Samsung seems to be integrating a feature just like the BlackBerry Hub in its Galaxy Note 6. BlackBerry is still struggling in the mobile industry, and it might never make it in back on the market with a bang again, but the company made one good decision with the BlackBerry Hub. It was one of the best features of the company’s heavy operating system.
The BlackBerry Hub acted as a communication channel for BlackBerry users, and it helped with the integration of email services, together with social networks and instant message services. This helped give users a centrally based location which was vital to their access and response to any incoming messages, and also, manage other things such as calendar invites and so much more.
The feature for Samsung on the Galaxy Note 6 is going to be called Samsung Focus. The feature will include functions of email services, calendar, contacts and memos. The company plans to make the email integration one of the best features of the Samsung Focus feature. The emails will be taken from various accounts, just as the Google’s Inbox app and many of the email services on the market. Whether the feature will only work with the Android’s default mail app at the moment is unclear, especially since the app went defunct after Android Version 5.0.
The main screen of the Samsung Focus feature will contain all the important events to the user. A list of things to come, things that are happening at that moment and even some things which have already passed. An example is that you can see a meeting with one of your friends for later on in the day and maybe see an email sent by the same contact over the past few days. Users can also create memo entries from the Hub for reminders, and can create calendar entries and also manage invites from the Hub. One dedicated contacts page also puts all things received and sent to one contact under one list. Another option lets users mark priority contacts as such and also set priority notifications for any manually selected keywords.
Samsung Focus has a clean interface and looks very modern. Whether the same interface shown right now will be the one that will be used in the final version is unclear yet, but it does look better than most apps Samsung have built so far. They also tried to abide by Google’s Material Design guidelines and there is no sign of any experimentation in relation to the Good Lock lock screen alternative that the company launched earlier this year.
The new Samsung Focus might mean the company is now doing away with the individual Calendar, Email, and Contacts apps, but most people think not. The app is likely to be made available to devices that come after the Galaxy Note 6 including the Note 6 itself.
