Samsung's 'FLOW' ties devices together like Apple's continuity

The keynote of Samsung Developer Conference 2014 was
a wide-ranging, 90-minute affair that touched on topics
as varied as smart homes, virtual reality, and health.
More traditional computing and smartphones were
largely put on the back burner, but Samsung did drop
some details about a new initiative to make moving
between the many devices we use ever day easier. It's
called Samsung Flow, and it's basically Samsung's take
on Apple's Continuity features that are now baked into
iOS and OS X Yosemite.
At its most basic level, Flow lets you move content and
activities between your Samsung devices, including
smartphones, tablets, computers, smartwatches, and
even TV sets. As explained by Samsung Vice President
of Research Pranav Mistry, Flow consists of three main
components. Transfer is pretty self-explanatory — if
you're viewing a picture or a video, you can shoot it
from your tablet to your phone with just a few taps.
Shooting pictures between devices is pretty basic, but
Samsung also showed this feature off with video calls —
if you're taking a video call on your tablet and need to
get more mobile, you can shoot it to your phone.
TRANSFER, DEFER, AND NOTIFY
The second major feature for Flow is called Defer. As its
name implies, Defer lets you pause an activity in
whatever state it happens to be and pick it up later, on
the same device or on another device if you so choose.
Samsung gave the example of someone working on a
spreadsheet or other work document on their phone and
then deferring it until they're back at their desk, working
on a standard computer. Another example was watching
a movie on a phone and then pausing and deferring it
until you're back at your TV, where it can pick up right
where you left off. It's not clear exactly how setup works
on a TV or computer, though — we're guessing that
Samsung will make a Flow app to communicate with
PCs, or it could even work through Chrome.
The last piece is Notify, which essentially lets you push
notifications and device status alerts across your
devices. Much as your iPhone can now ring your Mac
and iPad, Notify lets you see incoming calls across all
your devices (yes, even your TV), as well as any other
notifications you choose. It also shares device states, so
if your smartphone is running out of battery, your watch
or tablet can let you know.
NOTIFICATIONS BEING PUSHED TO YOUR TV — WHAT
COULD GO WRONG?
Samsung has built a pretty simple interface for
transferring stuff between devices — compatible apps
can pull up a simple dialog box that shows all of your
Samsung devices that are in range and capable of
working with Flow. Just tapping the destination will
send your content where you want it. And building it
into apps should be pretty straightforward — Mistry said
that any app that supports the standard Android share
or view intents will work with Flow. There's no word on
exactly how and when Flow will roll out, but Samsung
will be hosting some sessions on developing for Flow
over the course of the conference. Of course, Samsung
is far from the only company working on this type of
technology for Android — a company called NextBit is
trying to build software that essentially lets you hit
pause in your apps.
Via : The Verge