Samsung’s existing Galaxy Tab S. Photo: Samsung

While Samsung’s next-generation Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge may be dominating the headlines right now, they won’t be the only exciting devices the South Korean company releases this year.

New Galaxy Tab S slates are also on the horizon, and according to inside sources familiar with Samsung’s plans, they’re going to be made of metal and even thinner than Apple’s super-slim iPad Air 2.

Lollipop crashes less often than iOS 8. What could be sweeter than that? Photo: Cult of Android

iOS users have had plenty of reasons to crow about Apple handsets recently, but here’s one for the Android crowd: Android devices running the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop mobile OS have a lower application crash rate than devices running Apple’s much-vaunted iOS 8.

The data was pulled by mobile application performance management company Crittercism, which claims that Lollipop’s crash rate for apps is a miniscule 2 percent, compared to iOS 8 which crashes 2.2 percent of the time.

The same study also shows that iOS 8 crashes more than its predecessor, iOS 7.

It must be one of those weekdays that ends with “day” because Samsung’s copying Apple again.

Unlike Apple, which is more comfortable (and lucrative) than ever with its business strategy, here in 2015 Samsung is having a bit of an identity crisis. Is it a freedom-fighting Internet of Things company making smart refrigerators and connected TVs? Is it a Xiaomi competitor, turning out cheaper smartphones than ever for the developing Indian market?

Like a deer in headlights, the company seems to be skittishly veering from one idea to the next, without any real understanding of what it needs to do to once again be competitive.

Of course, there is one idea that has worked for Samsung in the past, and with its mobile division falling on hard times, that strategy seems to be one the South Korean tech giant is more than happy to return to: copying Apple.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Android

Samsung isn’t the only smartphone maker experiencing a decline in sales thanks to Apple’s latest iPhones. New data shows that the popularity of the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus caused Android sales to decline for the first time ever during the fourth quarter of 2014.

Samsung may be beating a tactical retreat. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Things aren’t looking too rosy for Samsung at the moment. Having seen profits slip due to its falling mobile sales, the flailing South Korean tech giant is reportedly considering throwing in the towel altogether in Japan, where it’s struggling more than elsewhere.

Samsung currently represents a miniscule 4 percent of the Japanese smartphone market, which puts it in sixth place. According to sources with Samsung, staying in Japan is actually losing rather than gaining the company money.

While Samsung hasn’t traditionally been a top-seller in Japan, here in 2015 it’s doing worse than ever: with the company’s favorite metric, marketshare, shrinking from 17 percent two years ago to low single digits today.