28 April 2016, 15:03 p.m.
During the company's annual developer conference, Samsung revealed it's work on a new version of TouchWiz – the company's Android launcher – which uses the Vulkan API. The version was an early build and didn't integrate all the features available in Vulkan, but it showed a lot of promise.
With the limited tests which Samsung has run so far like scrolling pages and opening the app drawer; the Vulkan API resulted in around six percent savings in power whilst also increasing general performance. It doesn't sound like a huge result, but considering how much the launcher is used by most people in a day the savings add-up considerably.
Over the course of the day, Samsung's engineers found that battery life was extended by 40 minutes when the "TouchWiz-like" interface with basic Vulkan support was used on a 3600mAh battery. The current version of TouchWiz uses Vulkan's spiritual predecessor, OpenGL ES, but Samsung announced its S7 would be the first smartphone to support Vulkan.
The presentation shows that Vulkan has potential for power-savings, but the biggest enhancements will remain in graphical performance. However, an increase in the battery life of modern phones will be welcomed by more consumers than better graphics because it affects everyone.
You can find out more information about Vulkan here.
What are your thoughts about Vulkan outside graphical performance? Let us know in the comments.