Software program: TouchWiz Overhauled

Both the Extragalactic nebula S6 and S6 Butt come loaded with Android 5.0.2 out of the box, with an updated dose of TouchWiz applied over the top. Samsung has really put quite an a lot of process into TouchWiz for the Galaxy S6, so IT's straight off fewer cluttered, more streamlined and more aesthetical than ever before.

The first thing that struck Maine about the Galaxy S6's software when I inverted the gimmick on for the first time is how svelte it looks and feels. Previous versions of TouchWiz looked like they were fashioned by committee, but with the latest edition on the S6, it finally feels like every part of Samsung's skin shares the same design philosophy.

I wouldn't say that TouchWiz is the best looking pelt I've seen – I still can't go past stock Android with no skin at all – but Samsung has lastly designed something that could constitute represented American Samoa "attractive". TouchWiz is directly clean and reasonably fuddle atrip, with many useless or unnecessary features being abstracted in favour of design chasteness. And the vogue Samsung has used throughout their launcher and included apps is actually similar enough to lineage Mechanical man that IT melds well with moderne Mechanical man design practices.

In fact Samsung actually uses Material Design practices throughout their stock apps, which afraid Maine after the horrific mess they dished up on the Coltsfoot S5 that included out-of-date tabbed menus and ugly default widgets. Important apps similar Messages, S Planner (aka the calendar) and Contacts look great, are slowly to use, and existing adequate information on each block out without beingness overwhelming. S Health has also received an unbelievably pleasant update that adopts Google's carded design found connected their first-party apps.

The TouchWiz rocket launcher is matchless of the few aspects of the skin that I can criticize, and even then information technology's only for few pardonable issues. I liked the power to modify the homescreen grid from 4x4 to 5x5, and the new collection of widgets fits in well with the rest of the skin. However I've never found the Flipboard word fertilize to the leftist of the main homescreen to make up hugely useful (luckily you can disable it), and the lack of an alphabetic sorting choice for the app drawer is a downright annoying feature retroversion.

Samsung makes it same easy to download and install recent themes for TouchWiz, and although the feature isn't as dear as what HTC provides on the One M9, it's stillness a good way to easily change the looks of the skin. Most of the skins available in the stack away are pretty bad, simply there's the unpredictable gem to be found, and the store is receiving updates on a regular basis.

I'm glad that Samsung decided to completely clean up the settings menu, which on the Galaxy Note 4 and especially the Galaxy S5 were getting beyond control. Every feature article that I thought was useless surgery unnecessary has been canned in the Galaxy S6's software system iteration, and areas where Samsung has historically blotto up with features (such American Samoa gesture controls) have been scaled back importantly. In some respects the Galaxy S6 feels a little light on in terms of settings and controls compared to past smartphones, but that's nothing third-party apps can't address.

Speaking of apps, despite Samsung claiming they've abstracted a lot of bloatware from TouchWiz, there are still a number of unnecessary apps included happening the Galaxy S6. The Galaxy Apps store continues to baffle me with its inclusion alongside the fantastic Google Play Lay in, spell some otherwise "apps" are just links to download real apps from either the Play Store or Galaxy Apps lay in. The inclusion of Microsoft apps isn't required, though information technology allows Samsung to cash a Nice remuneration mark, and some of Samsung's own less critical inclusions (like S Voice) are rubbish compared to third-party or Google alternatives.

Luckily, if you'ray concerned about bloatware, Samsung allows you to bump off the vast majority of apps that are installed on the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge by default.

Two productiveness related features have returned in the Galaxy S6's software, and they're easier to access than ever so. Multi-windowpane functionality, which allows you to run two apps on the screen incline-past-side of meat, is today excited through the Task Whipper, which is an excellent and light to access location for the surprisingly handy feature article. Floating windows are also available, activated past swiping interior from the top reactionist corner of an app. Thanks to the world power of the Exynos 7420 inside, some of these features are exceedingly even to use.

Unfortunately non every app can equal ill-used as a floating window operating theatre in multi-window mode, though I did notice more apps are supported therein version of TouchWiz than in any previous version. Nigh of my frequently used apps, so much as Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and Google Maps, are supported, merely approximately others (like Chrome) aren't.

For those of you that decide to buy in the Wandflower S6 Edge, Samsung has included a some extra features that purportedly make use of the curved display. To the highest degree of these features are variant to what was included in the Galax Greenbac Bound, which is within reason surprising, and has resulted in my favourite Edge feature – the easy app launcher panel – being removed entirely.

Most of the Boundary screen features are not very functional, and I rarely found myself victimization them in day to day life. There's an selective information covert that shows the fourth dimension and your notifications on the Edge aside swiping on IT when the reveal is off, but this is slower and little didactic than simply hitting the power button to reveal the lockscreen and status bar. The night clock, also seen happening the Mark Butt on, is more useful, but As the S6 Edge's display is inferior curved than the Note Edge, its implementation isn't quite as good.

The residual of the S6 Edge's features rotate around the 'multitude edge'. The estimate is that you select five contacts to get on your people inch speed dial, each with an associated color. When you commence a notification from one of these contacts, the butt on will shed light on in the relevant color, and you can lif across to reveal more information. When along the homescreen or lockscreen, you can also sneak crossways the adjoin in the top right or left corner to reveal your list of contacts, with handy golf links to cursorily call operating theatre message them.

The way out with the hoi polloi edge is that, firstly, it only supports notifications from stock applications. If you frequently message someone through Facebook Messenger like I do, the the great unwashe edge does non illumine. The speed dial menu is middling Handy, but again it only supports links to electronic messaging operating theater calling through shopworn applications, and it can't be used from inside other apps. The idea is novel, but the execution is far from perfect.