This seems somewhat common now. First Qualcomm's Kafkaesque E3 keynote, then the PS4 launch (which is seeming sane now), and now this. What goes through these people's heads when they put these things together? Do they have so little faith in their products that they think they need to outsource these things out to people more clueless than them? Or are all these ideas cooked up by some high up exec that everyone is afraid to defy? Or is it group think? I just don't understand how anyone could watch this ahead of time and think "this is perfect for our launch". Especially because I think the features of the new phone are actually pretty impressive. Just show those... like on a slide or small demo. That's all you need.
What was wrong with the PS4 launch? Except for the cool introduction video and a few minutes of the expected PR BS about the "Playstation experience" it was purely ordinary talk and demoes of the new features/games by the people in charge of them. It often got quite geeky at times actually.
I really enjoyed the PS4 launch, I was actually surprised at how little fluff there were. I really don't understand what you disliked with the launch, I think it was a really good example of how launches should be done in the future.
A lot of pundits bashed the PS4 launch for not showing the PS4.
I'm skeptical how big a deal it was because the kids I game with online couldn't stop talking about the PS4 that night and not one of them mentioned the "controversy" about not showing the PS4. If I was Sony and I inked a deal to get Blizzard games on my console I'd schedule an event the next week to tell the world about it. Huge coup.
They revealed the controller -- you know, the way you actually interact with the thing. They revealed some games, and some gameplay footage. They disclosed the specs of the hardware.
I fail to see why it mattered even a little bit if we saw what exciting variety of plastic block the console itself looks like. For the most part, it's meant to stay out of sight!
They literally have seven grown women on stage chirping over a calorie counter, eyefucking an actual topless man, making cheesecake jokes, and doing a lush mommy dance number.
Samsung is trying really hard to think of new stuff. The group play was acceptable (of use may be once a year) but making different phones part of a surround sound was absolutely ghastly. The only way to show it also has to horrible.
Lately, these events are a source of press and discussion. Now you've got articles centered around the phone and articles centered around the event. It's marketing.
It's showy, it's exaggerated, it's fun. Although I've preferred their previous events where they focus on the device, this one is being marketed towards being a personal companion, and with that comes a lot of personal demonstrations.
It's not classy, or maybe not as classy as they'd hoped. But it's launched now and people are talking about it. Maybe it wasn't so bad.
Now sis. This is a Tony award nominated stage director serving up ninety minutes of missed cues, DOA humor, tortured narratives, miserable dialogue, and energy-sapping bloat.
But whether it was supposed to be delightfully exaggerated or genuinely awful is besides the point: this shit disrespects the customer, pollutes an already diffuse brand message, and draws attention away from the product.
I liked some of the features of the new Galaxy S4, but this show put me off so much. They were trying SO hard to make it 'cool', but it was getting more and more awkward with every new scene. That's why at some point I just couldn't take any more of their 'humour' and turned it off.
I don't like Galaxy's look but I quite like some of its features and I think they should re-think their next presentation very carefully and try make it look less cheap.
Exactly, the whole presentation looked artificial to me. Like they were forcing themselves to be liked, instead of just being natural.
W.r.t the device - as I said, some nice features but I am not a big fan of plastic phones. It might sound funny, but I like that I can 'feel' my iPhone when I'm holding it.
I'm not the OP but I was in the show and was able to use them after it finished. Yes its a nice phone but in comparison with other phones out there (HTC One, Xperia Z, even the iPhone 5) the S4 looks cheap. Its the product of "lets see what we can stuff in there, the more the better".
The testing conditions weren't ideal but half of the features (translation, scrolling without touch, etc...) are still half-baked, or they definitely look like they are. And Touchwiz as UI seems really bad now that stock Android has become so appealing in design.
So yeah, its a really powerful phone with good potential ideas but the package, looked as a whole, looks cheap.
I couldn't help but think this as well. Intentionally bad or not, someone likely got paid an exorbitant amount of money to come up with this, and I'd have done it for half of whatever that amount was.
I just don't get this. There is no amount of production that is going to make me care about a phone, or any other type of tech, any more than I already do. If anything it makes me want it less. Stop trying so hard to make tech "exciting" for an hour.
Why can't Samsung release one penta-band UMTS version of each GSM phone?
Releasing an international version and several U.S. versions segments the market, slowing down 3rd party ROM development particularly for the U.S. versions. Carrier ROMs are bloated, non-standard android environments, and lag behind the latest version. That situation is unacceptable; no new Samsung Galaxy phones for me.
"Why can't Samsung release one penta-band UMTS version of each GSM phone?"
Presumably lack of demand.
"slowing down 3rd party ROM development particularly for the U.S. versions"
Not Samsung's problem.
"Carrier ROMs are bloated, non-standard android environments, and lag behind the latest version."
And there's a distinct class of devices that run stock Android. And in all likelihood this class will continue to be outsold by an order of magnitude by this device and its non-standard carrier ROM that lags behind the latest version.
Samsung's processors are not powerful enough for LTE, at least that has been the reasoning in the past. I'm guessing the new lower power Octa cant push LTE, and being that LTE is still pretty much a US thing we get different SoC.
Damn, the S4 packs a lot of really cool stuff, as someone who had finally lost the desire to upgrade phones, it made me pause (though really, my Galaxy Nexus with CM10.1 is faster than I need it to be). But this was just WOW-level embarrassing. And TouchWiz is still ugly, especially given how nice stock Android 4.2.2 and even Sense 5 is.
