For all their faults in mobile, Sony can at least never take home the award for most gimmicky software. That honor instead goes to Samsung, makers of such amazing technology as Smart Control which

 uses the front camera to sense when you are looking at your device and it scrolls through content such as lists, webpages and messages based on the angle you hold the device or your head. 

Wait. What? You forgot about this amazing tech they’d introduced? No worries, as so did everyone else. Not to keep a good man down, with the introduction of the Galaxy S8, Samsung has yet another new feature they’d like the world to know about: Facial Recognition, which is meant to unlock your device.

Of course unsurprisingly, the tech not only doesn’t remotely work appropriately, but it in fact reduces your phone’s security as well. Now you could argue that this is beta software, but if true, and it certainly was announced as such, can you really get on the world stage and pitch it as a tentpole feature when your phone’s about to arrive in 3 weeks?

A statement from Samsung reads:

 The Galaxy S8 provides various levels of biometric authentication, with the highest level of authentication from the iris scanner and fingerprint reader. In addition, the Galaxy S8 provides users with multiple options to unlock their phones through both biometric security options, and convenient options such as swipe and facial recognition. 

And it wraps up with:

 It is important to reiterate that facial recognition, while convenient, can only be used for opening your Galaxy S8 and currently cannot be used to authenticate access to Samsung Pay or Secure Folder. 

In other words, we completely realize our software is garbage and highly insecure to allow access to payment options but other information on your device is up for grabs!

Also, why the hell can’t Samsung seem to design products that are aligned correctly? What you see below is the Galaxy S8 but for the whole history of unaligned ports which goes back generations is up on iMore and should be read.

It’s frankly a shame that Sony failed to capitalize on the Galaxy S7 fiasco and use the blunder as an opportunity to gain some mindshare among consumers as well as increased sales. Now the highly powerful XZ Premium isn’t launching till after the Galaxy S8 which I’m sure will sell nicely and Sony will be left wondering “what if?”