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Will Samsung S4 Beat Apple's iPhone To Become The U.S.' First Shopping Phone?

This article is more than 10 years old.

Initial reactions to the Samsung S4 are positive. Forbes.com's Larry Magrid writes, "The Galaxy S4—like the Galaxy S3—could never be called a copycat. Samsung came out with specs and features that we’ve never yet seen in a smartphone, including any phone that begins with the letter "i." One important innovation that could affect the lives of everyday consumers, not just gadget geeks, is its potential as a more advanced shopping device than the iPhone 5.

With OS 6, Apple introduced Passbook, a somewhat embryonic software scheme to facilitate electronic ticketing and couponing. And every new iPhone is rumored to include an NFC chip to enable point of sale transactions. Yet no mobile phone for the U.S. market approaches the kind of phone as wallet functionality they have for many years in Japan. This could all change with the Samsung S4.

Samsung introduced i's new Samsung Wallet app at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month which seems to match but not surpass the iPhone's Passbook capabilities. But at yesterday's Samsung Unpacked event in New York City, the company showed off a new feature that really will move the ball forward. The Samsung S4 is the first phone to integrate with technology from a company called Mobeam which allows mobile devices to beam barcodes to ordinary POS scanners.

Although barcodes are very easy to transmit securely to mobile devices, the estimated 165 million standard barcode scanners at checkout locations in the U.S. have a very hard time reading them off of reflective screens. Mobeam's innovative and patented solution is to beam pulses of light to the scanner to transmit the same information to the read head as a physical barcode would. This opens up the possibility of this installed base of scanners to be able to process barcodes, coupons, loyalty cards and gift cards directly from mobile devices—no physical packaging, cards or coupons required.

This is a big deal because NFC and other shopping technologies have hinged on retailers investing in new hardware. By contrast, Mobeam's technology leverages what already exists and is in use everyday.

It is very smart for Samsung to add Mobeam to its list of innovative features in the S4, which include multi-lingual voice recognition, hand waving gesture controls and eye tracking video pause. Of all of these, the commerce applications could be the ones that have the biggest impact. It is expected that further announcements about Samsung Wallet will include more detail about how Mobeam will be implemented through Android apps on the S4.

Mobeam's solution to the barcode problem illustrates some important lessons for tech innovators. First, it has removed the physical impediment and refactored it with a combination of software and hardware that replicates the effect of the physical object at a higher level of functionality. Second, it innovates on top of a proven platform, POS barcode scanners, rather than requiring a new technology as a dependency. And third it has succeeded at introducing itself through one of the highest profile device launches in recent history, thereby piggybacking off of Samsung's slipstream.

Like Samsung's over-the-top launch event yesterday, Mobeam has put a lot of effort into marketing intended to be entertaining, but really, they should save their money for product development since the benefits of its technology will sell themselves. If anything can get American consumers to use their mobile phones for commerce it will be saving money at checkout through foolproof beaming coupons.

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