Samsung Galaxy S3, more secrets revealed: Samsung extends USB OTG and bluetooth capabilities in ICS

If you were with us earlier today then you'll have noticed that my update path to the official ICS release for the Note was less than smooth, but could have been far worse. Long story short: I'm on official ICS on my Note and its running well, for now at any rate.

As per usual I soon got down to testing some of the connectivity options at the Note's disposal with various peripheral devices. Not only were my findings very interesting for Galaxy Note owners, they also give us some additional and previously unknown insights into the connectivity options that we're likely to see enabled in the Galaxy S III.

I may be drawing a longer bow here than I did in my previous secrets revealed piece, but I think the conclusions will prove sound.

Make the jump for the big reveal...


(For now let me just say that gamers and composers will be pleased!)

WiiMotes now (finally!) work on stock Samsung firmwares

Yes, you read that right. 

Samsung is finally bringing all those WiiMote owners in from the gaming cold to get amongst it; no more watching stock device owners with envy, no more choosing between having an MHL capable handset, or one that plays nice with WiiMotes.

I can personally confirm that they work on Samsung's official ICS firmware for the Note, as indeed they have been confirmed to do on the Galaxy S II on stock ICS firmwares. Given that's the case for both those handsets I doubt we'll see Samsung take a backwards step with the Galaxy S III, and expect this will all function out of the box with the S3 too.

In terms of set up all you need do is install something like Wiimote Controller to perform the pairing, add a little Shadowgun or N64oid or FPse and your HDTV, and you're all set to take your gaming to another level. Oh, and be sure to bring some friends along for the ride - N64oid supports multiplayer!

While we're on the topic of changes to bluetooth device functionality I'd be remiss not to mention one annoying downgrade present in the ICS firmware for the Note that I expect to see in the S3 also - bluetooth mouse functionality.

Ever since Froyo on the venerable Galaxy S Samsung have added their own custom support for bluetooth mice, and it worked perfectly. Right click was select, left click was back, scroll was scroll, and the scroll button called up the menu button. Wonderful.

Unfortunately the stock ICS implementation of bluetooth mouse support botches the button mappings, and rather badly at that. Now the left mouse and scroll buttons are both also mapped to select, which makes navigation and control impossible with the mouse alone. I'm convinced the fault for this lies with ICS, rather than Samsung, since every other ICS device I've had occasion to test it on exhibits exactly the same behavior (those devices being the Galaxy Nexus, HTC One X, Transformer Prime, and Archos G9 Turbo).

USB OTG, powers greatly expanded

Spurred on by my success with the WiiMote I decided to try out a PS3 controller via USB OTG with my Note. This has never worked on any Android phone for me, despite working flawlessly on most Android tablets, so I wasn't particularly hopeful as I plugged the controller in. Happily my pessimism was unfounded - it works perfectly! Naturally I expect this will work on the S3 at release without need for any modifications.

I was then sufficiently encouraged to go out and buy a wired Xbox 360 controller, but sadly they appear not to be working (I presume since it doesn't sport it's own power supply unlike the PS3 controller, although using it via an externally powered USB hub didn't help at all, so I may be mistaken the cause).

In addition to adding support for PS3 controllers, which is even more good news for avid Samsung gaming fans on top of the new WiiMote support, it appears Samsung have also added even wider USB device support. I'm not sure where the limits have extended to, but XDA-Developers forumer richlum has successfully paired a midi keyboard to his Galaxy Note on the official ICS release firmware. He reported it here, and was even kind enough to produce a video showing it in action:

Obviously the first thing I did after seeing that was to wonder whether my USB audio would also work via my self-powered FiiO E17, something I've been clamouring for for some time. Alas the answer is no, connecting the E17 via a USB OTG cable merely resulted in the loudspeaker blaring music at me (tauntingly, I fancy). Oh well, I'm still holding out hope it'll come. In the meantime I am comforted to by indications that the implementation of the Wolfson in the S3 looks like it does the DAC justice, and hopefully won't impede Supercurio from working his magic on the S3's audio quality.

So tell me, what do you guys think? Anyone doubt we'll see the same level of device support from the S3? What other kinds of devices would you love to hook up with your S3 when it finally arrives? Drop us a line in the comments below.

UPDATE:
This isn't a new USB OTG function, being something supported for some time now on a number of devices thanks to the efforts of excellent Android developer Chainfire and his app DSLR Controller. It is cool nevertheless, and has been confirmed to work with the S3 on video by the good folks at XDA. I thought I should drop it here for your perusal too (special thanks to Chainfire for reminding me about this one!).