From square to round: UI changes in Galaxy S5

Following the teaser of the galaxy S5 launch date, Samsung now teases us with a new picture related to the unpacked event.

This time, one prominent element in the teaser is the round shape of app icons.

Of course, this does not just mean shape changes in icons of apps: from square to round.

It probably hints some radical changes in TouchWiz, which is widely criticized as a Gingerbread-age Android UI.

Actually, there are no major changes in TouchWiz in last 3-4 years.

In January, when Samsung revealed the giant tablets (Galaxy Note Pro and Galaxy Tab Pro) , we noticed the new user interface for TouchWiz. But the controversial Magazine style UI is obviously not suitable for a 5″ device.

The old-fashioned, bloated and bloodily-slow TouchWiz really needs  a revamp.

The purported image confirms:

• This is a Galaxy S5 event. This is unarguable. No Tizen devices yet. This is not a Galaxy S5 rumor.
• Very likely, Samsung will launch more than one Galaxy S5. A few variants of Galxy S5 will be revealed as well. Some rumors suggest there are premium and standard versions  at least. Maybe there will be 3 variants of Galaxy S5 to be launched.
• A new UI with refreshed TouchWiz. But how new? At least it is more than a simple icon shape change. My guess is a more or less an evolutionary revision. Don’t expect too much.
• Don’t expect so many fancy (and useless) new features as in Galaxy S4. Samsung started to correct the errors in Galxy S4 when launching Galaxy Note 3. Instead of introducing so many useless or half-baked features, Samsung now is trying to polish existing Samsung-specific features and introduce a few new and impressive features.

What actually are the changes in Galaxy S5 UI? We will only know them on February 24.

Anyway, the Galaxy S5 launch will determine the destiny of Samsung in mobile market.