Samsung Enters Smartphone Wars With Bada OS

MojoKid writes "Samsung is betting there's room for more in the smartphone market and has unveiled its new bada OS. The name 'bada,' means 'ocean' in Korean and was chosen to convey the 'limitless variety of potential applications which can be created using the new platform.' Samsung claims the OS is extremely simple for developers, saying that bada was built to be extremely interactive with its users — including flash control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control and face detection. Samsung is hoping developers will take this user interface and create a variety of applications focused around it, and thus provide different types of apps than exist for the iPhone and Android OS. The bada OS has a variety of sensors, including accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity and activity. Samsung will be hosting a series of Developer Days in Seoul, London and San Francisco, among other cities, throughout 2010."

Comments

OS wars are over

[OrangeTide]

We figured out in the 1990s that writing your own OS every couple of years doesn't scale. You just end up isolating your developers from the rest of the industry.

I've written a few worthless OSes myself. One of them actually gets used still. But I wrote it out of desperation, not as a business model.

Re:OS wars are over

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant to type "we figured out at the beginning of the 20th century that standardisation, componentisation and reusability increases the market and reduces the learning curve for your product".

Except where it doesn't, and the lowest common denominator approach precludes innovation or holds back performance, tying you to the conventions and idiosyncrasies of a third party.

It is not that the operating system wars are "over", it's just that there was a fad in the 1990s to reimplement old operating systems, IOW to re-engineer the same concepts in OS textbooks since the 1960s. Most efforts, unsurprisingly, were interesting to no-one, and the developers in their hubris decided not to conclude that their attempt was worthless (except from an obvious educational point of view), but instead that the very idea of proposing a new OS was futile. Meanwhile, only for the general market, Linus who pronounces Linus as Linus produced Linux, Sun released the Java platform, Apple OS X, VMware its workstation, Microsoft produced CE, and this decade we have Google working on its massively parallel systems, Microsoft working on Midori, and so on. Each of these either run on bare metal or taking the advantage of the driver set of an existing operating system, the choice not influencing whether each of these has the right to be called an operating system (or, for VMware, an important component thereof).

Also, in my experience as an operating system enthusiast, I have met far too many people who have said they have written one or more toy operating systems, but show something that barely boots and that contains absolutely*no* new ideas whatever. It takes a weekend to write a BIOS real mode monitor to make your machine in some way usable.

Sensors

[SeeSchloss]

The bada OS has a variety of sensors, including accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity and activity.

Now, please explain how an OS can possess sensors?

It's Linux

[Kupfernigk]

Which makes 3: Android, Maemo, bada. 4 if you count Moblin. It will be interesting to see how the market share of the iPhone stacks up against the total for the 4 Linux flavors this time next year.

I think some people are misunderstanding diversity. For a consumer device like a mobile phone, having multiple versions in the market is held to stimulate demand. It makes sense for manufacturers to optimise their kernels and support for the devices they want to use, then offer a consistent developer interface. It also makes sense for developers - large manufacturers like Samsung want to have a "community" of developers, not people who produce a product that works with the competition as well. It is then worth investing support effort in those developers, because they are not giving it away to the competition.

As I say, we'll see in a year how this pans out. Meanwhile, 4 multitasking relatively open platforms versus a pretty and slick but less capable one. 2010 looks interesting.

Re:It's Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the Palm Pre linux based as well. That would bring the total to 5. If the I phone is based on Darwin then next year the majority of smart phone platforms will be based on an open source kernel. With Nokia using QT you expand the open source penetration even further.

It is amazing to see how the geeks hard work is paying off.

Re:It's Linux

[LWATCDR]

Well of the Linux Smartphone systems they all have some failings when you compair them to the iPhone.
Palm. I would say that the UI on the Palm is every bit as good as the the iPhone if not better. The Card interface really is easy to use and intuitive.
The SDK sucks. It is extremely limited. I found several things that I just couldn't do with the offical SDK within just minutes.
1. Can not detect if it is plugged in and charging.
2. Can not control the camera flash.
It also still lacks a few features. No Video recording and no voice dialing!

Android can multi task and the SDK really is good enough to write some great apps. The UI isn't as good as the iPhone or the Pre and it can be a little slow on some devices to launch the camera. Also battery life is a bit iffy.

Maemo? Well maybe? I have not gotten to see it up close but Nokia seems to be really drifiting in focus. It could be great but right now it is really drifting. It is Linux with QT so the SDK should be out of this world but I am not sure how well it interfaces ithe hardware bits. Maemo's biggest weakness right now seems to be a lack of focus.
Mobin? What phone can I get it for?

Right now the iPhone is in the lead with it's UI and app store. I don't like the lack of multitasking but otherwise it is a solid product. The only reason I didn't get one is the Carrier is AT&T and they are too expensive and frankly make me crazy.

Right not I would say things in the phone world are still up for grabs. Android is doing well but will it improve it's UI to be as good or better than the iPhone. Will it improve it's media player and support more types of media?
RIM Your browser sucks and you are loosing mindshare fast. Your the cheap smartphone that does Exchange Email well but others are starting to do that almost as well. Your in trouble.
WinMo? If Seven is earth shattering you are doomed. Looking at the ZuneHD makes me think you might pull it off but it may be too late.
Apple? Well you are in a great position making money hand over fist. It is yours to blow.
Nokia? Wow your in deep trouble. Symbian was cool but you have fragmented it all to heck. You make great hardware but you are just about invisible in the US market. You can do well not selling in the US but where are you going? Do you even know?
Palm. The Pre is a very good deviice and the Pixie is as well but... WebOS isn't finished. Heck you are not even using the 3D graphics chip in the Pre yet! You don't shoot Video! You Don't have Voice dialing! Also the whole use Javascript and HTML SDK idea... It sucks...
Having that as an option is great. It being the only option is brain dead! Get a real SDK out NOW. It could be java or c++ or objective c if you wish but GET IT DONE NOW.

BTW I have an Android phone and an iPod Touch and my wife has a Pre. I would have loved to get the Pre but the SDK turned me right off.

Re:Oh goody!

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I know I'll either get flamed or modded +5 insightful

We really need "Sheep -1000" mod now. For this. For real.

Re:Oh goody!

[Krneki]

I hate to install any kind of crap that isn't needed.

My 10$ mp3 allows me to share my music with people with no need to install or buy any additional devices. I can use it at home, in my car USB radio (and the player gets recharged), at work (I don't have admin rights to install stuff), ...

Of course this might not be an issue for you, but I like to share my stuff and use it wherever I go.