Samsung's latest software builds usually gives us a good idea about what Samsung is working on for its upcoming smartphones. The added strings, resources, and code give clues about future products, devices, and features here and there for bored nerds like me to find. For this year's H1 flagship devices, namely the Galaxy S11 (Galaxy S20?) series, we already found references to a high refresh rate display, several new camera modes, 108MP camera sensors, and more. At first, we found a few strings partially describing the new camera features, but after a few updates, we have some more information about these new features.
An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.
Keep in mind all the information below comes from official Samsung firmware. This information showed up in the Galaxy Note 9's official One UI 2.0 update that's rolling out now. These strings come from various system APKs which we decoded using APKTool. Software can prove to be a reliable source of leaks because these strings show the actual features that Samsung has spent time and money developing. Last year with the Galaxy S10, we found many of the camera features before the official launch of the phone. While we can't always know specifically which phones will launch with which features, most major and impressive-sounding features do tend to launch first with the Samsung flagships for the year.
Directors View
Directors View was one of the most exciting features we found in earlier copies of the Samsung Camera APK. We speculated this mode would allow you to record and swap between the different lenses on the Galaxy S20 as you were recording, similar to Filmic Pro on the iPhone. With an update from a newer One UI build, Samsung seems to have added new strings, and they prove that our guess was partly correct. It looks as though you will be able to select a subject to focus on and the Galaxy S20 will automatically track them. It will also allow you to get close up shots of a subject. This could be very good for recording interviews or cinematic shots.
Single Take Photo
We had previously found Single Take Photo as well, but in this newer update to the Samsung Camera app, we were able to find more information about the Single Take Photo mode. Single Take Photo is a new mode Samsung developed to use AI to take pictures and videos of any scene. This mode sounds very familiar to Google's Photobooth mode from the Google Pixel. Google's Photobooth mode will take pictures of you when it detects a smile, kiss, or other optimal moments. The idea is to always click the perfect photo by knowing what makes a photo good. Samsung is attempting to do something similar, though Samsung's mode will work on more than just selfies. It will let you pan around an environment to automatically take the best pictures.
Single Take Photo should turn out to be a useful mode for beginners to photography and for those that have difficulty in framing and timing their shots. Samsung actually worked on helping with this last year with Shot Suggestion on the Galaxy S10. It would guide you to take better shots, and it often makes the task easier. Single Take Photo could be automating that entire process.
Pro Video
By popular demand, Samsung seems to be bringing back Pro Video. In earlier Samsung phones, going to the Pro mode in the camera allowed you to take photos or videos with options selected in Pro mode. Sadly, with newer updates, Samsung removed that feature and limited Pro mode to just photos. Luckily, Samsung seems to have a new Pro video mode for the Galaxy S20 in the works. This will let you change the exposure, shutter speed, color tone, and ISO manually. In the normal video mode, these options are automatically chosen based on the scene you are recording.
Bokeh Effects
When Samsung introduced Live Focus with the Galaxy Note 8, they also introduced Live Focus effects. These allowed you to change the blurred lights in the background of a photo into a bunch of different shapes to give your photos personality. With the Galaxy S10, Samsung introduced new Live Focus effects such as Blur, Big circles (aka big bokeh), Color point, Spin, and Zoom. Samsung is also working on 4 new modes: Artify (yes, there's a typo in the strings shown below), Mono, Side light, and Vintage. The Glitch effect also shows up as a bokeh effect along with a Live Focus Video effect, so there is a chance it could be coming to the photography mode along with the video mode.
Galaxy Fold 2 Super Fast Charging
Unlike the previous features we mentioned, we have more than just strings to show here. There is a file titled "bloom_front_charging_effect_superfast," which is an animation file for the 2020 Galaxy Fold codenamed "bloom." This filename tells us that the next Galaxy Fold will support Super Fast Charging for a minimum of 25W fast charging or a maximum of 45W fast charging. This is good as the rumored battery capacity appears to be very small, with one of the batteries coming in at 900 mAh.
Galaxy Fold 2 Super Fast Charging Animation Preview
As I shared on my Twitter in late November and we've seen in live pictures of the device posted in Mid-December, the Galaxy Fold 2 will have a smaller front display. This display is used specifically for showing the time, date, battery, and charging status. The animation, as previewed above, will be visible through this small front display.
Battery Health
A feature that will be great for a lot of fans is battery health. In the Samsung Settings app, we have found strings referencing the ability to check the health of the battery of your phone. Apple actually has had this feature on their iPhones for a few years now, and it helps to know when your phone's battery is starting to show its age. This means you'll be able to know the right time to get your battery replaced. A feature like this can help reduce e-waste by encouraging repair over upgrades. This doesn't mean it will be easier to repair the devices yourself, but it does help to know when a repair is really needed.
We're expecting to see these and other features debuted on the Galaxy S20. Samsung is usually good at backporting new software features to older Galaxy phones, though, so it's likely we'll see some of these features show up in future software releases for the Galaxy Note 10, S10, and other phones.