Samsung S-Voice now available for rooted ICS phones

Samsung's answer to Siri, the S-Voice application, can be installed on all Android phones running Ice Cream Sandwich after a ROM for the Galaxy S3 leaked out. That means Android phone owners who have rooted their device, they can now load the latest version of Samsung's TouchWiz UI, that has been tailored for the 4.8-inch quad-core Galaxy S3, on to their handset. Once that 800MB file, made available at Android Police, is installed users will be able to access S-Voice as well as some other Galaxy S3 features, such as Pop-Up Play, which allows you to keep a small video clip in the foreground on your handset's display, while utilising other functionality on the phone. It'll also enable SmartStay feature, the neat piece of functionality which notices when your eyes are focusing on the display and will by-pass the screen time-out setting. S-Voice was announced alongside the Galaxy S3 at Samsung's Apple-esque glitzy launch event earlier this month and lets users command the device to make calls, open apps, play music, search the web, set alarms, find restaurants and much more. The Galaxy S3 isn't out in the UK officially until May 29th, so this leak represents an opportunity for prospective buyers to try before they buy. If you don't want to go the whole hog, you can download S-Voice as a separate app, but as always in these cases, smartphone users do so at their own risk.