Samsung launches BlackBerry Hub-like app called Focus, Android only

Rumors about a new mobile application developed by Samsung, which was supposed to borrow some of BlackBerry's Hub functionality, emerged back in May. Fast forward several months and the application is available for download.

The new application is called Samsung Focus and it's been labeled as “unified productivity application,” which allows Exchange ActiveSync, IMAP and POP3 users to better manager their email, calendar, task, memo, and contacts in one place.

But that's not all, as Samsung announced its Focus app offers Direct Push synchronization with Exchange ActiveSync, unified search (email, event, memo, task, contact), as well as the ability to add events or tasks from email.

The application supports the following servers: Exchange Server 2003 SP2/SP3 and above, Google, Naver (IMAP/POP3), Office 365, Hotmail, Outlook.com, along with other server supported by Exchange ActiveSync (IBM Notes Traveler, Groupwise, Kerio, Zimbra, Horde, IceWarp, MDaemon).

Keep in mind though that Samsung Focus doesn't operate any cloud server, it merely connects to the actual mail servers. However, it does store user's account data on the device, but Samsung doesn't access that data at all.

Samsung Focus is fully compatible with most Samsung devices powered by Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and above. There's a catch though, it looks like the application is not available in all countries yet, which makes us believe Samsung has just soft-launched the Focus app in one or more regions to test it.

On a side note, Samsung Focus has less than 500 downloads and a 4.4 star rating on Google Play Store, so it seems that it's been well received by Android users.