In news today, mobile tech giant Samsung revealed more details about the previously mentioned feature SideSync, which is a feature that will soon be available for the Samsung Galaxy S 4 (and perhaps other Galaxy S devices). In a nutshell, SideSync lets you use your phone through your computer – “Connecting the PC and the mobile as one.” From your computer, you have a digital version of your phone viewable on your desktop, and can copy and paste from either device to the other if you wish. It sounds like a totally cool idea – until you realize that this only works with a Samsung PC, according to Samsung's website.
I suppose it wouldn’t completely turn me away from the idea if I already had a Samsung PC, so all I would need to do is go out and purchase a Galaxy S 4 and voila! But since I currently use HP computers, this feature is completely useless to me. The feature itself is awesome – it’s convenient for a lot of situations. Leave your phone at home? That’s okay, your phone is on the computer! Too lazy to get up and walk across the room to answer the text your phone just received? That’s okay – your phone is on the computer! But at the same time, I’m not willing to go out and buy a brand new Samsung PC when my computer works just fine. The convenience doesn’t justify the means in the end, especially when there are other applications and software out there that are more versatile and can perform similar functionality; just maybe not as polished or integrated.
I often claim that I think Samsung’s features are gimmicky, and for the most part I still think that they are. But I read about this feature and I thought “You know, this is actually a feature that seems pretty cool.” This feature allows you to transfer data from your phone to your computer like photos, music, and other media and vis versa. It also lets you operate your phone from your computer, like texting and using applications. This seemed like a genuinely good feature that I could see a lot of people going for.
But it’s just that one aspect that’s blocking the road to becoming a truly successful feature: Almost nobody is going to run out and buy a Samsung PC simply for this software.
Now, I say that loosely because I’m sure there are computer wizards amongst us that can surely figure out a way to port this to other PC’s whether it’s Samsung made or not, so in the end it could still be a very successful feature with some work. But in the end if Samsung wants a bigger fan base for their phone and they want the customers to come to them for the software they're going to have to loosen the reigns a little when it comes to compatibility for the average computer user. Most average users aren’t going to want to deal with finding out if it’s even possible to run the software on another computer.
There are certainly other things going for the Galaxy S 4 that it has against its main competitor, the HTC One: you have the microSD card slot for one (although I’m fairly certain that’s only there considering how much internal storage TouchWiz takes up on the device, but nonetheless there), a removable battery, and yes, I will even mention that it has a lot of interesting features. However, when it comes to praise and glory the HTC One seems to have swept the floors clean with its design and new software. The Galaxy could use a little boost in the praise department given the scrutiny it has been under considering certain aspects of the device’s design. This feature could have been that boost if done right.
Fortunately, it seems like a fairly easy fix being that it’s only a software thing. All Samsung has to do is make the software available to other brands of PCs. I’m sure that won’t happen until they see the outcome of SideSync being available exclusively to Samsung’s PCs. I’m not terribly great at predicting trends as we have seen in the past, but I’m going to take another shot at it here and say that SideSync won’t be exclusively available for Samsung PCs only for long – and personally, that’s my hope. I really do think this feature is worthy of some praise and people with all types of PCs should be allowed to utilize the feature. C’mon, Sammy. Throw us a bone!
Readers, what are your thoughts on SideSync? Is it a feature that you’re interested in using? Would you go out and purchase a Samsung PC just to use the feature? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
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