In 2010, Samsung launched the Galaxy S series, with innovative design and ease of use that has endeared consumers over the years and made Samsung the most popular smartphone brand in the world.

Through this decade, Samsung has pushed the limits of mobile technology and set standards for what the smartphone can – and should – be.

On the eve of the launch of the newest additions to the Galaxy family (Click here to know how you can watch Samsung Galaxy UNPACKED 2019), revealing an exciting future for the smartphone, let’s take a look at legacy of Galaxy S:

2010 – Hello, Smartphones!

Galaxy S was launched in 2010 with the first 4-inch (10 cm) 480×800 pixel Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display, a PowerVR graphics processor, Wi-Fi connectivity, a 5-megapixel primary camera and a 0.3-megapixel secondary front-facing camera.

2011 – Size Zero of Smartphones

With thickness of just 8.49mm, Galaxy SII was introduced as the size zero of smartphones. It was one of the first devices to offer a Mobile High-definition Link which allows up to 1080p uncompressed video output to an MHL enabled TV or to an MHL to HDMI adapter, while charging the device at the same time.

2012 – Bestselling Device of the Year

The Galaxy SIII was the first to have a HD screen. With this smartphone, Samsung launched Multi Window (Android 4.1), Ambient Light, Smart Stay, S Voice, and S Beam (NFC). It employed an intelligent personal assistant (S Voice), eye-tracking ability, and increased storage.

2013 – Sophisticated Software

Galaxy S4 focused on features like IR Blaster (phone could double as a universal remote), Smart Program, Smart Rotation, Smart Scroll, and Story Album. The phone’s ability was enhanced to detect a finger hovering over the screen. It also had an expanded eye tracking functionality.

2014 – High Resistance 

The fifth generation Galaxy S model brought fingerprint scanner on the home button and a heart rate sensor near the primary camera. Galaxy S5 was IP67 Dust and Water Resistant. The dust rating 6 is the highest level of protection, and the rating 7 in water resistance meant water-resistance up to 1 meter for up to 30 minutes.

2015 – New Curves! 

Samsung launched Galaxy S6 & S6 edge with unique Wireless Charging and Curved Edge Screen features. While wireless charging gave consumers more flexibility to charge their phones, Curved Edge Screen Display didn’t just offer them a gorgeous design but a brand new way to interact with their device with edge functionality.

2016 – Redefining the Phone Camera

Galaxy S7 and S7 edge were the first phones to offer a Dual Pixel Autofocus camera that ensured a great image quality regardless of lighting conditions.

2017 – Infinity Display

With Galaxy S8 and S8+, Samsung broke the monotony and raised the bar of smartphone design by introducing the stunning Infinity Display. It came with Samsung Pay for India.

2018 – New Audio & Augmented Reality Experience

Galaxy S9 & Galaxy S9+ came with industry first features such as Dolby Atmos Surround Sound, Dual Aperture, and AR Emoji etc, changing the smartphone experience.

2019 – The Future is Here

Now wait for the next Galaxy. Coming soon. It will open a world of new possibilities.

Checkout, what Samsung has in store for the future here:

https://news.samsung.com/in/the-future-what-we-create-today-lets-you-create-the-future

In the spirit of this approach, Samsung is launching its own brand campaign to kick off a year that will both celebrate the 10th anniversary of Galaxy smartphones and set the foundation for the next decade of new, innovative and groundbreaking products.

The campaign flips the carefree lyrics of the classic song on its head by juxtaposing them with Samsung’s bold leadership stance: What we create today empowers you to create the future. The campaign builds on Samsung’s “Do What You Can’t” philosophy in a video that highlights potential breakthrough technologies – including seamless multi-device experiences, artificial intelligence, and radical new displays – and teases Samsung’s 5G products and foldable display technology to be launched later this year.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, fashion designer or mobile gamer, Samsung is blazing the trail for change by bringing innovation to a wide variety of industries. Check out the video below to see how Samsung is reshaping the future for its users.

From presenting information to sharing stories online, multimedia has become the dominant tool of communication on smartphones over the past years. Case in point: the stunning pictures, inventive GIFs, and creative videos produced by Samsung’s new Galaxy S9/S9+’s camera capture emotions that are simply beyond words.

But the Galaxy S9/S9+ is taking it up a notch with an all-new variety of intelligent and personalized emojis, which means you may never want to send plain text messages again.

AR Emoji is designed to bring your unique facial expressions and add more fun to the emoji experience. But how did this AR-based feature come to life? Get a look behind Samsung’s lab doors for a close-up view.

01. The Problem

Regular emojis add more color to the conversation and are a fun way to communicate, but we recognized there are a lot of times when the existing set of emojis just don’t cut it. These lack personality – one smile looks no different from another. So we started looking for ways to bring out more character and personality in emojis.

02. The Goal

We thought in an ideal world, you would be able to teleport yourself and share how you feel with others then and there. So we wanted to come up with a way to replicate that experience but with the simplest tools possible, having seen so many people use messaging apps to communicate even with people right next to them and rely heavily on emojis rather than text. The focus quickly became how to create an image of the user and deliver multiple facial expressions and emotions along with that.

03. The Idea

To accomplish this, we decided to leverage the Galaxy S9/S9+’s camera technology. We thought, if users could take a selfie and transform it into a custom avatar and emoji, it would add something unique to the fun of communicating. In addition, we wanted to find a way to track people’s actual expressions so that they would have at their fingertips emojis that actually felt like their own. It was also important that we give users the best tools to express themselves however they want to look.

04. The Solution

The first step toward this was to use augmented reality to generate an avatar. With facial recognition technology, the Galaxy S9/S9+’s camera starts by producing an initial 3D rendering, using a data-based machine learning algorithm. Next, the camera analyzes the 2D image of the user and pulls information from its deep learning database to create the user’s facial features on the final 3D AR Emoji. To bring people’s unique expressions to life, we decided to include Face Tracking Technology, which tracks over 100 facial features and allows us to capture individual emotions on the spot.

In addition to this, Blend Shape technology helps deliver an even greater range of different facial expressions. Based on 75 basic facial expressions, Blend Shape allows us to reflect a wider set of user emotions by blending multiple expressions together. This is also the technology that has made our Disney emoji offerings possible. Another major step we took was to go through numerous sampling tests. From our labs, we conducted at least 100 tests on a weekly basis to make sure the new feature included enough data to appeal to users regardless of their tastes.

05. The Result

The end product of this is AR Emoji, which among other features offers a realistic or cartoon-like option for creating your own personalized My Emoji. We wanted to offer emojis that would be able to deliver the same emotions across the world and went through a lot of research to understand how certain emotions are categorized and expressed on a fundamental level. In addition to the variety of emotions, AR Emoji also comes with a lot of versatility, allowing you to create the 3D avatars, either as a GIF, video or PNG file.

Designed to make your every touch, tap and swipe on the phone more purposeful, Galaxy S9 and S9+’s intuitive UX seamlessly translates simple gestures into meaningful actions. Whether it’s realizing ideas floating around in your head or simply making your ride home from work more enjoyable, the smartphones are packed with features to help you experience and discover more.

Lock Screen and AOD

The lock screen is the part of the smartphone we interact with the most. It’s often one of the first things we see when we wake up and check throughout the day. Galaxy S9 and S9+’s lock screen features give you the best platform to tell your own story every day. With the video wallpaper function, you can customize the lock screen to play your favorite images to keep you inspired all day long. The feature even lets you transform your treasured Super Slow-mo videos into lock screen wallpapers. You can also try making the notification bars on the lock screen transparent to see all the things that matter to you more clearly.

Adjust the transparency of notifications in Lock Screen and Security under Settings

Whenever you need to read the time precisely, simply tap the clock on the lock screen and it will tell you the seconds as well as minutes and hours.

Change lock screen time format

Want to keep something that makes you smile close by? Pin one of 20 pre-loaded animated GIFs on your Always on Display so you can be greeted with a dash of delight whenever you check your phone.

How to pin animated GIFs on Always on Display

Edge

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to find an app quickly only to forget which folder it’s in. The Edge function on the Galaxy S9 and S9+ solves this problem by giving you the option to store your favorite apps and contacts on the side of the Super AMOLED screen. Samsung has improved the function to facilitate quicker access. Simply drag and drop an icon from Apps Edge to a designated box for a pop-up view. The Edge function on Galaxy S9 and S9+ also allows you to quickly reply to messages in a pop-up window.

Drag and drop icons from Apps Edge for pop-up view

You can now switch between Apps Edge, People Edge and Smart Select with a simple swipe. People Edge allows you to easily call or message your frequent contacts, while Smart Select lets you capture an area of your screen as an image or animation.

Swipe to access Apps Edge, People Edge, and Smart Select

App Pair

We’ve all been there. Switching back and forth between different documents and apps to gather all the information while writing an email on the go. The time spent navigating multiple apps could make writing a simple message feel like running a marathon. With App Pair on Galaxy S9 and S9+, you’ll never find yourself in such a situation again. With just one touch, the function launches two apps simultaneously in Multi-Window mode. You can even place the customized App Pair icon on the home screen to ensure easy access all the time.

Create App Pair icons with these simple steps and place App Pair icons on home screen for quick access

Landscape Mode

Most multimedia contents are best experienced in landscape on the smartphone. Using the entirety of the screen, the experience becomes more immersive. But switching from a video stream to other tasks can be cumbersome at times, as the home screen is usually fixed in portrait – until now. The home screen of Galaxy S9 and S9+ can rotate to landscape automatically, which means you don’t have to physically change the phone’s position whenever you transition between multimedia contents and other tasks.

Dedicated Fingerprint

Our phones often hold highly personal information. While it’s important to have such data locked away securely, efficient authentication is equally crucial. Galaxy S9 and S9+ strike the perfect balance between security and usability with Dedicated Fingerprint. The function lets you register two fingerprints to unlock the phone. Your normal fingerprint takes you to the home screen while your dedicated fingerprint gives you access to the Secure Folder directly from the lock screen.

Samsung has embraced this transformation in Galaxy S9/S9+ with a touch of Disney magic and GIPHY fun. With the roll-out of these all-new AR Emojis – and a range of other new messaging innovations – the Galaxy S9/S9+ makes chatting with friends more fun than ever before. Along with improved hardware, the AR Emojis have turned the camera into a dashboard that makes creating and remixing your shareable moments even easier.

Bring Disney Magic to Life

Have you ever wanted to meet the most famous mouse in the world? Samsung’s latest partnership with Disney is bringing your favorite characters to life with an all-new set of Disney-themed AR Emojis.

Users can now use Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, or Donald Duck AR Emojis by downloading the Disney characters from their camera and hitting record. The new Disney characters add to the variety of AR Emojis already available including your own personal My Emoji avatar and other cartoon characters.

AR Emojis use deep learning and facial recognition technology to map more than 100 facial features to produce a 3D replica, allowing users to create fun, customized messages to send to friends. So, whether you want to make your friends laugh as a silly rabbit, or tell them you love them as Mickey Mouse, there are more options than ever before on the Galaxy S9/S9+. Samsung and Disney plan to continue releasing more classic characters throughout the year, including favorites from The Incredibles, Frozen, and Zootopia.

Share More, Share Easier

Nothing captures a sarcastic quip or reaction like a good emoji or GIF. In fact, they are so good at capturing our emotions we send over 1 billion GIFs every day. With the Galaxy S9/S9+, Samsung has made them more customizable and shareable than ever before. The My Emoji feature automatically generates 18 emotions and saves them as custom stickers that are easily accessible from your Samsung Keyboard, along with other pre-loaded emojis and stickers. For now, there are 18 different custom stickers, but new updates will bring the total to 54. Since they use the AGIF format, you can share them with anyone, no matter what kind of smartphone they have.

Third-party applications also support My Emoji stickers through use of the Samsung Keyboard, so no matter the platform you use, you can send any of your custom emojis to friends and family. Besides the wide variety AR Emoji brings to your chats, Samsung has partnered with GIPHY so that sending your GIFs is even easier. So, if you’re just chatting with friends, or making a sarcastic quip to mom and dad, now you can send GIFs right from your Samsung Keyboard.

The new Samsung Keyboard features 30 categories of GIFs to choose from including happy, fun, thumbs up, and OMG. Whether you’re sassy, silly, or sarcastic, there is a GIF for you.

Choose from More Emojis Than Ever

While the Face with Tears of Joy may have captured the comedic highs and tragic lows of a generation, the time to update our emoji repertoire has come. Samsung has answered that call by adding more than 200 new emojis to the Samsung Keyboard.

In addition to the new emojis, Samsung has also opted for a redesign of the classic icons already available.

Whether you want to cheer up a friend, say “hello” to mom, or reach out to a lost connection, the Galaxy S9/S9+ brings you a plethora of options to express yourself, proving once again that it is built for the way we communicate today.