<p> <i> 20.06 pm </i> Android Circuit: Supercharged

 Galaxy S6 Active Leaks, Android 5.1 And

 Bloatware, Google Attacks iOS

Taking a look back at the week’s news across the Android world, this week’s Android Circuit highlights a number of stories including the cost of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, pre-orders for Samsung’s new phones, the S6 Active leaks, the release of Android 5.1 by Google and 5.0 by Sony, Android Wear’s new features, the Chromebook Pixel’s USB-C update, Google Calendar on iOS, and the upcoming rise of bloatware on Android.

Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many things that have happened around Android over the last seven days 

How Much For The Galaxy S6?

Samsung’s Galaxy S6 (and to a certain extent the Galaxy S6 Edge) continues to dominate the Android news. Ahead of its public availability in April, Forbes’ Gordon Kelly has been looking at the potential price of the handset. While subsidised costs will probably sees the handset available for $199, the true price is much higher and it feels like a bad piece of strategy:

Let’s face facts, the Galaxy S6 Edge is really the model most potential buyers would rather own. The problem is the S6 Edge is reported to cost up to $150 more than the standard Galaxy S6 in the same capacity. This could really hamstring the phone and make it a niche option when it deserves to be a mass market game changer.

The result would be $849 for a 32GB Galaxy S6 Edge, the same price as a 64GB iPhone 6 Plus (…Samsung is currently only listing 64GB and 128GB models of the Edge – an even greater risk). For those committed to Android or dead against owning a phablet this may still be acceptable, but it seems unlikely to tempt the iOS masses which surely has to be Samsung’s goal with this phone.

Samsung needs to get as much profit out of the S6 family as possible, but I wonder if the South Korean company is being too greedy here?

Galaxy S6 Preorders Top Twenty Million

The good news for Samsung is that the pre-orders for the two S6 branded handsets have topped twenty million units. While that does not guarantee all of those handsets will be sold, it’s a higher demand than the S4 or the S5 saw in the first few weeks of retail life:

The Korea Times, puts some numbers onto that phrase, with a reported fifteen million Galaxy S6 units and five million Galaxy S6 Edge units pre-ordered by mobile carriers across the world. With those numbers, the Galaxy S6 would not only be outselling the Galaxy S5′s initial run, but also that of the Galaxy S4. This is exactly what the leading Android manufacturer needs to be doing. It needs to sell the S6 family of handsets in these vast quantities to build up the income and profit of the division, which saw profits crash by 60% last year.

There are obvious caveats here, but it appears that Samsung has given the S6 family the best start in life after its launch at Mobile World Congress. 

How About A Waterproof Galaxy S6?

Meanwhile the next major handset to be released by Samsung has already leaked. The Galaxy S6 Active will ‘toughen’ the standard S6, and Gordon Kelly thinks it could be the best Galaxy S6 out there:

The exciting bit though is the Galaxy S6 Active will be both waterproof and feature a much larger 3500mAh battery. The former will be welcomed while the latter – if accurate – dwarfs the 2550mAh battery in the Galaxy S6 and is even more capacious than the 3220mAh batteries found in the Galaxy Note 4 and Nexus 6. In fact it should put to bed any need for a removable battery… As such the Galaxy S6 Active will – perhaps by chance – become the phone many hardcore Samsung fans wanted: a small sacrifice in dimensions for much greater practicality.

Android 5.1 Released…

Android 5.1 has been announced by Google, with a vast number of undisclosed bug-fixes, as well as some new functionality. Forbes’ Jay MacGregor has taken a closer look at the new version of Android:

Android 5.1 has already been rolled out to entry-level Android One devices in developing markets (although it was never directly confirmed), and now Google has officially launched the update to everyone else.  The new software will include some needed bug fixes, support for multiple SIM cards, HD Voice, Device Protection and the addition of new Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings in the drop down menu.

The new features make a welcome addition to Android, but many will be left wondering about the underlying bugs that remain in the system.

…While Sony Finally Gets 5.0

Of course the public might have to wait some time before they can check out Android 5.1. Sony has illustrated the problem quite nicely with next week’s release of Android 5.0 for the top end Xperia handsets (Z2, Z3 and Z3c) some ten months after the announcement of Android 5.0. I cover the story on Forbes, here, and note that Google should be doing a far better job of supporting the manufacturers and consumers:

 The fractured nature of the operating system, the number of parties involved at every stage of the process, and all of them contributing together to provide the best possible service to the consumers. The worst of it is that there’s no real ‘blame’ to go around, this is simply the system that has built up over time since the rise of the mobile phone in the late twentieth century.

While there is no blame, there should be a better way to approach operating system upgrades in the twenty-first century.

There’s no word from Sony on the timetable for Android 5.1, or even the small bug-fix of Android 5.0.1.</p>