Telefonica is today announcing a deal with Samsung that will see it make an even bigger move into the area of carrier billing. Samsung will integrate the carrier’s billing backend directly into its own mobile services, meaning that the Telefonica customers (it has 316 million worldwide) who use the Samsung Hub and Samsung Apps portals on Samsung smartphones will be able to buy apps, music, videos, books, games and more and charge them directly to their phone bills.

The agreement, which will use Telefonica’s BlueVia payment APIs, is a significant one for Telefonica. So far it has inked deals with app portal operators, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft and RIM, and with billing providers like Bango; this effectively closes the loop for it by securing a deal with the world’s largest handset maker, although a recent deal to help the carrier finance the procurement and distribution of BlackBerry devices could point to Telefonica gearing up for a similar deal with that handset maker, too.

In addition to Bango, Telefonica also works with BOKU, where it led a $35 million investment last year. It’s not clear how this deal with Samsung will play out between these two rival billing providers. In the past Telefonica has been vague on the subject, saying that it will work one or the other depending on the situation.

Telefonica has been especially bullish on trying to come up with a way to get a piece of the action on apps and other content that is getting purchased on smartphones and tablets. Apple’s early move into the area with its very popular App Store (just this week marking its 50-billionth download) set a precedent for all but cutting carriers out of the picture, with Apple handling the payment on its own platform and then dividing up resulting revenues with the app publishers.

Mobile advertising alongside often-free apps is one other area where carriers and others have tried to play, although these revenues are still small in relation to those collected from downloads and in-app purchases.

But the promise of carrier billing, as we have noted before, is that it not only offers carriers a look in to the growing pot of money being made from smartphone content, but it also provides a route for publishers to better target consumers in parts of the world where smartphone usage is growing rapidly, but payment card penetration is not so much.

The carrier framework can be used not only for consumers who take monthly plans, but also for prepaid accounts, with each purchase deducted from there, as already happens with phone minutes, data bytes and SMS messages. This is an area where Spain’s Telefonica, which has more users in emerging markets in Latin America than it does in any single market in Europe, can hope to gain a foothold with its carrier billing offering, even if it has (so far) missed the boat in more developed markets.

Nevertheless, this deal will be implemented in phases, starting first with a rollout with Telefonica’s subsidiary in Germany “in the coming months.”

“We strongly believe that carrier billing has the potential to drive the monetisation of digital content,” Wayne Thorsen, vice president of Global Partnerships at Telefónica Digital, said in a statement. “Partnerships like this allow us to harness the power of the billing relationships we have with our customers to make it easier for them to consume content on their tablets and mobile devices.”

For Samsung, meanwhile, it gives the company the ability to promote its own content portals as easy to use — one way of driving more users there instead of to Google’s services. As Samsung tries to further differentiate itself from the other OEMs using Android, and Google itself, little things like this could help it along the way.

“Samsung is committed to ensuring that our customers have choice and convenience when purchasing content on our devices,” Lee Epting, VP of Media Solutions Centre Europe for Samsung Electronics Europe, said in a statement. “Our partnership with Telefónica Digital allows us to deliver yet another easy and convenient purchasing experience to our Samsung Hub and Samsung Apps customers.”

Telefonica and Samsung are not strangers to each other in the area of new services; they have co-invested in the latest round for semantic, real-time search startup Expect Labs.

Photo: Flickr

Samsung has confirmed via the Korean website Chosun Ilbo that it has shipped over 6 million units of the Galaxy S4 since its international release on April 26. According to the firm, this is the fastest ever sell rate for a Galaxy S smartphone, or any other Samsung smartphone for that matter.

Specifically, the Galaxy S4 hit 4 million shipments between April 26 (release date) and April 30, and had reached 6 million units sold by May 10.

For a little perspective, the Galaxy S sold 3 million units in 85 days, while the Galaxy S2 took 55 days to achieve the same feat, and the Galaxy S III hit the 3 million mark in just 21 days.

An executive at the company told Chosun Ilbo the following:

“As of the end of April, we supplied four million Galaxy S4 handsets to telecommunication operators around the world. As of Friday, we have sold more than 6 million units, and we predict that we could break the 10-million mark by as early as the end of this month.”

It’s worth noting that these “sales” are to wireless operators, and not direct to consumers. In other words, Samsung has shipped 6 million units of the Galaxy S4 since April 26.

Obviously, the Galaxy S line is selling notably well for Samsung, and the progress from one generation to the next is made clear by these figures. But even though Samsung dominates the market right now, and has a near-monopoly on Android, the iPhone is still technically a faster selling phone than any of Samsung’s Galaxy models.

Remember when the iPhone 5 launched? Apple clocked over 2 million pre-orders for the latest-generation iPhone in the first 24 hours it was available. For pre-order.

And where progress is concerned, the iPhone’s popularity grows with each generation as well, and in this case even faster than Samsung’s Galaxy S line. iPhone 5 pre-orders were 2x the number of pre-orders seen for the iPhone 4S.

In either case, both companies are raking in the dough with their flagship lines.

[via TmoNews]

Flipboard has just updated its iOS app to add a few more features for its 50 million+ readers. Back in March, Flipboard announced a new feature that would include user-created magazines, which seems to have excited Flippers.

In fact, the company announced that users have already created 500,000 curated magazines. Like ours.

That said, today’s update to version 2.0.2 brings with it a new Friends category in the Content Guide, allowing users to easily find their friends’ magazines. But it goes beyond that. Flipboard has even added new profile pages that have a better insight into readership and curation activities.

Past that, version 2.0.2 also offers better sharing. You can select a social network and use various sharing options in the revamped sharing menu, and you can also shoot off stories via SMS.

You can even save images from Flipboard direct to your device now, as the update allows users to save to camera roll as an option within the share menu.

Last, but certainly not least, Flipboard is hooking up Google Reader users with one last hurrah. The Flipboard 2.0.2 app for iOS has just received improved navigation for Reader RSS folders as well. Unfortunately, Google Reader will die a quiet, sad death on July 1.

Still, Flipboard continues to grow as the social news consumption space gets even hotter. Along with the newly launched magazines feature, the company has also been working to implement new features via a partnership with Samsung. Flipboard comes pre-installed on the new Galaxy S4, and even has Samsung’s AirView feature integrated, letting you peek into all the headlines of a certain category without ever clicking through. Or even touching the display.

If you’re interested in Flipboard 2.0.2, head on over to the App Store.

Samsung is moving quickly to diversify its phone line, with variants of the S4 popping out of the woodwork left and right, including the Galaxy S4 Zoom, which features a rumored 10x optical zoom on its rear camera. Today the Galaxy S4 Active, a ruggedized, smaller version of the flagship S4 has hit the Bluetooth Special Interest Group for certification, which means it could be coming along shortly, too.

The S4 Active is supposedly a water- and dust-resistant phone designed for use with an active lifestyle, or in outdoor conditions where generally phones don’t fare very well. The S4 Active would compete head-to-head with Sony’s latest lineup of phones, including the Xperia ZR announced today, which is a smaller version of the Xperia Z with slightly less impressive specs. It’s submersible in water for up to 1.5 meters, however, which pits it against the Active’s rumored feature set.

Both the Active and the Zoom S4 variants remind me of how companies are diversifying in another crowded, near saturated market: point-and-shoot cameras. Manufacturers regularly highlight the long zoom and rugged versions of their devices, as these are areas where consumers feel they need more than what’s available to them on the smartphone devices they carry around every day.

Manufacturers like Sony and Samsung moving in this direction with their devices marks an attempt to broaden their lineup’s appeal vs. other similar competitors, but also encroaches on the territory of single-purpose devices like the camera. And the market is likely to get more crowded, not less, as Google has been teasing devices that can withstand harsh environmental forces coming from its Motorola acquisition, through executive statements.

I said previously that Samsung is essentially preparing a phone for every feature to compete with any unique advantage its rivals may try, and the S4 Active is definitely that. But these variant devices also have the potential to act as advance market research for tech that can be adopted back into a flagship device: if any is particularly successful, it provides a roadmap for Samsung about what will draw customers to the S5 or beyond.

The S4 Active getting its Bluetooth certification means it’s likely to get a consumer reveal before too long, so we should see exactly how far Samsung has taken the rugged phone concept soon.

Samsung Electronics has developed core technology that will allow it to deliver high-speed 5G wireless data connections to consumers by 2020, the company announced today. The system allows data transmission up to several hundred times faster than current 4G networks.

5G mobile communications technology is the next generation of 4G LTE networks tech and can offer data transmission speeds of up to several tens of Gbps per base station. Once 5G networks are commercialized, they will allow users to transmit massive data files, including UHD movies and remote medical services, “practically without limitation,” Samsung claims.

4G connections have gradually become available to consumers around the world since 2008, but many countries, including China, are still working toward launching their LTE networks. Samsung says, however, that its new adaptive array transceiver technology overcomes the limitations that millimeter-wave bands had when transmitting data over long distances. It transmits data in the millimeter-wave band at a frequency of 28 GHz at a speed of up to 1.056 Gbps to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.

“The millimeter-wave band is the most effective solution to recent surges in wireless Internet usage. Samsung’s recent success in developing the adaptive array transceiver technology has brought us one step closer to the commercialization of 5G mobile communications in the millimeter-wave bands,” said Samsung executive vice president and head of digital medial and communication R&D ChangYeong Kim.

Samsung isn’t the only company to announce that it has developed 5G core tech. In February, NTT DoCoMo confirmed that it had successfully conducted a 10Gbps wireless test.

Samsung is in a unique position among Android smartphone manufacturers, which allows it to create devices like the Galaxy S4 Zoom, a rumored S4 variant that showed up for certification at the Bluetooth SIG this week (via UnwiredView) as the “SM-C101.” The S4 Zoom is reportedly going to resemble the unreleased S4 Mini, but boast a 16 megapixel rear camera with optical zoom.

Optical zoom is really the one remaining advantage that point and shoot cameras have over smartphone shooters, at least from a hardware perspective. Other companies, including LG and Huawei have been working on building smartphone optical zoom tech, too, but if Samsung brings this one to market with its rumored 10x zoom, it’ll be the strongest one currently available, beating the Nokia 808 PureView’s measly 3X power.

Samsung has the luxury of experimenting with different form factors, and using its flagship branding to offer a range of devices that potentially cut off competitors by giving users a complete device to match ever competitive advantage. Like the S4 but want a more manageably sized screen like on the iPhone 5? Get the S4 mini. Like the S4 but want something a little better able to withstand the environment and harsh conditions like the Xperia Z? Get the rumored rugged S4 variant. Want an S4 but with the best smartphone camera in the business, which exceeds even Nokia’s most ambitious efforts? Get the S4 Zoom.

Samsung’s lineup variety strategy may be more about blocking the competition and casting a wide net than anything else, but a big zoom on a mobile camera will have a lasting effect on the industry if it goes over well and produces impressive results. More importantly, it could bring about even bigger changes for the dwindling standalone point-and-shoot camera market, which means other smartphone OEMs won’t be the only ones watching to see if and when the Galaxy S4 Zoom makes a splash, which could happen as early as June according to release date rumors.

BlackBerry and Samsung devices have been given the go-ahead for use on Defense Department networks. The approved devices are BlackBerry 10 smartphones, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets using the Enterprise Service 10 system and Samsung’s Android Knox. The Pentagon said earlier this week that it also expects to clear Apple devices using iOS 6 in early May.

Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Damien Pickart said in a statement that “this is a significant step towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of state-of-the-art devices and operating systems.” He added that the approval of BlackBerry and Samsung devices does not mean product orders would be placed. Instead, it allows user groups within the Pentagon to select those devices.

In February, the Pentagon initiated an effort to broaden its approved mobile devices so the military can access the latest communications technology and is not dependent on just one equipment vendor. The Pentagon’s initiative to diversify its roster of electronics led to a report that it was in process of phasing out almost all of the BlackBerries used by its employees, which the Pentagon denied.

The Department of Defense’s plans do mean, however, that BlackBerry now faces much more competition for the Pentagon’s 600,000 mobile users. The department currently has 470,000 BlackBerry users. There are also 41,000 Apple users and 8,700 Android users, most of whom are currently participating in pilot or test programs.

Expect Labs has already received funding from the likes of Google Ventures and Greylock Partners, but the San Francisco-based startup (and TechCrunch Disrupt alum) announced this morning that Intel Capital, Samsung Ventures, and Telefonica Digital have made their own strategic investments in the company.

In case you haven’t been keeping tabs on Expect Labs, well, you should be. It was founded by Tim Tuttle and Moninder Jheeta in 2011, and since then the team has been tackling a hefty problem — they want to be able to listen to and analyze your conversations as they happen, and surface relevant information right at the moment you need it without you having to search for it.

Granted, some of these new strategic partners are more surprising than others. Our own Jordan Crook sat down with Intel Capital president Arvind Sodhani back in March, who revealed that the chipmaker’s venture arm had indeed invested in Expect Labs and strongly hinted that Intel would lean on the startup’s Anticipatory Computing Engine to bring what Intel refers to as “sophisticated voice control” to ultrabooks. Tuttle naturally wouldn’t confirm whether ultrabooks in particular would soon benefit from Expect Labs tech, but noted that Intel is “trying to develop more expertise in software” and realizes that voice, touch, and gestures will become dominant modes of interaction with new devices.

At first glance, Samsung’s interest in Expect Labs and its thoughtful approach to surfacing information seems like a no-brainer. As seen in blockbuster devices like the Galaxy S4, the Korean electronics giant has sought to stay at the front of the smartphone pack by packing its smartphones full of first-party software like the S Voice assistant. That sort of approach hasn’t always been very well-received, but baking the ability to chew on conversations and spit out information on subjects users have just spoken about into yet another Samsung app would be a very savvy move for a company that’s continually looking to push the envelope on software. It’s not just smartphones that will benefit either — Tuttle specifically calls out smart TVs as a potential recipient of Expect Labs tech.

Telefonica seems like a much more interesting case — it’s the fifth largest mobile network operator in the world with roughly 315 million customers across Europe and the Americas. To date Expect Labs has shown off the proactive power of its Anticipatory Computing Engine in app form, but that sort of approach simply wouldn’t work for many of Telefonica’s subscribers since a considerable chunk of them in developing and mature markets don’t own smartphones.

That’s not a problem, according to Tuttle. In fact, he views his sort of voice-centric tech as a “godsend” for telecoms like Telefonica. He envisioned a phone conversation (that could happen “very soon”) with someone about meeting at restaurant down the street — once the call is done, the phone can display a link to a map for the restaurant right within the dialer.

This buy-in from some very prominent partners speaks to the stickiness of Expect Labs’ vision of the future of computing. According to co-founder and CEO Tim Tuttle, we’re poised to see a dramatic shift in what sorts of devices we interact with and how we interact with them.

“We’re heading quickly toward this world where all of the devices around you will be listening to you,” Tuttle explained. That’s not to say that traditional modes of technological interaction is bound for extinction — Tuttle concedes that the keyboard and mouse aren’t going anywhere any time soon, but information won’t just be accessible from select locations.

“The issue is the places where computing devices show up in our lives aren’t just on our desks, they’ll be all over the place,” Tuttle said. “In all these cases you’re going to want to access your information without going to your desk.”

Now that Expect Labs has some additional capital to work with, Tuttle wants to expand the team (which currently consists of 12 people). Tuttle and rest of Expect Labs have made some astonishing progress over the past few months, but they’ve had to shift their priorities around too. Consider the fan-favorite MindMeld iPad app that Expect Labs showed off at Disrupt SF 2012: it’s still around, but the public launch the startup has been talking up for so long is no longer something they’re trying to do immediately.

Samsung introduced its latest tablet today, the Galaxy Tab 3, and it’s clear that the Tab line is destined to play a distinct second fiddle to the Galaxy Note brand. The Tab 3 sounds like it could’ve been released a year or two ago, with a 7-inch 1024×600 display at just 169 PPI, a 1.2GHz dual core processor and a 3 megapixel rear-facing camera.

The Tab 3 also has cellular connectivity in one version, but caps out at 3G and doesn’t offer an LTE option, and it’s running Android 4.1. There are two memory options, at 8 and 16GB respectively, though that’s expandable via Micro SD. The Tab 3 improves on the Tab 2 7.0 with a thinner bezel, borrowing design styling from the Galaxy Note series. The Wi-Fi version will be available in May, and the cellular-capable model goes on sale in June.

Samsung is clearly streamlining its tablet line here, since the Tab 3 naming indicates we probably won’t see a follow-up to the Tab 2 10.1. The Android OEM has moved a lot of the focus on its higher-end Galaxy Note line when it comes to tablets, like the recently introduced Galaxy Note 8.0. The Note 8.0 has a quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and a 5 megapixel rear camera, plus an 8-inch 1280×800 display.

There’s no retail price for the Galaxy Tab 3 as of yet, but the Galaxy Note 8.0 is $399 so expect it to come in under that, as it’s less impressive under the hood and also lacks S-Pen integration. The Tab line is likely Samsung’s way of staying competitive with cheap, small tables like the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire, but I wouldn’t expect this to light a fire under that many consumers.

Samsung is working on a dust-proof and water-proof Galaxy S4, which will essentially resemble the S4 but with environmental superpowers, says the Wall Street Journal. The paper also reported that Samsung is launching its next-generation Galaxy tablet in June, as well as a compact S4 at “just” 4.3-inches in size (this still seems large to me, but maybe I’m just old). Samsung has always been keen on capitalizing on flagship branding by diversifying its line with a variety of offshoot devices, so the news should come as no surprise.

The ruggedized S4 will take the flagship phone in a brand new direction, however, and one that might actually cut off a key competitor at the knees – Google’s own Motorola. Google CEO Larry Page and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt have referenced Motorola’s upcoming hardware work, referring to how phones should not break when dropped, or die when submerged in water, suggesting that one of the key features of any Android hardware coming out of Motorola once its existing pre-Google product timeline runs out will be somewhat rugged, too.

Samsung and Google have a complex relationship, and much has been made about how the Korean smartphone OEM might make Google a little nervous, given how much control it has over the Android smartphone market. It’s a theory that Google itself has repeatedly and roundly denied, but Samsung recently went out of its way to highlight its own software and pretty much leave out any discussion of Android itself.

The Wall Street Journal also notes that a rugged version of the Galaxy S4 will help Samsung attract lucrative military and government contracts, something the OEM is trying to accomplish in order to steal share from Apple and BlackBerry. That would definitely be an advantage, but there’s also just a general trend towards building more rugged devices, thanks to smartphones like the Sony Xperia Z. Startups like Liquipel and HzO are also trying to make water-resistant consumer electronics common-place, both before- and after-market. At this point, it’s just a matter of who can do it first.

The Galaxy S4 has an easy mode, and more importantly, the Galaxy S4 needs an easy mode. This necessity is a double-edged sword. It means that the technology built into Samsung’s latest generation smartphone does things you’ve never seen before, and maybe couldn’t even imagine. However, really using that technology isn’t as simple as you might think, and could be downright overwhelming to a novice smartphone user.

This is the theme I kept running into with the GS4. If you’re technologically advanced enough to be excited for hovering gestures and optical readers and two cameras working at the same time, then yes, you should absolutely jump on the Galaxy S bandwagon. But for those of you who want a phone that works well, keeps you connected, and not much else, be forewarned that the S in Galaxy S4 certainly doesn’t stand for simple.

• 5-inch 440ppi 1080p Super AMOLED display
• Android 4.2.2
• NFC
• Accelerometer, RGB light, Geomagnetic, Proximity, Gyro, Barometer
  Temperature & Humidity, and gesture sensors
• 2GB of RAM
• 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 proc
• 13MP rear camera (1080p video capture)
• 2MP front camera
• 4G LTE where available
• 16GB, 32GB, expandable up to 64GB via microSD
• 136.6mm x 69.8mm x 7.9 mm
• 4.6oz
• 2600mAh battery

Pros:

• Amazing software features like Air View and Dual-shot
• Incredible display in a svelte package
• Acceptable battery life

Cons:

• Again with the plastic…
• Some features are novelties, not everyday utilities

The Galaxy line has never stood out because of design. In fact, many would argue that Samsung has been quite the copycat in the land of design, but the Galaxy S4 represents the first iteration of what appears to be true Samsung design language. It ends up being a mesh of earlier Galaxy S iterations, with a hint of the Galaxy Note and a whole lot of Galaxy S III in there.

I can’t say the GS4 is revolutionary by any means. It’s thin and light, just as it should be, and looks pretty meh. It’s made almost entirely of plastic save for a polycarbonate strip that runs along the edge of the phone, and it has a finish that gives the appearance of some texture, but is actually smooth.

But you have to hand it to Samsung. Somehow, the company managed to fit a bigger 5-inch display on a phone that actually got thinner and lighter from previous generations. In fact, the Galaxy S4 is almost exactly the same size as the Galaxy S III despite having a larger display. Bravo.

The buttons for lock, volume, etc are smaller and more compact than before, which Samsung claims helps with the solidity and durability of the phone’s build. They jut out a bit for you to feel your way to them in a pinch, but they have points on each end, and just don’t feel nice.

Along the back of the phone, you’ll see the 13-megapixel camera centered on the top half of the device, in usual Samsung fashion, along with a microUSB charging port on the bottom edge of the phone.

The GS4 sports the same elongated home button that we saw on the Galaxy S III, but certainly has a more boxed-out shape than the very elliptical GSIII.

Ready yourself, partner, ’cause the GS4 is one helluva rodeo in the software department. To start, TouchWiz (or whatever Samsung is calling it now) has been thoroughly revamped to include a set of smart toggles in the notification center, giving the user what amounts to a cheat sheet of all the features they’d never even guess were present on their smartphone in the first place.

In fact, when you first power up the device you’re given a quick tutorial of all the new things the Galaxy S4 has to offer. You’ll also notice that Samsung has done away with the black bar up top, and laid all your notification icons on top of your homescreen art, along with a redesigned Samsung Hub for content, such as movies and books.

From there, things get far more complicated, and not always with good reason.

Let’s start with the “Air” features, as I believe they’re likely going to be the most valuable and useful to people. Air View, which lets you hover over content to get a preview of extended information, is the latest iteration of technology originally developed for the Galaxy Note II with its S-Pen stylus. This time, however, all you need is a finger.

At first mention it seems confusing or overzealous, but Air View might end up being one of the must-have features for phones moving forward. It gives you a window into more detailed information without forcing you to click in and back out again, which is particularly clutch in the case of unread email. Air Gesture, on the other hand, lets you control your phone without ever touching it. Wave to answer a call (which automatically goes to speaker), swipe to scroll up and down on a page or through a gallery of pictures, and you can even set a locked phone to recognize when you gesture toward it to pick it up.

This stuff will come in handy when driving, eating, and cooking, though once you’re given the extra freedom of smartphoning with dirty hands, you find it frustrating that Air Gesture is only limited to certain apps like the photo gallery, music app, and browser.

Though Samsung’s new Smart Pause and Smart Scroll features seem equally innovative, I hate to imagine a world in which we’re all too lazy to press the pause button, or scroll with our thumbs. That said, I can see how the notion of auto-pausing when you’re looking away during a video, or tilting to scroll might be enticing. But given that these new features don’t work all that seamlessly, and often cause more frustration than they do delight, I’m far less impressed with these tools.

Along with building interesting technology right into the system, Samsung has also launched a handful of dedicated apps like S Health, which monitors activity levels through the phone’s slew of sensors, S Translator (complete with live voice translation in over 10 languages) and the Optical Reader, which converts analog text into digital text which can be translated or saved.

Of course, the same NFC-based features are still there, giving users access to S Beam and TecTiles fun. There’s also a new feature called AllPlay which lets you play a song from multiple Galaxy S4s at the same time, to take best advantage of all the little speakers. This is one of those features that will rarely, if ever, get used, but on the off-chance that you actually want it, you’ll be grateful to have it.

As mentioned before, the phone comes with an easy mode which seems aimed at older generations. It “dumbs” down the phone a bit, removing many of the more complex features and enlarging text and app icons for easier navigation.

The Galaxy S4 isn’t the first phone to sport a 5-inch 1080p display, but it still feels like the very first time when I look down into its Super AMOLED wonders. You can’t really argue with a pixel density of 440ppi. Text is crisp and clear, app icons are sharp, and it’s hard to find a reason to complain.

I will say that the Galaxy S4 display isn’t quite as bright as the iPhone 5, but color accuracy seems to be pretty dead on save being slightly over-saturated.

It’s also fair to commend Samsung once again for fitting this gorgeous 5-inch display onto a relatively compact phone. My thumb did creep past bezel territory and onto the display a few times, resulting in some interesting typos, but I’d gladly trade making a few adjustments to the way I hold the phone given that it’s so much more aesthetically pleasing with that squared-off shape.

If we’re just talking hardware, the Galaxy S4 doesn’t have a life-altering, amazing camera. There’s very little shutter lag, which is an improvement, and images do seem to be truer to reality than the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy S II before it. Still, I wouldn’t say it’s a noticeable step above the iPhone 5 camera, except for the fact that there’s no purple flaring issue to be found on the GS4.

Where things really get interesting, however, is within the camera app itself. The UI has been adjusted to match that of the Galaxy Camera line, offering a carousel of easy-to-understand modes and a quick toggle for AF, ISO and white-balance settings.

The camera has all kinds of fun modes like Drama Shot, which lets you grab hundreds of frames to show a photo of continuous action, like someone walking across the street or skiing down a hill, and Eraser, which lets you remove any unwanted subjects of the photo by detecting movement. You can’t go back and “erase” without having shot the picture in Eraser mode first, which means you have to be actively ready for something to go wrong. And who of us remembers to do that?

Still, things like DualCam mode (shooting with both the front-facing camera and rear camera at the same time) seem very interesting. It takes our obsession with smartphone photos to a whole new level by combining two pictures into one. I’m quite pleased that Samsung decided to add more creative and useful features to the camera instead of things like face detection and group sharing features (as the company did with the Galaxy S III) that no one will ever really use.

Comparison shot between the Samsung Galaxy S4 (left) and the iPhone 5 (right):

No, the Galaxy S4 U.S. variant doesn’t sport the much-rumored and long-awaited Samsung Exynos Octa-5 eight-core chip. It does, however, run on the Snapdragon 600, which is the latest generation and most powerful quad-core chip out there right now. Plus, the GS4 touts 2GB of RAM, which becomes lethal combined with the Snapdragon 600.

And you can tell. The Galaxy S4 is quick like lightning, in almost all respects.

We ran the GS4 through Quadrant graphics testing, in which it scored just under 12,000. This is quite impressive, considering its competition (such as the HTC Droid DNA and LG Optimus G) barely broke 7,000. However, the HTC One is the real phone to beat when considering the Galaxy S4, as it’s the only phone we’ve seen that beats out the S4.

GeekBench results weren’t much different. The GS4 scored an average of 3,150 out of three tests, putting it well above the average Android phone. In fact, on GeekBench, the GS4 beat out its rival, the HTC one, which scored 2,728.

Still, we can’t measure the GS4 on benchmarks alone. But in any case, I’ve found the GS4 to be snappy and responsive during general browsing, app usage and video watching.

Samsung beefed up the battery on the Galaxy S4, opting to use a 2600mAh battery. It has a removable cover, so you can choose to carry along an extra battery for days when you’ll be over connected.

I found that the phone lasted with me all day, even with all these crazy software features turned on at all times, and never really failed me once. Obviously, a display like this one just begs to show you videos and games, so I did find myself draining battery more rapidly on the GS4 than I do with the iPhone, which is perhaps a testament to the adage that bigger is better.

In official testing, the Galaxy S4 lasted just about seven hours during our battery test, which involves running a constant Google Image search with screen brightness at 50 percent on 3G/4G only. Comparatively, the Droid DNA hung in there for around five hours while the HTC One couldn’t break the five-hour mark.

In other words, the GS4 is certainly just as power-efficient as it is powerful, along with having the added bonus of a swappable battery. Win win.

Head-To-Head With The HTC One and LG Optimus G Pro:

(Note: Chart represents U.S. variants of the S4 and HTC One.)

So what’s the verdict?

At the end of the day, it’d be foolish to think that the Galaxy S4 isn’t a top-notch phone. Where specs, performance and software innovation are concerned, the company is clearly making strides. But in playing with this phone for a while, adjusting to the new features, trying to make the most of them, and sometimes failing miserably, I keep returning to the idea of “Keep it simple, stupid.”

That rule seems to have been lost on Samsung. Yes, Air View is a breakthrough, and the camera features are fun and interesting, but anything that requires an easy mode is missing something.

Why are smartphones so meaningful to us? Why do we despair when they run out of battery, or paw for them at the sound of a familiar ring tone? It’s because, in a way, they’re magic. They achieve complex technological feats without appearing to break a sweat. But it’s easy to forget about that when we’re shooting a video or playing Asphalt 7, because they’re built to solve and provide for us in a way that we can understand. The Galaxy S4 features are impressive — there’s no denying it. But very few of them work perfectly enough for it to feel natural. Maybe it’s because my time with the GS4 is only beginning (I received it one week ago), but I felt like I was forcing it.

As Samsung continues to push the edge of technological innovation, it needs to take a quick breather and, first, think about what truly solves problems for consumers and, second, think about how to take high-level technology and make it easy to use and understand for the user.

This week on the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast we talk about Google Glass, the Galaxy S4, and the magic of Ubuntu laptops. This time we’re joined by Matt Burns, Jordan Crook, Greg Kumparak, and a pair of underwear that vibrates in Australia. Enjoy!

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Intro Music by Rick Barr.

Samsung Electronics may purchase mobile memory chips from South Korean rival SK Hynix for devices including the Galaxy S, said J.K. Shin, head of Samsung’s mobile business. If the deal goes through, it will be a boon for SK Hynix, which currently counts Apple as one of its top DRAM chip customers and saw it shares slip 2.8 percent on Thursday after another Apple chip supplier, Cirrus Logic, warned of a reduced product forecast from one of its customers.

Though Cirrus Logic did not name the customer, the company is seen as a key indicator of demand for iPhones and iPads because at least 90 percent of its business comes from Apple.

Samsung is itself the world’s biggest maker of DRAM chips and has counted on its own internal supply of memory chips for Galaxy series smartphones, but chips are in increasing demand, with price rising and supplies dwindling as more mobile device makers prepare to upgrade their flagship products by boosting memory storage capability.

Turning to SK Hynix means that Samsung can avoid supply disruptions for its Galaxy S4 smartphone, which is set the launch this month. Its predecessor, the Galaxy S3, ran into supply chain problems shortly after its launch, but in that case the components in question were parts like handset casings, not chips.

Ensuring that there are enough Galaxy S4 handsets to meet consumer demand is vital if Samsung wants to meet the upbeat sales forecast for the phone, which is seen as the main challenger to Apple’s iPhone. Jefferies analyst Peter Misek has written that Samsung plans to build 100 million Galaxy S4 units, and that the component and manufacturing needs for the Korean tech giant’s flagship smartphone may take resources away from the iPhone.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt today denied that there is any tension between his company and Samsung, the world’s biggest handset maker and the biggest OEM partner for Google’s Android mobile OS. “They have hundreds of millions of phones coming out on Android and I don’t think you will see much of a change there,” he said of the Korean handset maker, during an interview at the D:Dive Into Mobile conference. “Obviously we want to see competition but the Samsung relationship has turned out to be a defining one.”

During the last Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, there were reports, citing sources close to the matter, that Samsung’s size and “heft” were worrying Google. “We spend lots of time with Samsung and I can confirm that this is not correct,” Schmidt said today.

While Google played down its presence at in Barcelona in February compared to years before (no Schmidt, no Android stand, no pins), Samsung was near-ubiquitous, including stands in many of the exhibition halls and even in the subway station near the venue.

Schmidt’s comments came in the context of other questions about Android competitors, including the one now owned by Google itself, Motorola. On this he was predictably confident, but also realistic:

“Motorola has a new set of products I’ve seen that are phenomenal, but they are in a tough space… [but] what you see in this next generation of technology is very impressive,” he said.

Nevertheless, with companies like HTC struggling for critical mass on the platform, and more OEMs looking for ways of differentiating themselves with customized launchers (like Facebook Home) or forking altogether (as in the case of the Kindle Fire tablet from Amazon, or many “Android” handsets in Asia), there remains a question about how those Android handset makers who are not Samsung will eventually make decent margins on their hardware businesses.

When there’s a will, there’s a way, seemed to be Schmidt’s mantra.

“Those smartphone makers are capitalists,” he said. “I’m pretty sure they will all be making money. If you tell me there is a billion consumer opportunity people will make money on that, [just] in different ways.”

One way might be with aggressive pricing across a wide range devices.

Today’s the day. AT&T has officially put the Galaxy S 4 from Samsung up for pre-order on its website. For now, only the 16GB models in both black and white are available, and only in select areas.

AT&T will likely make more models available in the next few days as pre-orders ramp up. The 16GB model starts at $199 with a two-year contract. According to AT&T, the phone will ship on April 30, in two weeks.

The Galaxy S 4 is arguably one of the best Android phone made to date, alongside its fiercest competition the HTC One. Though its plastic-y exterior may turn you off, it has more than a few new software features to keep you excited.

Smart Pause, which stops playing video when the phone can’t detect you’re looking at it, and Air View, which lets you access extra information by hovering over a picture or email subject, are both worth it, in my opinion.

Plus, you can’t forget about that 440ppi 5-inch Super AMOLED display.

So, if you’ve been excited about the new Galaxy S 4 ever since that random little kid started singing and tap dancing on a Broadway stage (and Samsung made a fool of itself), head on over to AT&T and make it happen.

We’ve also heard that there are a few issues with ordering pages, so if at first you don’t succeed, you can hit refresh and try again.

If you happen to be a subscriber at T-Mobile or Verizon, a recently leaked internal memo hinted at release dates of May 1 and May 30, respectively.

Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission is investigating charges that Samsung paid students to attack rival HTC’s smartphones online. The South Korean tech giant could potentially face a fine of up to NTD $25 million ($835,000 USD) if the charges of false advertising are upheld.

Samsung’s Taiwanese agent allegedly hired students to write online articles attacking HTC and recommending Samsung handsets. In response, Samsung’s Taiwan office posted a note on its Facebook page apologizing for “any inconvenience and confusion” and saying it “has halted all Internet marketing such as posting articles on Web sites.”

This is not the first time that Samsung has been in hot water with the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission–back in January, it disclosed that it had been fined NTD $300,000 (about $10,389 USD) for an advertisement that featured “misleading” information about the Samsung Galaxy Y Duos GT-S6012. Samsung was charged with falsely stating in online and catalog advertisements that the phone has automatic focus and flash functions, which it doesn’t. And last fall, Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology (a joint venture of the two companies) was fined, along with several other companies, for fixing the prices of optical disc drives.

If the current crop of charges against Samsung are true, the tactics seem rather heavy-handed. According to IDC, Samsung currently has a 30.3 percent chunk of the global smartphone market, while HTC holds just a 4.6 percent slice. Despite rave reviews for the HTC One and the release of the HTC First Facebook Home phone, the Taiwanese company has struggled over the past year as its sales slumped, due in large part to the delayed release of the HTC One.

After showing off the international version of its pint-sized Galaxy Note 8.0 back at Mobile World Congress, Samsung is gearing up to launch its newest Note tablet in the U.S. in just a few days. Just days after the device went on sale in the UK, Samsung has announced that the WiFi-only 16GB Galaxy Note 8.0 will officially hit U.S. store shelves on April 11 complete with a $399 price tag.

I’ve only been playing with the Note 8.0 for a few days so I feel it’s still a little premature to pass judgment on it, but my impressions haven’t changed much since the last time we spent some time together — it seems just as snappy as expected thanks to the inclusion of a 1.6GHz Exynos 4 Quad processor and 2GB of RAM, and the peculiar voice call feature was stripped out of the Note 8.0 while it was being prepared for a stateside launch. Oh, and in case you were curious, the 5-megapixel rear and 3-megapixel front camera were just as lousy as I remember them being, so you’re probably much better off relying on your phone’s camera.

To be perfectly honest though, I’m a little unsure about the device’s size, especially when the 10.1-inch version felt like the perfect size to show off what the whole Note concept was truly capable of. Don’t get me wrong, it’s perfectly adequate for jotting down notes and expanding emails thanks to the S-Pen, but sketching out that Bulbasaur took much longer than I had hoped because my meaty mitts obscured much of the 8-inch, 1280×800 display. Your mileage is certainly going to vary on that front though, so don’t write this thing off immediately.

Perhaps the biggest bummer at this point is that there’s currently on word on if or when any other variants will make their domestic debuts: after all, 16GB of internal storage isn’t much to work with (though it’ll take up to a 64GB microSD card), and Samsung has already confirmed that it’s working on 3G/LTE versions of the device that carriers will sell down the road.

Apple’s trajectory in the U.S. smartphone market over the past little while has been an upwards one, with the company gaining more and more iPhone subscribers every month. During the three-month period covering November 2012 to February 2013, Apple added 8.9 million new iPhone subscribers according to comScore, while Android as a platform in total added only 2.9 million. That means Apple’s share of the total smartphone subscriber base in the U.S. grew to 38.9 percent from 35 percent, while Android’s dropped from 53.7 to 51.7 percent.

ComScore’s figures also show that in terms of smartphone manufacturers, Apple also continues to lead the pack. Its share among OEMs rose 3.9 percentage points during the three month period, while Samsung gained only 1 percent percentage point, rising from 20.3 percent of the U.S. market to 21.3 percent. That means Apple and the iPhone continue to enjoy almost double the smartphone manufacturer share of its next closest rival.

The loser in this case wasn’t either Apple or Samsung, however, both of whom gained subscribers and share, but BlackBerry, which as a platform shed 1.7 million subscribers in the U.S. between November and February. These numbers predate the launch of BB10, however, so we’ll have to watch to see if that helps BlackBerry stem the tide of users leaving.

Of course, both Google and Samsung stand to reap the benefits of upcoming device launches, which could help swing the pendulum back in their favor over the coming months. Samsung is on the verge of debuting its next-generation flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, with pre-orders beginning in just a couple of weeks. The HTC One is also coming to the U.S. market in mid-April, which could give Android as a platform additional firepower in terms of competing with iOS and the iPhone.

Apple’s success to date has been based on the strong performance of the iPhone 5 since launch, and that device seems to continue to be an attractive choice for U.S. subscribers. There still doesn’t appear to be much in the way of a true race for a third platform, however, with Microsoft and BlackBerry either actively losing share or seeing only insignificant gains. The market is now at a crucial juncture in terms of product releases, but the fight looks likely to continue to remain a two-party affair for the foreseeable future.

Samsung said that it expects to post first quarter operating profit of about 8.7 trillion won ($7.7 billion USD), up 53 percent from the 5.7 trillion won operating profit it earned a year earlier. The South Korean tech giant also said that its sales likely rose to between 51 trillion won and 53 trillion won from 45.3 trillion won a year earlier.

Sales of its more than 30 smartphones models helped increase shipments to a record high in the first quarter despite the post-holiday shopping slump that hit rival Apple. Five analysts cited by Reuters said that Samsung likely shipped 68 million to 70 million smartphones, up from 63 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. In comparison, iPhone shipments likely fell 30 percent to the 30 million range from 47.8 million in the fourth quarter, the analysts said.

Earnings have grown on sales of the Galaxy S and Note series, but analyst Lee Sun-tae of NH Investment & Securities told Reuters that Samsung will probably begin to rely increasingly on mid-tier handsets like the Rex and Galaxy Pop in order to keep momentum going in sales as competition in the high-end market ramps up. The lower-priced phones will also help the company, which currently manufactures more than 30 smartphone models, compete in emerging markets.

“The first quarter will be the bottom of its earnings cycle for this year, and things will only get better from here as it rolls out new mobile products,” said Lee.

Samsung has already enjoyed record breaking profits for five quarters in a row, but 42 analysts surveyed by Reuters said that the Galaxy S4, which will be released later this month, may boost earnings in this quarter up to an all-time high of 9.7 trillion won.

On the other hand, some analysts say the rising production cost of higher-end devices may chip into Samsung’s margins.

The Galaxy S4′s new features “could potentially put pressures on their overall smartphone margins. The big cost drivers are the improved HD resolution AMOLED touchscreen, quad-core applications processor and memory,” IHS iSuppli senior analyst Wayne Lam told the Wall Street Journal.

Samsung has thrown down another gauntlet in its battle with Apple. This time, the Korean electronics giant is going head-to-head with Apple stores by opening retail boutiques, called ‘Samsung Experience Shops,’ in 1,400 Best Buy locations by the beginning of June. Stores will start operating in all of Best Buy’s big-box stores by May 1 and at smaller stores by June 1, around the same time as the Galaxy S4′s release date in the second quarter of this year.

The new stores will join Samsung’s first prototype location in Lewisville, Texas. Samsung previously had no retail spaces of its own in the U.S. and its Best Buy stores are intended to help it grab customer eyeballs and dollars away from Apple and Microsoft’s own stores (Apple also has retail spaces in Best Buy). Each of Samsung’s boutiques will be about 460 square feet and offer Samsung smartphones, tablets, laptops, cameras, and accessories. The Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung’s spaces will be larger than Apple’s and allow customers to purchase Samsung items without having to go through the main checkout line.

Samsung hopes having its own boutique spaces will boost its brand recognition among U.S. customers and allow staffers to show how its smartphones, tablets, laptops, and TVs can work together, potentially boosting sales of devices. In turn, Best Buy may be able to gain an edge on competitors like Amazon.com, Wal-Mart and Target by offering boutiques where customers can see demos and try out products. Sales at Best Buy stores open for at least 14 months fell 2.9 percent last year, its third straight annual decline.