Samsung's making it a habit to reward its customers with software updates around major holidays. It's as if these roll outs are meant to be a gift for them, something for them to enjoy and hopefully talk about with their loved ones as they take a bit of downtime to reconnect with friends and family.
One UI 5.1, last year's major update, was released as a Valentine's Day gift for more than 100 million users who had an eligible device. One UI 4.1 was released for a similarly large user base over Easter 2022. One UI 4.0, which also brought the much-awaited Android 12, became the perfect Christmas gift when it was released on December 30, 2021.
Now, during the Easter week in 2024, Samsung has gone ahead and released One UI 6.1 for more than 100 million people across the globe. It originally shipped with the Galaxy S24 series and has since been expanded to the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy Tab S9 series, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5, as well as the Galaxy S23 FE.
One UI 6.1 brings Galaxy AI to Samsung's lineup. Introduced with the Galaxy S24, this suite of artificial intelligence-powered features is now going to be central to Samsung's software experience. It brings some very useful features to the eligible devices. Live Translate for phone calls is particularly useful when you're traveling and need to communicate in a foreign language. Circle to Search is another great feature for quickly looking up things online by drawing on whatever's on your screen.
Galaxy AI also brings the ability to make slow-motion videos from any video clip in addition to allowing users to edit photos like never before by moving, removing, and rotating objects and people in photos. Watch in awe as Galaxy AI fills in the image with new pixels it generates to give more substance to your images. From generative wallpapers to smart summaries in Samsung Notes and Internet to Chat Assist in Samsung keyboard, Galaxy AI enables users to interact with their devices in new and exciting ways.
iPhone users were understandably a bit jealous when Samsung unveiled all of these features for the Galaxy S24 a couple of weeks ago. The new flagship has cemented itself as the AI Phone, prompting a rare declaration from Apple that it's also working on generative AI features, essentially giving iPhone fans who may be considering a switch an assurance that they won't be off the AI bandwagon for much longer.
The iPhone doesn't have any feature that can match what Galaxy AI can help you achieve on a Samsung device right now. To add insult to injury, Samsung has quickly released these artificial intelligence-powered features to flagships that are over a year old. The Galaxy S23 series came out about six months before the most latest iPhone, and yet, it has AI capabilities that the iPhone can only dream of right now. Galaxy AI is even on the Galaxy S23 FE, a phone that's not even in the proper flagship category.
If you were to just contextualize this with the Galaxy S23 series proper, which has sold more than 25 million units globally since its launch last year, there are now more than 25 million phones on the market that can do what the iPhone can't, and we're not even counting the millions of Galaxy S24 units that have shipped and are shipping with all of these features out of the box.
As Samsung users whip out their Galaxy AI devices at get-togethers over the Easter weekend and show all of its cool features, it's understandable that iPhone users will feel jealous and a bit of FOMO, because they may have to wait until the new iPhone comes out this year to experience AI on their devices. Even then they would either have to buy the new device or wait until Apple releases a software update that brings all of those features to existing devices, that may take an additional few weeks or months.
This was a particularly smart move from Samsung, to essentially dominate the AI conversation over this holiday period. Everyone and their dog has been talking about artificial intelligence recently so it's highly likely that conversations would shift to this topic at some point, likely prompting some Galaxy users to showcase all the incredible things they can do on their device with Galaxy AI, while iPhone owners can only watch on in envy.
Samsung is fully committed to AI and is laser-focused on utilizing it to enrich users' lives. That's what we understood in an interview with Nick Porter, Samsung's Vice President of Mobile eXperience for Europe, who highlighted that Samsung considers AI to be the future of technology and that the company will continue to listen to its consumers and their feedback to build new experiences.
So while there's no confirmation of new ÅI features as yet, it goes without saying that Samsung may already be working on the next round of Galaxy AI features, and perhaps we may see them being introduced with the new foldable devices that are due in the next couple of months. That's going to look particularly bad for the iPhone, as Samsung would not only have released AI features for an entire previous generation of phones, but it would have also moved on to the next-generation of AI features, whereas the iPhone will be waiting for its first generation of AI capabilities.
We mentioned at the very beginning of this year that Samsung has left Apple far behind in the AI smartphone race. This comes as a major benefit for Galaxy device owners as they have access to experiences and features that are unmatched and unrivaled. Samsung understands that maintaining this edge is necessary to support and grow sales of flagship phones, which have lagged in recent years. This, coupled with Samsung's relentless push in the foldables segment, places the company in a unique position to showcase both its hardware and software capabilities against Apple, which is quickly being perceived as perhaps resting on its laurels a bit too much. Schadenfreude, anyone?
