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Samsung's First Tizen Smartphone Gets Leaked
SmartAboutThings writes "We are less than a month away from seeing the first ever Tizen smartphone from Samsung. The leaked image points toward a Feb. 24th launch date at MWC 2014 in Barcelona. The phone design is very similar to Galaxy phones, while the UI reminds us of Windows Phone 8. Samsung is also one of the world's top smartphone vendors, so it should have a decent chance at developing a mobile OS of its own, don't you think?"
Samsung already tried this with Bada ... and failed.
Now they are taking others on board to try to displace Google. Will it succeed? Don't think so.
Being one of the top hardware vendors doesn't magically enable you to write good software.
FTFA:
Unfortunately, we might not see the phone at MWC 2014, as our source indicates that the launch has been pushed further to accommodate other launches (psst⦠Galaxy S5).
So I guess whomever wrote the summary didn't read all the way to the bottom of the 2nd link.
Yes, I think Tizen will ultimately flop for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the fact that Samsung will need to support THREE different operating systems.
But in the end, competition is always good for consumers. Bring it on!!
...if they ditch Android, I'll ditch Samsung.
So say we all
I have a Samsung tocca ultra .... thank Google for Android!
Is that same Samsung which:
- Doesnt upgrade Android for their previous (not old) hardware?
- Provide tablets with just one USB output? And not standard?
- Supports only proprietary additional hardware?
No thanks!! They can keep up with their braindead appleish hardware
Im moving to standard chinese hardware all the time
I hope the day i could upgrade my tablet as the same way i do upgrade my PC
Until there, there's little value added at all
At the time the first chinese hardware manufactures releases their first pen tablet, samsung is dead water for me
The phone design is very similar to Galaxy phones, while the UI reminds us of Windows Phone 8.
Apple will undoubtedly claim to have invented some obscure detail, and insist that the product be banned here in the States. Unless, of course, it's a flop... Apple doesn't design flops.
You are really grasping at straws if you want to start an Apple hate frenzy over this. According to TFA summary it would appear that it's more likely Microsoft's turn to sue Samsung's ass off over copycatting the Windows 8 UI (and that's assuming that Microsoft will even bother).
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Who buys a smartphone to type a sizable amount of text?
Circumcision is child abuse.
with a butt-ugly interface.
No sir, I don't like it.
Even if Samsung did something blatantly actionable (wherever that point lies, 'look and feel' lawsuits seem a bit subjective), it would be interesting to see if Microsoft did anything about it. They certainly aren't shy about lawsuits in general; but they might actually be pleased to see a major Android OEM spitting out some non-Android devices that might help fragment the non-WinPhone market (both by adding another OS to the mix, and by likely encouraging Samsung to cultivate a variety of APIs and services that devs can use on any Samsung device, Android or Tizen, with a little abstraction; but not on other manufacturer's takes on those OSes)...
Typing on a touch screen SUCKS, why do people buy these things?
Space constraints. With a touchscreen, your typing sucks; but you recover all the keyboard space for viewing whenever you aren't typing. If you want a hard keyboard, you either chop the bottom third of the screen, or add nontrivial thickness and mechanical complexity for a folding or sliding keyboard.
Damned if I can understand the freak kids who seem to enjoy typing with their thumbs on a featureless pane of glass; but it isn't really hard to see why screens larger than the classic blackberry layout allowed have taken over, given that using tiny screens is also pretty miserable.
Because it's hard to connect the bluetooth keyboard to a coffee mug.
It rebuilds itself when it falls into the ground?
Those who type a sizeable amount of text, but don't want to carry a laptop around with them. Such as me. I'm perfectly happy with my Nokia N900 with its slide-out keyboard.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Didn't they just sign some agreement a few days ago? And now Samsung is gonna stab Google in the back. Grab your popcorn and place your bets!
Typing on a touch screen SUCKS, why do people buy these things?
Typing on an Ipad sucks.
Swypeing doesn't. In fact swypeing is much faster than typing but you Apple hipsters wouldn't know that.
Hope it doesn't have rounded corners...
I guess we know which Apple fanboi downmodded the post.
So, Samsung copies now WP UI? Not Apple anymore?
Trolling is a art!
Just because it has widgets arranged on the screen, does not make it a Metro UI. I could do that with an android phone.
Samsung is also one of the world's top smartphone vendors, so it should have a decent chance at developing a mobile OS of its own, don't you think?
No. These are two different markets and being a good hardware vendor doesn't mean you're a good OS developer. It worked for Apple, because they are neither - they are a design-focussed company.
So Samsung or not makes no difference. Let's see what the product is like.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I see a lot of distrust of the Tizen interface, and even though I'm not a big fan of tiles, Samsung uses EFL as UI framework and has in it's payroll Carsten Haitzler (Rasterman) and Cedric Bail, the main developers of Enlightenment, which I think, grants that the end product will be quite good.
If you're winding how a Samsung UI and user experience would be under Tizen look at the Samsung Bluray players. This is all about Samsung's content/control agenda and nothing about the user experience.
> Indicators, they are your friends! >
...but only if they can release OS updates for 1-2 years after a phone's release.
My experience with Samsung, (my first 3 android phones were Samsung), is that they tend to ship and forget. They showed no loyalty to me and so I never developed any loyalty to them. I think they got where they are by market saturation rather than any real, inherent superiority of their products.
*yawn*
Typing on ANY touch screen device sucks. I have swype but still hate it.
They cant even make a proper phone manager, have you actually tried successfully using the mess of "Samsung Kies" ? it makes iTunes look good, a great example of form over function and screw UI standards, if it works for the sales demo it ships!.
When the very first UI page tells you to reinstall device drivers if anything doesn't work while using 1.2gig of ram (of outsourced .NET) just to sync Outlook and my Contact list, you know you are in for a good time.
They'd probably sue them just to give them some credibility ;-)
Who carries a sizable amount of computing power virtually everywhere? And answering a mail, taking note of an idea you just had, or doing a post in some social site may need some sizable amount of text, without building around you a whole desktop just for that or limiting your capacity of expression to write just "ok" in all those situations.
My Galaxy S4 already has these App Tile What-cha-ma-call-its and, like Windows 8, they suck. Fortunately, and unlike Windows 8, I am not forced to use them on the S4. If that were to change... Well, Samsung might fall from its present power position.
Tiles suck. Bloatware apps suck. Spying apps suck. There is a market opportunity there for someone. Will someone take it and go for the long hall or will they all go for the quick money?
"Leak" seems to be the new term for "press release." Samsung are just drumming up their marketing machine to promote their next product. Must have learned it from Apple Inc. Perhaps they'll "lose" a prototype somewhere (Starbucks?) so that PR marketers... ahem, "journalists" have an excuse to generate more advertising revenue for their publication(s).
Really, this stuff is getting stale.
Because they just learned to do it instead of whining about how it SUCKS?
I mean yeah, for the first 3 months or so, it sucks. Then it's fine. Move on, this isn't 2009 any more.
i had to look up Swype,
i really can see no benefit to me logging all my keystrokes, tie them to my phones ESN as a GUID along with my hardware list and then give (lol it gets better) full network access to a US companies "cloud" for "statistics" or the random NSL/Keystone Cops Warrant.
Sad that even a fucking virtual keyboard company cant resist the parasitic bandwagon of track/trace/trap/SPOF your users, just cant just sell a solution and fuck off, gotta have a store, and a "Cloud".
if your keyboard code has a network stack something is already wrong.
I'll stick for now with typing slowly on a non-mitm stock keyboard thanks.
http://forum.swype.com/showthr...
http://www.swype.com/footer/pr...
I had a Samsung Stratosphere. It ran like shit!!!!
Then I got an SIII. It worked for about a week.
Now I have a Motorola phone. Ah.... Much better!
If Samsung can't even make Android, which someone else has already done most of the coding for run well how are they going to make their own OS?!?!
Palm failed, HP failed. Both Apple, Nokia and Blackberry all failed when they tried to create a new OS. When Copeland failed Apple acquired Next, When Symbian wasnt suited to new devices, Nokia acquired Windows.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
but being Rasterman does!
we don't need another phone os. but if we can get one that runs as fast enlightenment it could be worth a try.
I have a Galaxy S4 and a Nexus 4. Guess which one works better... The S4 reboots itself occasionally and the gui feels heavier. And that is just customizing android. I don't want to try something done by them from stratch.
I have owned several phones with swype (including current one).
I've also owned and had gread use out of a Zaurus CL3100.
Swype is far better than an onscreen keyboard. I actually forked out for swype since my new phone didn't come with it. Swype is a pile of crap to a proper miniture keyboard. Swype makes replying to emails bearable.
You can actually do serious work on a proper mini keyboard.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
There have been novel designs to help overcome the pains of typing on a touchscreen... such as swipe to type (e.g. Swiftkey, Touchpal, etc. on Android).
Yes, it's still not as fast as a regular keyboard, but it's on par with an actual mobile sized keyboard, IMO.
It's a weird phenomenon, but it seems that the Japanese don't "get" system software/operating systems AT ALL.
It almost seems to be a cultural thing. They like baroque/quirky interfaces and systems. For video games, that is often a good thing; it makes the game interesting. For applications, it sucks.
Maybe the thing doesn't ring very loudly?
I used to feel the same way, going so far as basing smartphone purchases entirely on the keyboard (Touch Pro and Touch Pro 2, both of which had best-in-class hardware keyboards. Got those despite the WinMo interface they came with). The days of lousy on screen keyboards are in the past. I can Swype far faster than I could ever type on a 4" keyboard (with keys that were measured in millimeters). Is my input speed up to the ~100 wpm I can type on my desktop keyboard? No, but I doubt anyone can do that regardless of hard or soft phone keyboard. It's much higher than one might expect though -- if I had to guess, I'd say it's in the mid 30s to 40ish and I'd feel confident challenging anyone who is still inputting on a hard keyboard.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am master of my fate and captain of my soul.
"No true Scotsman?"
My first smartphone was the OG Droid, largely because it came with a physical keyboard.
I hated it. When the Swype beta came along I pretty much stopped using the physical keyboard, and never got another phone with a hardware keyboard. I haven't missed them.
You might tell me, well, that wasn't a very good physical keyboard, and maybe you're right. So what would make a "proper" mini keyboard?
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
Heck, even just that screenshot looks better than WP, in that you can clearly have different size/shape tiles, and it doesn't have the stupid Fisher Price color scheme of WP. Add to that, the tile-based home screen will likely be optional, just like their similar launcher screen is on their current Android phones. Likely, they depicted it this way so there would be no question it wasn't yet another Android handset.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
First, it requires constant focused attention because there is no tactile feedback.
Second, I type too often in various languages (spoken or technical) and have to disable all help and autocorrection, not because they're bad at English, but because they're wasting my time correcting stuff that they can't understand.
Therefore, I will keep using a slide-out keyboard for as long as they are available, because for all-important-me it's massively more efficient.
Telecoms do lots of development and are involved in lots of connected things. There is no way around it.
Apple disagrees with you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You might tell me, well, that wasn't a very good physical keyboard, and maybe you're right. So what would make a "proper" mini keyboard?
Good question, I don't know exactly. It's something of a "I know it when I see it". If you dig back through old reviews, the Zaurus keyboard gets excellent ratings and generally comes up as the second best mini keyboard ever made. Apparently the first is the Psion 5. I've never used one though.
I don't think it's a no true scotsman kind of deal, since there are measurable differences between the things much as with normal and laptop keyboards.
The Zaurus keyboard looks like a chiclet one but is not. The keys are stiff, have a small amount of travel and engage with a nice, positive click action. They're also somewhat well separated and while I'm not massively ham fisted, I do have decent sized fingers and hands, but I never found a problem hitting the keys reliably, quicklyand without error.
Bear in mind it's the form factor of a mini laptop. I found with a little practice, I could more or less 3-finger touch type on it. Since the screen hinges properly, it's not always pointing the same way as the screen, unlike the slide-out keyboard on many phones. I expect that also helps a great deal.
I was actually writing my thesis at the time that was current and wrot a non-trivial amount on that keyboard (in LaTeX, no less) since I was travelling a lot at the time and owned no laptops (also laptop battery life sucked then and you could take a stack of AAs and an adapter to power the zaurus indefinitely). It was not at all like the qwerty thumb-typing keyboards I've seen people use on some phones.
By comparison, I use my phone for email quite a lot. It's pretty usable with Swype, and I can do decent replies without being limited to the wretchedly terse style often sent from phones. I wouldn't want to do anything comparable to what I did on the zaurus, though. That would be impossibly frustrating.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, that Zaurus keyboard does look a lot more usable than my OG Droid was, but it also looks quite a bit bigger. Not hard to do -- my current phone might be a size match for the Zaurus.
And yes, I can't imagine using Swype to do any kind of markup. It would always end up trying to "fix" your spelling.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
I was an early developer for the Tizen platform.
It's a glorified P.O.S