Galaxy S 4 coming in March 2013

The S3 has been a runaway success since its release at the start of the summer, and is about to go head-to-head with the iPhone 5 in the smartphone showdown of the year.
So we could hardly believe our eyes when reading a report from South Korea which claims the Galaxy S4 could be hitting the shops in the not-too-distant future. So what do we know about the Samsung Galaxy S4 so far?

Release Date
According to the report, the South Korean tech giant is planning to unveil the Galaxy S4 at MWC 2013 in February.
Not only that, but Samsung will release the device as early as March next year. It’s a bold claim given the usual yearly product cycle – the S3 is likely to still be selling well in March next year, and any new launch could damage sales.


Specs
According to the report, the S4 will have a larger 5-inch screen, with an HD AMOLED display that could possibly utilise Samsung’s flexible screen technology.
We’ll also see a quad-core Exynos processor, the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system as standard, and LTE capabilities.
The specs claims all sound very reasonable, and we’d expect to see some or all of these included. But that doesn’t mean this rumour is true by any stretch of the imagination.



Our main concern is with the launch date and location. After such a huge solo launch of the S3, Samsung is unlikely to revert to an MWC launch for what will be a very important product.
We also can’t see Samsung jumping the gun with the release. The yearly product cycle works, and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Then again, stranger things have happened in the tech world.


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Google Maps for iOS 6 set to be released by the end of 2012?

Google was blissfully unaware that its maps would be ditched in favour of Apple’s own offerings until the firm announced the news about iOS 6 Maps to the world. That’s according to the New York Times anyway.

But far from deterring Google, the search engine giant has remained confident in its maps prowess in the face of the Apple Maps app’s spectacular flop and is said to be readying an iOS 6 version of Google Maps, which could be released by the end of 2012.

Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, has said that Apple’s decision to dispense with Google Maps was far from a shrewd one.

“In my opinion it would have been better to retain our maps,”


Google Maps for iOS 6: Is it a done deal?

When questioned about a potential iOS 6 version of Google Maps, Schmidt said the company had not taken any action to bring Google Maps back to iOS 6.

Schmidt also put a question mark over whether Google would remain Apple’s search partner on the iPhone. He said:  “I’m not doing any predictions. We want them to be our partner. We welcome that. I’m not going to speculate at all what they’re going to do. They can answer that question as they see fit.”

With so much potential change afoot, the only thing that remains clear is that many disgruntled iOS 6 Maps users will welcome Google Maps back with open arms.