Samsung Galaxy III Rumors: There’s Also a Tablet and an iCloud Wannabe

Samsung plans to unveil its next Galaxy device at a May 3 event in London that€™s so top-secret that invitations to the event neither confirm that it will unveil a smartphone nor that it will be called the Galaxy S III, as is widely suspected.

Gizmodo Brasil excitedly posted photos on April 18 of what the site said was the Galaxy III that it claimed it found in the wild.

But, other sources are denying their authenticity.

Someone familiar with Samsung€™s plans has confirmed to The Verge that the photos aren€™t of the newest Galaxy. Or, not exactly. Samsung, according to the report, is using €œgeneric test boxes€€”generic phone cases, in other words€”to test the new device€™s internal electronics. What Gizmodo Brasil snapped, then, was the Galaxy III (or whatever they€™ll call it) wearing a fat suit.

€œThat€™s not even close to the final design,€ the source told The Verge. €œNo leaks of the final design have been accurate.€

With the Samsung invite showing only slick blue and white blobs of what appear to be hardened paint or acrylic, yet another rumor is that the newest galaxy features a €œceramic chassis.€ Still more rumors have arisen that Samsung will also introduce a new tablet to share.

Cnet, citing its own source, reports that €œthe Korean chaebol will be lining up a new 10.1 Galaxy Tab to complement the handset launch,€ though it€™s not the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, which is supposedly getting a quad-core processor.

If your first question, like mine, is what the heck a €œchaebol€ is, the answer is that it€™s a conglomerate of businesses, usually owned by one family€”as in Samsung. If you€™re instead wondering what Samsung says about all this, it tells Cnet that it hasn€™t heard anything about a tablet launching in London (tablet? what tablet?).

As for the iCloud wannabe rumor, the word is that Samsung wants to not only compete with Apple€™s iPhone and iPad but also its iCloud offering. According to The Washington Post, which cites the South Korean newspaper Maeil Business, Samsung plans to introduce a cloud service called S-Cloud at the London event. According to the report, it€™s similar to iCloud but doesn€™t limit the types of content that can be uploaded.

€œIt is also expected to ship with access to popular TV shows, movies, and music with free and paid content that will be available across a range of Samsung devices, including laptops, tablets and smartphones,€ wrote The Post. €œStorage is rumored to be €˜more than 5GB,€™ but it’s not clear whether that’s down to paid offerings.€ To ensure the service is available globally, the report adds that Microsoft is on board as a partner.

How true are any of these rumors or €œsource-related€ leaks? Probably the one to bank on is the source who told The Verge that security surrounding the preparation and launch of the event is €œtighter than it has ever been for any product in the company€™s history.€

In other words, on the evening of May 3€”the event starts at 7 p.m. London time€”but probably not sooner, we€™ll finally learn which of these rumors were actually true.