Tag: Samsung Galaxy S8

Sprint has released the June Android Security Update on their network for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.  The updates are 250MB in size and mostly consist of the security update but also have a few other minor performance improvements too.  For the S8, you are looking for build G950USQU1AQFJ while the S8 Plus will be getting version G955USQU1AQFJ.  The update is rollin g out now and should hit all devices over the course of the next week.

Along with the security updates, there are fixes for the Find My Mobile app as well as an LTE Roaming fix and a SMS fix for “(/5)OK”.

After a delay of 3 months, Samsung Bixby is finally rolling out to the Galaxy S8 here in the United States and in South Korea.  The update to bring Bixby to the S8 devices and brings along all of the normal features of a personal assistant along with a few Samsung features too.

Bixby was heavily touted in the lead up to the launch of the Galaxy S8 but expectations fell well short when the device shipped without the assistant.  Indeed, the dedicated hardware button on the S8 phones for Bixby couldn’t even be remapped initially although some developers found ways around it – which Samsung kept knocking down.  Without remapping, you pretty much had a useless button on your phone until now.

While we are still a few weeks out from the Samsung Galaxy S8 being shipped and available, that doesn’t mean you can’t get the look of it on your phone today.  I’ve not received and posted on the wallpaper page 18 new wallpapers that will be shipping with the Galaxy S8.  This brings the total to 21 with the three that were released earlier.  All of these new wallpapers are in QHD so you can put them on any device or tablet and enjoy some of the great looks.

For those of you who are not interested, I’ve purposely posted them after the break so you don’t have to wait for them to load in your browser, your mobile or in the app.  Those who are interested, tap the headline and you will be able to see them and download them.

The news today that Microsoft will be selling the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ in their stores caught more than a few people by surprise.  The company, through multiple reboots, has tried for years to get their Windows Phone platform off the ground with limited success.  At the same time, they have been continually developing their suite of apps for both Android and iOS, appealing to both consumers and enterprises as being available on whatever device the end user wants to use.  It has worked.  Microsoft continues to be the dominant player in the enterprise with Office 365 and are taking their fair share in the consumer space at the same time.

But the addition of the new Galaxy S8 lineup to their store inventory is another step all together.  It is, more-or-less, an admission of defeat.  They know that the market is set between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android and that it simply cannot bear another mobile platform.  Consumers, and for that matter enterprises, have said as much with their wallets.  As this tale of woe has unfolded, much digital ink has been spilled on the lack of a Microsoft mobile strategy.  I, for one, think that is wrong.  I think Microsoft has had a mobile strategy all along.  It’s not about devices or even the platform.  It’s about the apps.