In fact, the lock screen is where Samsung's new "intelligent" smartphone starts showing its gesture antics -- part of its "designed for humans" mantra.
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Generally, these manufacturer skins exist with the claimed goal of enhancing the platform's stock functionality, but we actually found a case on the Epic where the opposite is true: the phone's lock screen consists of a circle in the center of the screen that you drag up to unlock... and that's it.
The app can run in the background, and your lock screen wallpaper even turns into the current navigation step, so you won't be tempted to touch your phone and unlock the screen.
It requires the information ticker to be active (found in lock screen settings) so news bites and such are displayed on the screen you encounter when waking the device.
The chromed plastic volume rocker, power button and screen orientation lock switch nestled in the plastic radio reception strip at the top of the device are decidedly less luxurious, however -- the travel of each was shallow, and the finish on the plastic appeared a bit cheap to our eyes.
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It takes less than one second to launch the camera from the lock screen and the camera's autofocus locks in on your subject in under a second, to take nearly unlimited continuous shots simply by holding the shutter button.
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Samsung's likely aware of the bug already and when quizzed about the Note II vulnerability, said a fix for lock screen issues on affected "Galaxy devices" was in the works (read: they didn't say the Note II specifically).
Dont need widgets.. but I would love to see folders in the future, and maybe custom short cuts on the lock screen.
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And its lock-screen album art came in handy once or twice when I wanted to know the name of the podcast I was hearing in a quick glance.
The Galaxy S II's lock screen won't offer the same hotbed of activity that you might find in HTC's new Sense 3.0, but it does come with some pretty awesome functionality of its own.
Case in point: I was able to unlock the phone by holding a photo of my face up to its lock screen.
With Siri, someone can inquire about what's playing in theaters nearby, navigate to that theater using Apple's Maps app and present the ticket stub from the lock screen, all invoking Apple's app working with its selected partners.
So instead of the lock screen, you'll see Cover Feed, which is essentially Facebook's Newsfeed presented in a highly visual format.
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