Samsung blocks S-Voice feature on non-Galaxy S III devices

When Apple launched the iPhone 4S, the highlighted feature of the smartphone was the voice recognition assistant, Siri. However, unlike most Apple features, this software was available only for the iPhone 4S and not for any other of their iOS devices. The new iPad, though has been an exception, since Siri features on it. Recently Samsung showed off the Galaxy S III and like its Cupertino rival, the brand too, has equipped a voice recognition software with the feature called S-Voice, which of course is one of the highlighted features of this yet to be launched handset. Like in the case of Apple, wherein developers began dishing out this software to other iOS devices via a jailbreak, Samsung too is facing a dilemma where developers at XDA forums(http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=26300180#post26300180) have offered S-Voice to other Android devices running Google’s latest operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich. It seems that this feat has not gone down too well with the folks at Samsung and they have now blocked this service from being used on any other device, except on the Galaxy S III.

As per a report by TNW, “The S-Voice APK, which contained services that were exclusive to the Galaxy S III, allowed owners of other Ice Cream Sandwich-powered smartphones to install Samsung’s new voice assistant (its Siri rival) and perform commands on their devices. It appears that in the last 24 hours, Samsung (and it’s partner Vlingo, the technology behind the voice functions) have begun detecting requests from non-supported devices and blocking them, displaying the message: ”Network Error. Please Try Again.”

A post by an XDA member provides details about the script that is sent from Android devices to Vlingo servers and states that when they try accessing this feature on a handset other than the Galaxy S III, they receive the message which states,
63.116.58.58 10.8.0.1 HTTP 340 HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
Expert Info (Chat/Sequence): HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
404

The report by TNW goes on to state, “By sending a string of data that identifies the device generating the requests, Vlingo can proactively block any device that shouldn’t have access to S-Voice. However, this does mean that it could be possible to spoof the device ID of an unsupported device, fooling Vlingo into processing requests again.”

It appears that Samsung wants the S-Voice feature to be exclusive to their Galaxy S III smartphone. The brand has added a lot to the feature set of this handset, hence they aim to keep this new feature exclusive to this device only and do not want it shared on other Android Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Let us know your thoughts on Samsung blocking S-Voice from other Android handsets in the comments section below.