Samsung Focus is a Productivity App with One Major Catch

Max Buondonno September 16, 2016

Just recently, Samsung decided to release a productivity app that’s geared toward business users or those of you who tend to be extreme multitaskers at the finest. The app is called Samsung Focus, and it can help unify a bunch of services into one piece of software.

Samsung Focus can be used to view all your different email addresses based on Exchange, IMAP, and POP3 servers. In addition, things like memos, calendars, contacts, tasks, and more can also be synchronized with Focus for ease of access and use, however these utilities tend to be more in sync with Exchange as that’s when they’re most useful. Nevertheless, a bunch of different servers are supported by Focus in order for you to add practically any type of web-based utility. A full list of said servers can be found below.

Exchange Server 2003 SP2/SP3 and above
Google, Naver (IMAP/POP3)
Office 365
Hotmail
Outlook.com
Other servers supported Exchange ActiveSync : IBM Notes Traveler, Groupwise, Kerio, Zimbra, Horde, IceWarp, MDaemon etc.

It’s helpful to think Focus as an app like the BlackBerry Hub, BlackBerry’s productivity suite. In this app, not only are email addresses, notes, calendars, contacts, tasks, and more synced to one app, but your phone’s notifications from apps like Facebook, Instagram, and even LinkedIn can be accessed. This makes practically all of your important content you frequently check easily accessible via one app. While Focus doesn’t have this type of feature just yet, I’m sure users will still use the app nevertheless for it’s business-oriented functionality. However, I’m not sure just how many will actually use the app due to its lack of being widespread across various Android devices.

Okay, you’re probably wondering what I mean by that. Well, unfortunately for the majority of us, Samsung is making Focus exclusive to their devices. This means that those of you who don’t have a handset built by the Korean company can’t use the productivity app. Not even side-loading the APK works (trust me, I tried). But nonetheless, I’m sure plenty of Samsung smartphone users will at least try this app out, even though it may not be as functional as BlackBerry’s offering.

You can download Samsung Focus for free from the Play Store now.