Galaxy S2. My how they built upon it! Samsung knocked it out of the park with the S2, they raised the bar so high that even now the S2 remains one of the finest smart devices on the market.

...or perhaps this??

Now, even on it's own, the quality of the Galaxy lineage would be sufficient to whet the appetites of tech heads everywhere, but Samsung took it yet further with a well-planned, even Apple-esque, launch strategy this year. First, wait until close to the actual release of the phone to announce it, until nearly all competitors had laid their best and brightest out for all to see (and for Samsung to react to, if needed, as they did last year with the Galaxy Tab albeit with rather less aplomb). Second, maintain total silence. Let speculation and innuendo whip up a crazed consumer frenzy and construct the hype machine without so much as lifting a finger. When I think about how well Samsung has kept a lid on the S3 I'm still utterly incredulous at how well they've executed.

...and therein lies the rub. Samsung can't just announce an incremental upgrade here. They can't just announce a handset that barely pips their competitors at the post. Without the manicured hype it's possible they could taken that route. People would have been disappointed, sure, but they wouldn't feel like Samsung had wronged them somehow. I don't think Samsung have that latitude anymore. They must wow us. Anything less will be viewed as failure. That's the corner Samsung has painted themselves into.

For myself, I can't wait to see how Samsung respond, can't wait to see how they are going to wow us. You'll note that I say that with some conviction, some faith that they will deliver (my mind shudders somewhat at using that word, but the truth only hurts if it ought to, right friends?). That's what I meant about investment and emotion earlier - I've become just that tiny little bit irrational about the S3 announcement. It's the kind of irrationality that gives rise to adoration, the kind of adoration only Apple has accrued to it's name so far in the tech world, but also the kind of irrationality that gives rise to condemnation.

...or possibly this???

...or maybe this whole editorial is utter bunkum. Perhaps I'm the only crazy out there whose lost perspective.

You know, there is one thing I am still certain of at this point. An editorial isn't worth a damn unless it generates some discussion. Perhaps you could give me the perspective I'm lacking, or perhaps just tell me your own fevered imaginings of what the S3 spec sheet will look like when the dust finally settles? Just do something to get me out of my own head, which is suddenly full of vileness like emotions for gadgets and faith in multinational corporations. Please. I'm begging you.