Samsung responds to Apple's Continuity with its own cross-device 'Flow' feature

Posted:
in General Discussion edited November 2014
Samsung this week announced its answer to Apple's Continuity: a new cross-device sharing feature called "Flow," intended to allow users to move activities and content between Samsung smartphones, tablets, wearable devices, PCs, and more.




In a presentation at Samsung's developer conference in San Francisco, company Vice President of Research Pranav Mistry announced the new feature, which will enable users of Samsung's wide range of devices, including smart television, to finish watching a video from their phone on their tablet, or make edits to a document in the same way.

The feature works in a similar fashion to Apple's own "Continuity," a key component of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, both of which were announced at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Like Continuity, Flow will deliver alerts and notifications between devices, including text messages and phone calls.

Flow is split into three key functions: Transfer, Defer, and Notify:
  • Transfer allows the quick moving of content from one device to another, such as an image or a video.
  • Defer works in a similar way to Apple's "Handoff" in that it allows users to "pause" an activity, such as writing a document, and allows them to pick it up on another device.
  • Notify is simply the syncing of notifications across devices, allowing users to be alerted to text messages and phone calls on their tablet, smart watch, PC or even their television.


Android developers will be able to build the feature into their own apps, as Flow is said to be compatible with the operating system's standard "share or view" capabilities.

Samsung did not reveal a release date for Flow, but is currently holding sessions on the feature for developers during the conference.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 78

    They don't call them 'Samesung' for nothing.

  • Reply 2 of 78
    I'm sure it will all work flawlessly.
  • Reply 3 of 78
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member

    They also unveiled their new logo...

     

  • Reply 4 of 78
    droidftwdroidftw Posts: 1,009member
    Samsung just doesn't get it. Those who are okay with getting locked into proprietary ecosystems are going to choose Apple as Apple does it best. I can't think of a single person who would be okay with getting tied into a Samsung only ecosystem.
  • Reply 5 of 78
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member

    The huge flaw in this is that Samsung seems to believe that they are on-par with Apple's ecosystem compatibility.



    Samsung can't even get their own devices to work together seamlessly.  At the very least, it's laughable that Samsung believes they have a consumer-culture that worships any sort of all-Samsung environment.



    Samsung sells garbage.  Their software sucks.  Their quality is horrible.  They don't support any devices once they are sold.



    Is Samsung really that dense?

  • Reply 6 of 78
    Look at me! Look at me! I can do that too!
  • Reply 7 of 78
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by GTR View Post

     

    They also unveiled their new logo...

     




    Nah... only the bed-wetting Fandroids do.

  • Reply 8 of 78

    Apparently this is a rebrand of something they tried pushing to the market earlier with their Galaxy line. 

     

    However, here is the thing with Samsung - they throw so many things at the wall hoping that one sticks, they don't actually put the effort in (both engineering and marketing wise) until Apple comes to the market with an idea or system similar. If they offered the thought, the presentation and marketing, and the generally care for the features they bring to the market, they could be so much better. IMO they would have a much better standing with a lot of people - they've had some good ideas here and there. 

     

    But seriously, the investment & obsession with Apple is like an ex-girlfriend who just can't let it go.

  • Reply 9 of 78
    This will most likely be a very smooth process. Going from the various flavors of Android running on various flavors of hardware, connecting to various vendors of PCs running myriad Windows flavors shouldn't pose a problem at all.

    And even so, Apple's Handoff and Continuity aren't near being perfect, even running in a homogeneous landscape.
  • Reply 10 of 78
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    droidftw wrote: »
    Samsung just doesn't get it. Those who are okay with getting locked into proprietary ecosystems are going to choose Apple as Apple does it best. I can't think of a single person who would be okay with getting tied into a Samsung only ecosystem.

    What ecosystem do they have when they don't own any of the software? I would assume most Android users prefer Google apps and services to anything Samsung offers.
  • Reply 11 of 78
    saareksaarek Posts: 1,520member

    I wish them luck, I really do. I'm hoping that Apple brings the ability to move a mobile phone based call back from the Mac to the iPhone so that you can switch between the two devices mid conversation.

  • Reply 12 of 78
    snovasnova Posts: 1,281member

    Wait a minute... all they do is "notify" you of a call? You can't actually take or make the call unless you have the phone in hand???

     

    And what apps exactly are people supposed to have on their PC's which have also run on their Android phones and tablets? Let me see.

     

    Same Web Browser:?  maybe if it's Chrome, but they will need Google's help to target only Samsung phones.. somehow I doubt it. 

    Same Email Client ?? doubt it

    Same Word Processor ??   doubt it

    Same Spreadsheet ??? doubt it

    Same Presentation SW??? doubt it

    Same Calendar Client??? doubt it

     

     

    seem like a half baked solution to me unless they can get same apps on both PC and Android Phones and actually allow phones calls, not just notification.

     

    Microsoft has  better chance of throwing together an Apple competitor around this tech than Samsung because they have more of the pieces on both PC and Windows Mobile Phone.

  • Reply 13 of 78
    mactmact Posts: 26member

    Wow! This is absolutely amazing stuff. Where do they keep getting these great ideas?

  • Reply 14 of 78
    snova wrote: »
    Wait a minute... all they do is "notify" you of a call? You can't actually take or make the call unless you have the phone in hand???

    seem like a half baked solution to me unless they can get same apps on both PC and Android Phones and actually allow phones calls, not just notification.

    Samsung is only interested in Check Box features. They can say they have this "thing" and that's all they care about.

    They certainly aren't concerned with whether the "thing" is useful or not.

    And details? Who needs 'em.

    :)

    (I can't wait to see Samsung's TV commercials attempting to explain how great these features are...)
  • Reply 15 of 78
    snovasnova Posts: 1,281member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    My iPadAir1 and iPhone6+ don't seem to shake hands with continuity.

     

    I can switch from iPad to iPhone but never from iPhone to iPad ( never see the mail icon on the lock screen on my iPad)




    I had similar issue. I figured out in the end it was related to my Time Capsule - 802.11ac.  The fix was to give the 5Ghz network a separate SSID instead of having both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz advertise the same SSID name.

     

    Airplay was also messed up because of this problem between non Apple Airplay compatible devices and Macs, iPhone and iPad.  This solved my problem for Macs, iPhones,  however both my iPad Air and iPad 4's are still messed up and get see entire Airplay network. 

  • Reply 16 of 78
    Is Samsung's version going to work with their older tablets that have the proper hardware. I'm ticked off at Apple that my iPad 3 meets the hardware specs but doesn't have Continuity. I specifically got it for Bluetooth 4.0.
  • Reply 17 of 78
    idreyidrey Posts: 647member
    Yeap, samesungs think tank team is working really hard. Smh
  • Reply 18 of 78

    Flow?

     

    Really.

     

    Once upon a time I heard a woman tell another woman that she was having a "heavy flow" day and was going to ask for the day off from work.

     

    ... and that's the first thing I thought about when I saw this.

     

    (sorry, guys and gals...)

  • Reply 19 of 78
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,717member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post



    This will most likely be a very smooth process. Going from the various flavors of Android running on various flavors of hardware, connecting to various vendors of PCs running myriad Windows flavors shouldn't pose a problem at all.



    I was just about to post the same thing.  Another question: will it also work with Mac?

     

    So basically, they need to support a myriad of Android devices connecting with a myriad of PCs with various capabilities and Windows versions, as well as Macs.  What could go wrong?

  • Reply 20 of 78
    mj webmj web Posts: 918member
    Ugh! How do you say schweinhund in Korean?
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