Let’s connect with Samsung Internet v6.4 stable!

Featuring Web Bluetooth enabled by default, special local features and security updates

“Connected Thinking” is a key theme for Samsung, so we’re pleased to announce our latest web browser is our most “connected” yet! Following the beta that we released in January — and hot on the heels of our new Samsung Internet for Gear VR release — v6.4 of Samsung Internet for Android is now being rolled out on our Release channel. As usual, it will gradually become available to everyone via the Play Store and Galaxy Apps Store over the next week. Here’s what’s new:

Connected Devices

v6.4 enables Web Bluetooth! We’re excited about this ability for web applications to interact with Bluetooth Low Energy peripherals via a JavaScript API. Our v6.0 release introduced Web Bluetooth behind a flag, but now it’s available for developers by default. (Note that this doesn’t mean that Bluetooth is switched on by default, or that you can connect to Bluetooth devices without prompting— it still requires user permission!)

I’ve personally been playing with Web Bluetooth since 2016 when I made a web app for controlling a drone. Since then, we’ve made further examples that demonstrate Bluetooth integration, such as Jo’s Hedgehog Curling and my wifi-free slides controller. Web Bluetooth is definitely a fun technology to try out, but more importantly it has serious applications for connected devices. Here’s Martin Woolley, from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group:

“The web browser is arguably the most important of all platforms, especially for enterprise applications. With the release of Bluetooth mesh in the summer of 2017, enterprise applications for Bluetooth are set to rise, especially in smart buildings and smart industry. Web Bluetooth puts Bluetooth APIs in the hands of web developers and I’m delighted to see Samsung support it.”

Martin has written more about the importance of Web Bluetooth here.

Connecting with our users, worldwide

As we shared in our beta announcement, v6.4 makes it easier to monitor and control your downloads. It is now possible to rename files before downloading them. Furthermore, you can now pause, resume and cancel downloads directly in the notification panel and within the new Download History page:

The new download controls in the notification panel (left) and Download History page (right)

This is an example of the power of your feedback; the idea for these improvements came from our Samsung Internet users in India. These additions actually first featured in a special India-only release, v6.3, and we are pleased to now extend it worldwide with v6.4.

The Web is global; it provides an incredible opportunity to develop content that can be accessed by anyone around the world. But we don’t have to give everyone exactly the same experience. The download improvements are an example of how we have been introducing localised user interface features, to provide useful additions based on our users’ local context. We have already been doing this in various ways, for example providing different default search engine options for different regions. We are now pleased to share some additional, special UIs for India and China:

India — data saving, unified payments and cricket scores

For our users in India, from v6.3 we have introduced a new Data Save UI. This works on devices having the Ultra Data Saving (UDS) feature, a popular made-for-India innovation introduced in 2015, which saves user data at the device level. The Data Save UI is another feature requested by our Indian users, helping to show how much data they are saving in Samsung Internet.