We knew when the Galaxy TabPRO and Galaxy NotePRO tablets were announced that we were in for a redesign of Touchwiz. As those tablets interface looked nothing like the Touchwiz we saw on the Galaxy Note 3 or the Galaxy S4 last year. Then we also heard yesterday that Google is strong-arming Samsung into getting rid of the “storage-clogging and battery draining” apps on their future devices, in addition to using a more “pure Android experience”. Which made plenty of people happy, especially when Samsung answered back said they agreed to do it.
Now Sammobile has leaked out a screenshot of the redesigned S Voice app, which looks quite familiar. I’d say it looks a lot like iOS 7, but many people shouldn’t be surprised as Samsung has been accused of copying Apple for quite some time and even wrote a secret 132-page guide that would help engineers copy Apple’s iPhone interface. Pretty crazy, right? The first thing you’ll notice about the new S Voice app is that it’s flatter. Like iOS 7. But then again, we know that software developers “borrow” aspects from other OS all the time. For example the notification center in iOS looks a lot like the notification pull down in Android. Then the app switcher in iOS 7 was “borrowed” from the old webOS.
This new version of S Voice will probably debut with the Galaxy S5, and likely be available in the KitKat update for the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, and perhaps even the Galaxy Note 2 and Galaxy S3. It does look much nicer than the older S Voice which is on the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, it was definitely time for a refresh of S Voice and Touchwiz overall. As the Gingerbread look was getting a bit stale, not to mention it was using Gingerbread resources still which was bogging down the device.
Who’s excited for the new version of Touchwiz? Let us know in the comments below.