SEOUL, Oct 5 — Samsung appears to be leading in the race to release the first folding smartphone, and the code for the Android 9.0 Pie reveals some solid clues about the upcoming device.
Android 9.0 Pie is starting to roll out on select devices, and developers from XDADevelopers dug into the Pie firmware and found files mentioning the foldable Galaxy F with the codename "Winner."
After the long series of Samsung announcements regarding this device, potentially retailing for US$2,000 (RM8,276) and expected to be released before the year's end, some confirmation finally appears to come from a slice of the Pie. According to the developers, “we can reasonably assume that the device will launch with Android Pie since configuration files for it appear only in the Android Pie framework files.”
Developers also located a policy file for a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8150 chipset in the same framework files, an unannounced chipset rumored to be Samsung's first with an NPU.
With this, Samsung will catch up to Apple and Huawei, whose recent phones already use a neural processing unit. Mostly likely, this chipset is for the upcoming Galaxy 10 and not the F, according to the experts.
At the Galaxy Note 9 press conference in August, Koh Dong-jin, Samsung's mobile business chief, was noted saying, “We don't want to lose the world's first title when it comes to a foldable phone... we are nearing the final stages.”
With other companies quickly bringing up the rear with their own folding smartphones — Huawei is threatening the release of its own in 2019 — Samsung may be soon running out of time. It remains to be seen if we get a slice of this Pie before the new year. — AFP-Relaxnews
