When you buy a tool, let’s say a hammer, you don’t care if a better hammer comes out a few weeks later since both hammers do exactly the same thing. They bang nails into the wall. Phones however are a different story. When you buy a phone you’re not just buying a battery powered lump of plastic and glass, you’re buying into an ecosystem. You know your device will do X, Y, and Z out of the box, but you buy a smartphone expecting it to be open to new experiences if you invest enough time browsing for applications or asking your friends how to make the best use out of your new toy.
One month ago Samsung started shipping their 2012 flagship device, the Galaxy S III. They knew, along with everyone else, that a new version of Android was going to get released this year. According to The Verge, the reason that the launch of the American Galaxy S III has been delayed so many times is because Samsung wanted to make sure that their devices are “future proof”. So what exactly did they do to the Yankee variants? They shoved 2 GB of RAM inside. Why? Because their engineers weren’t “100% sure” what sort of hardware was going to be required to run Jelly Bean.
It’s an interesting story, but this writer doesn’t buy it. Samsung is, for all intents and purposes, the main company that’s driving Android at the moment. If their engineers weren’t told how much RAM they’ll need to put inside a device to run Jelly Bean, then what does that tell you about how the two companies interact? Also, Samsung doesn’t want to admit it, but they see Europe and Asia as more attractive markets. They don’t like having to deal with America’s operators, especially when they have to swap out their Exynos processor for a Qualcomm Snapdragon.
And hey, “future proof”, really? Something tells us this is a PR piece.