SamMobile Premium April giveaway winners

April is over, and we have selected the winners of the month’s SamMobile Premium giveaway! Samsung’s latest flagships, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, were once again part of the prizes last month, in addition to the Gear S2 classic smartwatch. Who got lucky? Well, here are the winners for April 2016!

• Galaxy S7 edge
  Username: nisamyoyo
  Country: Saudi Arabia
• Galaxy S7
  Username: boclaro2010
  Country: Puerto Rico
• Gear S2 Classic
  Username: wsmobile1125
  Country: Thailand

For May, we’ll be focusing on wearables, with Samsung’s Gear VR, Gear 360, and Gear S2 classic up for grabs. How do we choose the winners? We count all our Premium and Supporter subscription members and use random.org to pick the winners. Didn’t win this month? Well, there’s always a next time!

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Samsung Galaxy S5 Plus (SM-G901F) gets the Marshmallow update

Samsung took a long time bringing Marshmallow to its smartphones, but once the company kicked things off, it has made the update available to numerous devices in quick succession. The Galaxy S5 has seen the Marshmallow update in various markets over the last few weeks, and Samsung is now sending out the latest iteration of Android to the Galaxy S5 Plus.

For those that have forgotten, the Galaxy S5 Plus was launched as a more powerful variant of the regular Galaxy S5, featuring a Snapdragon 805 SoC instead of the Snapdragon 801. It got its Lollipop upgrade back in March last year, and unsurprisingly, the second major update has taken longer to arrive. Android 6.0.1 for the S5 Plus is currently rolling out in Germany, with build number G901FXXU1CPE1.

The update is available via Samsung Smart Switch and through our firmware section; it should also be rolling out over the air over the course of this week. You should be seeing a notification for the OTA, but if that doesn’t happen, don’t hesitate to hop into the Settings » About device » Software update menu and hit the Check now button to speed things up.

Firmware Details:

Model	SM-G901F
Model name	GALAXY S5
Country	Germany
Version	Android 6.0.1
Changelist	7582628
Build date	Tue, 03 May 2016 11:05:48 +0000
Product code	DBT
PDA	G901FXXU1CPE1
CSC	G901FDBT1CPE1

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Samsung creates a task force to develop chips for self-driving cars

Six months after creating a separate team for making automotive parts, Samsung has created a task force to develop chips for self-driving cars. The new group is said to have experts from the company’s chip division that designs processors and image sensors for cameras and TVs.

Samsung has made a big push towards connected appliances and connected cars in the recent months. Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology had said last month that it would hire researchers to develop autonomous vehicle technologies such as 3D mapping, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

The South Korean electronics giant is the sole supplier of batteries for BMW’s electric and plug-in hybrid cars. The company also recently secured to supply chips for Audi’s upcoming vehicles. The research center that is affiliated with Samsung is trying to make technologies that could be commercialized within five to ten years.

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FTC and FCC team up to look into slow and missing security updates for mobile devices

Users in the United States often have to wait for a very long time to get software and security updates on their mobile devices, most devices don’t come with a guarantee that they’ll even receive these updates, and this has got the regulators thinking now. The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have teamed up to look into the matter of slow and missing security updates for mobile devices.

Both regulators are now conducting separate but parallel inquiries into how important security updates are managed by mobile device makers. The FCC singles out the Stagefright vulnerability in Android as an example to show that important security patches are often not deployed by all manufacturers in a timely fashion. The regulators are worried that should the status quo prevail, older devices will be left behind and delays for devices that do receive security patches will be considerable. The FTC has ordered eight companies to provide information for the inquiry, the companies include Samsung, Motorola, LG, Microsoft, HTC, Google, Apple, and BlackBerry. The companies have been asked to provide data on how they decide whether or not to patch a device, it’s also interested in finding out if any of these companies have sold devices in the past few years that still have any unpatched vulnerabilities.

The industry did make a commitment to timely deploy security patches following the Stagefright saga after which Google started releasing monthly security patches for Android. Some OEMs, including Samsung, followed suit but there are still many OEMs that haven’t been deploying patches as quickly as they should be.

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Samsung launches the Galaxy S7 Asiana in South Korea

In a unique partnership, Samsung has teamed up with SK Telecom and Asiana Airlines to churn out a special edition of the Galaxy S7 in its home country. The company has unveiled the Galaxy S7 Asiana in South Korea. The new variant is exactly similar to the Galaxy S7 but comes with a special Asiana-themed UI, boot and shutdown animations, and a pre-loaded app that lets users search for Asiana flights and book tickets.

The company has also mentioned that Asiana customers can use their Asiana miles to discount the phone’s price even further. Those who buy the Galaxy S7 Asiana from the airline’s website would be eligible to receive a wireless charger and a 32GB microSD card for free. Samsung had launched an Iron Man-themed Galaxy S6 edge, Avengers-themed accessories for the Galaxy S6, and an Ant Man-themed Galaxy S6 edge+ last year.

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Samsung Galaxy J7 (2016) reaching T-Mobile shelves soon

A new leaked internal document has revealed the imminent arrival of the Galaxy J7 (2016) on T-Mobile’s network later this month. The document reveals that the handset will arrive on the 18th of May, meaning that we’re still more than a week away from its release.

This document is sent out to the T-Mobile team in order to prepare for the launch of the device. We can see instructions on how to showcase the features of the handset and prepare for the launch. So clearly, this comes directly from an internal T-Mobile source, making this legitimate information.

But as is the case with leaks, we can never be 100%, so we suggest you treat this as a leak until the carrier makes things official. The Galaxy J7 comes with a 5.5-inch 720p display, an octa-core 1.6 GHz Exynos 7870 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (expandable), a 13-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front camera with an LED flash, Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, and a 3,300 mAh battery.

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Samsung updates Good Lock, brings more customization control

Good Lock is one of those new projects by Samsung that you either love or hate, and its vanilla Android look and feel has some Samsung faithful uninstalling it. Others can’t get enough of Good Lock, but, either way, Samsung’s new project seems to produce polarizing thoughts about where Samsung is headed with it. Polarizing companies are loved when they’re hated and hated when they’re loved, and that seems to be the mark of good software and apps as well.

Samsung has updated Good Lock before, with the company bringing bug fixes to fix some earlier issues — even going so far as to add a card style recents menu (which was one of the sticky points of the app before the update). Now, just one month later, the Korean giant is back with a new Good Lock update that’s sure to give users even more customization over how they choose to rock Samsung’s new lock screen.

The latest update brings Good Lock to version 24.0.8 and lets you “delete all” in the card-style recents menu, enable or disable the app tray in recent apps, greater status icon visibility, adding Mobile Data in Quick Settings, and so on. Samsung has also fixed a number of problems pertaining to repeat low battery notifications, lock screen issues when in calls, Bluetooth battery performance, lock screen effect performance, and more. You can find the new update changelog below. Those who were wishing for a disable option so as to continue flirting with the new lock screen will be disappointed, however.

If you’re a huge fan of Good Lock and want to take the new update, head on over to the APK Download file below and get your taste of Samsung’s latest. Want to know what to expect before giving the new lock screen a spin? You can always read our Good Lock app review.

What do you think of the new changes? Love them or hate them? Have any ideas of your own?

APK download

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