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Samsung Music shutting up shop, 1st July deadline to download purchases

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TechRadar reports that Samsung is closing its Samsung Music Hub service on 1st July, with the company advising users to download all purchased content and use any vouchers before that date. Music Hub was based on a cloud-based system the company acquired when it purchased the Californian company mSpot.

The service was part of Samsung’s attempt to get into content sales, with the company having similar hubs for books, videos and apps. It’s not known whether those will also close. Samsung issued a somewhat confusing statement reading … 
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Review roundup: Samsung Galaxy S5 is very good, but perhaps not good enough

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The early reviews of the Samsung Galaxy S5 are in, and the general verdict appears to be that it’s a very good phone – but perhaps doesn’t offer any really persuasive reason to upgrade from the S4.

Re/Code took the view that the waterproofing was the only real standout feature.

I’ve been testing the new S5 for a couple of weeks, and I like it, though I didn’t find it especially exciting or novel. In every major hardware area, it’s a very good phone, with a sharp, gorgeous screen that, at 5.1 inches, is a teeny bit bigger than the five-inch display on last year’s model, the S4 […]

Overall, the Galaxy 5S is a very good phone, but not one compelling enough for me to recommend that you buy it to replace last year’s Galaxy or the current iPhone. But there’s one caveat: If you drop your phone in water a lot, you want this one …


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Report: Samsung says removal of Google’s universal search on UK Galaxy S III was ‘inadvertent’

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The blogosphere recently swelled with speculation as to why Samsung removed Google’s universal search function from its premiere Galaxy SIII smartphone, but a new report today revealed the ousting was simply “inadvertent.”

AndroidCentral first revealed the problem: 

  • There’s a new over-the-air update rolling out for the international Samsung Galaxy S III (aka Galaxy S3 GT-i9300) this evening. The OTA message identifies it as a “stability update,” but what it also does is remove local (on-device) search functionality in the phone’s built-in Google Search app. The new version — XXBLG6 — is a relatively recent build, having been cooked just a few days ago on Jul. 20. A new baseband version, XXLG6, is also included, but we haven’t noticed any other changes thus far.
  • Following legal action by Apple, which temporarily resulted in the Galaxy Nexus being banned in the U.S., Samsung has taken to pre-emptively disabling the ability to search within on-device data (like contacts and applications) on some U.S. Galaxy S3’s. However, the decision to kill local search on the unlocked international model — which isn’t sold in the U.S. — is a little perplexing, not least because Apple has yet to challenge Sammy over local search in the EU or UK, where the GT-i9300 is sold.

Samsung just confirmed to TechRadar, however, that the removal of search functionality on the U.K. version of the Galaxy S III had nothing to do with a legal action by Apple. The mysterious occurrence, which stopped the ability to search for files, contacts, and apps through the built-in Google Search widget, was apparently unintentional.

According to Samsung:

“The most recent software upgrade for the Galaxy S III in the UK included the inadvertent removal of the universal search function. Samsung will provide the correct software upgrade within the next few days.”

A new update will roll out over the next few days to fix the problem.


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