Samsung And Docomo Reportedly Working on Tizen Phone

sfcrazy writes with this excerpt from Muktware: "Samsung, which became a market leader thanks to Android, is reportedly working on a smartphone powered by Linux-based Tizen operating system. The company is working with NTT Docomo to create a Tizen powered smartphone. ... Samsung already has its Bada operating system which it uses in some devices. Samsung was expected to merge Bada efforts with Tizen but there has been no attempt in that regards. How Samsung, the Android market leader, positions this phone and creates an app ecosystem around it will be interesting to watch."

Comments

They can't be serious!

[erroneus]

Are they just Tizen us?

Re:Hmmm

[ClaraBow]

Dude, stop trolling. It's Microsoft that's collection money on every Android/ Linux phone sold!

What is the point

[ZombieBraintrust]

For consumers what is the benefit of another phone OS with another incompatible app store? What features does this OS have. Is it faster? Cheaper? Prettier?

Re:What is the point

[neokushan]

He's not saying that new things are bad, he's saying that new things that have no benefit over the old things are pointless. In fact, he's not even saying that, he's asking what would make this new OS better than existing offerings, enough to make dealing with a new app ecosystem worth bothering with. He's asking a question, not making a statement.

I'm inclined to agree - what's so special about Tizen? Educate on why it'd be worth getting a Tizen phone over Android, Bada, Windows Phone or iOS.

Re:What is the point

[UpnAtom]

It'll be cheaper than iOS of course.

There's a good chance it'll be faster than Android (no Dalvik layer) but many suspect that HTML5 isn't a good basis for apps and that Sailfish will be the fastest Linux-based operating system.

If it's real Linux, it's inherently more secure than iOS and Android. Depending on how open the source is, it may be future proof.

Tizen was announced before Sailfish and really the latter stole its thunder with the Maemo/MeeGo community.

Sailfish has compatibility with MeeGo, is largely open source, will probably be very fast and has an advanced UI. Whereas Tizen has Samsung behind it.

Re:What is the point

[ThePhilips]

For consumers what is the benefit of another phone OS with another incompatible app store? What features does this OS have. Is it faster? Cheaper? Prettier?

Probably the same advantages as the Bada OS. In other words, very few advantages for consumers. (Though I'm hopeful that Bada's battery life would get to Tizen. 2-4 days on single charge!)

The purpose of the new OS is to ensure that the manufacturers have a bargaining chip when dealing with the OS providers, Google and Microsoft. Also they can develop it independently and integrate whatever features they want - if the Google or Microsoft are reluctant to act or demand too high pay for the customization.

The only real advantage of another mobile OS I can imagine is that we, consumers, potentially now even further from monopoly/duopoly of mobile OSs. That guarantees that we would have more choices down the road.

Bada dead, Tizen undead

[AliasMarlowe]

I don't think that the odds are in favour of a Tizen device, especially if it is a carrier exclusive.

But it might work in the rest of the world, where carrier-exclusive handsets are uncommon. Such tying of handsets to carriers is sometimes frowned upon legally, but more often rejected by the customers who recognize its inherent disadvantages for them. Actually, many of us can't fathom the carrier-exclusivity and "subsidies" which are widespread in the US market.

I"m curious to know

[ClaraBow]

Does anyone know if there is an Android comparability layer?

The ecosystem is already there

[gmuslera]

is called HTML5. A lot of the stack can be found and used elsewhere (i.e. Apache Cordova) and shared by a lot of mobile OSs (webos, tizen, bada, sailfish, mer, and probably others, and more important, could be installed in the other platforms, including desktop.

Anybody here excited?

[horza]

Going to tizen.org web site, they seem pretty determined to hide information from potential developers. It's not until you get down to the tutorials that they admit supposed "apps" are just html and javascript pages. I can't see a future for a platform with no apps apart from toy ones. I guess it's aimed at dumb-phones given away free by the carriers, but a phone with no apps is going to be a hard sell.

Phillip.

Re:Anybody here excited?

[Sloppy]

All the languages are Turing complete

That's why I wrote my raytracer in awk.

Samsung/Microsoft joint venture

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung is working with Microsoft in search software for its phones. They're going to call it:

<puts on sunglasses>

Bada Bing!

Meamo + Moblin = Meego - Nokia + Samsung = Tizen

[ArhcAngel]

In case anyone was wondering where Tizen came from.

Meamo (Nokia) + Moblin (Intel) = Meego - Nokia + Samsung = Tizen

Re:Bada is dead

[goodEvans]

Bada is dead

Did Netcraft confirm it?

Re:Meamo + Moblin = Meego - Nokia + Samsung = Tize

[ArhcAngel]

I suspect you were tl;dr the links I supplied. The Meego web site has a post from Imad Sousou of Intel's Open Source technology center handing the torch off from Meego to Tizen.

Tizen has nothing in common with Maemo or MeeGo.

"There has been a lot of great work done in the Meego project, and we are pleased to see that code carried over to Tizen." - Imad Sousa (Meego’s technical steering group co-leader)

Its Samsung's internal Linux platform

If by internal you mean it is maintained by the Linux Foundation then OK.