Samsung newest smartphone, Samsung Galaxy S4, puts pressure on tech giant Apple's rumoured upcoming handsets iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S.

The latest smartphone in the Galaxy line was released with much fanfare last Thursday in New York and wowed critics and reviewers with the amazing features packed in the new mobile phone.

Charles Golvin, analyst with Forrester, said "It would be overstatement to say Apple is far behind." But the California-based company needs to note the quickening pace of competitive devices being released.

"If anything, what Apple needs to respond to is the cadence of their own releases. Probably a completely new design every two years and a sort of speed bump every year is not an adequate cadence for Apple to remain at the forefront of smartphone innovation today," Golvin added.

Early this year, it is reported that Apple's earnings plummeted causing alarm to investors and shareholders. Thus, there is a need for Apple to step up the game and include some amazing features in order to beat the new Samsung Galaxy S4.

Apple is expected to include an improved camera in the upcoming iPhone 6 and/or iPhone 5S which is rumoured to be capable of taking "Super HD" pictures. In order to take snaps at that resolution it'll need to have at least a 13 mega-pixel camera.

The lack of NFC support on the iPhone 5 was one of the biggest criticisms aimed at Apple's smartphone. Rumours suggest that the iPhone 5S could include support for the contact-less technology which can be used to pay for items in retail stores. Other features rumoured to be included in the handset is the A7 quad core chip processor, Retina or IGZO screen display among others.

On the other hand, Samsung Galaxy S4 is equipped with Super AMOLED HD screen display with 1080x1920 pixel resolution at 441 pixels per inch trumps the iPhone 5's 1136x640 Retina display. The S4 has 2GB of RAM and will be available in 16, 32 and 64 GB models, with a Micro SD slot capable of housing up to 64GB extra storage space.

The new smartphone from Samsung will be available in Telstra, Vodafone and Virgin Mobile and will work on the 3G and high-speed 4G LTE mobile networks in Australia.

The S4 will run on the latest version of Google's Android operating system (4.2.2 Jelly Bean) and be powered by Samsung's new Exynos 5 Octa processor. However, the device will run on Qualcomm's quad-core chip in the US. The phone features an upgraded 2600 mAh battery, compared to the 2100 mAh batter of the Galaxy S3.