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Samsung's First Tizen Smartphone Gets Leaked

Posted by Soulskill on from the finally-arriving-to-market dept.

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?"

35 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Bada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Bada by Stormwatch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wasn't Bada only used in low-end devices? This one seems to be rather high-end.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    2. Re:Bada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Will it succeed? Don't think so.

      The guy writing the article is certain it'll fail. He keeps saying its like WP8.

    3. Re:Bada by ThePhilips · · Score: 2

      Samsung Wave phones were pretty decent phones. No, not phablets with gazzilion of everything and the kitchen sink. Just a very good smartphone, with decent browser and some level customization.

      On top of that, the whole premise "Samsung develops new mobile OS" is bogus. It might have been the case with Bada, but not the case with the Tizen:

      The Tizen Association formed to guide the industry role of Tizen, including requirements gathering, identifying and facilitating service models, and overall industry marketing and education.[4] Members of the Tizen Association represent every major sector of the mobility industry and every region of the world. Current members include operators, OEMs and computing leaders: Fujitsu, Huawei, Intel Corporation, KT, NEC CASIO Mobile Communications, NTT DOCOMO, Orange, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung, SK Telecom, Sprint and Vodafone.

      What's more, Tizen isn't particularly "new". Not only there are tried bits of LiMo and Bada inside, but there were already several releases for the "In-Vehicle-Infotainment".

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    4. Re:Bada by ThePhilips · · Score: 3, Informative

      By whom do you think the telecom developers are employed?

      Telecoms do lots of development and are involved in lots of connected things. There is no way around it.

      Anyway, I'd rather first wait for the Tizen phones to arrive and then evaluate them. Considering the race to bottom Google has choosen as a path forward for Android, Tizen might get a fair chance in the market. That, of course, if the Tizen would be even comparable to Android.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    5. Re:Bada by Thantik · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is the difference between real capitalism, and American capitalism. In real capitalism, you naturally get a race to the bottom. In American capitalism, you get government protectionism to keep your antiquated, inflated business practices afloat while you strip people of every penny you can.

    6. Re:Bada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      (Posting AC because I'm at work and I don't log into websites from work not because I'm unwilling to put my name behind my post.)

      That is simply one of the most moronic things I've read on Slashdot in quite some time.

      Or, to put it in a car analogy so you understand why I think you're utterly daft, please ask yourself which auto manufacturers make the high end cars that don't care about competing on price and which manufacturers are primarily interested in being just a bit cheaper than their competitors.

      To put it simply, some manufacturers are offering the same grapple grommet as the next guy so the only way to compete is via price while other manufacturers are offering a lot more and are targeting a more affluent market and thus don't compete on price. American vs non-American has absolutely NOTHING to do with that equation.

      And, no, I'm not American so this has nothing to do with defending "my" national pride. This is simply me calling out a moron for a moronic comment.

    7. Re:Bada by ThePhilips · · Score: 2

      I haven't followed Tizen much previously. As far as I know, it picked up quite a lot from other previous Linux-based mobile OSs. Samsung AFAIK played big role in the push into mobile phones by bringing in the components from Bada (the interface for non-native, managed run-time) and also the Android compatibility layer. (Interesting bit: Nokia provided to Tizen the navigation app and maps.)

      My interested in Tizen piqued only recently, when updates for Google Apps started removing functionality and crippling battery life. And when I actually have tried Google's Android Pure phones and realized just how much work the OEMs invest into making out of it something tad more useful. Samsung/Sony/HTC/LG have quite a lot of expertise in the area apparently and it is absolutely feasible for them to develop a mobile OS on their own.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    8. Re:Bada by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      Isn't a "race to the bottom" just a natural consequence of a competitive market working properly?

      Only to a point.

      A race to the bottom can hit a natural limit under which the only way to make it cheaper is to cut corners. See $500 laptops, cheap LCD monitors, etc, where the GPU is Intel, the screen 1366x768, etc. High res screens are available, but spendy ($300 on sale vs. $80 for 1920x1200 vs. 1080p screens, $500 laptops vs. $1000+ laptops, etc).

      You see it on Android too - the flagship phones sell tons, but they're a tiny drop in the bucket (10% or so of the Android market). Everyone sells way more of the free-with-contract style phones with shit CPUs, shit RAM, shit screens, or all three.

      Hell, you know it's screwy when Samsung can release a Galaxy Mega - 5" of 480x800 goodness!

    9. Re:Bada by gnasher719 · · Score: 2

      Isn't a "race to the bottom" just a natural consequence of a competitive market working properly?

      Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually. "Race to the bottom" happens in a product category where the buyer cannot easily determine which value is worth more. Let's say a $1,000 laptop and a $1,100 laptop that has a better battery, longer lasting keyboard and some other advantages that you only figure out after using it for two years. Since the customer can't see a difference, they buy then one for $1,000 even if they would prefer the $1,100 one if they had known the advantages.

      So what happens? The company making the $1,100 laptop doesn't sell any, replaces the good parts with less good parts, and sells their laptop for $900. People buy it, so the parts in the $1,000 laptop get replaced with parts that aren't good at all. And so on and so on. In the end, everyone sells cheap rubbish. That's "race to the bottom".

      In the computer market, Apple managed quite nicely to stay out of the "race to the bottom". And ultrabooks are everyone else's attempt to climb away from the bottom. And obviously I'd rather pay $400 for a laptop than $1,000, but on the other hand I know that $400 for rubbish is wasted money while $1,000 for quality isn't. So "race to the bottom" means that everyone suffers. Manufacturers who don't make money, and customers who get crap for their money.

      So in a well-working competitive market, I would have a choice between expensive quality products, and cheap rubbish products. My choice. "Race to the bottom" means there is only cheap rubbish.

  2. I don't think so by loufoque · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Being one of the top hardware vendors doesn't magically enable you to write good software.

    1. Re:I don't think so by Tsolias · · Score: 2

      Being one of the top of anything can help you become the top of something else. Do you know what you need to make good sw? good programmers. Do you know what you need to get them? money. Does Samsung have money? Yes. So, can Samsung be a company with good software, if its CEO wants it? Yes. Does the hw business help you make good sw? Yes. Do you know how? OFC, you have your own platform that sells like shit and then you can make the sw and optimize it for you own platform. Do you know any other company that does that? Yes. Apple. Apple makes good hw or sw? None of them, but both of the combined give a great result because they design both and know how to hide each ones flaws. In the end, Samsung became what it is today and it started as a fruit/vegetable vendor IIRC.

    2. Re:I don't think so by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It doesn't rule it out either...

      There's no general-case connection; but this is Samsung we are talking about here, so it's pretty safe to assume that anything they added will be about as classy as the bloatware on a Best Buy HP-Compaq at the bottom of the price range...

      If we are lucky, the BSP side might not be a total failure; but Samsung makes a hell of a mess when they try app development, at least on their android devices.

    3. Re:I don't think so by loufoque · · Score: 2

      You need money, but money is not sufficient to get good programmers of the level they'd need to be able to compete with iOS and Android.

    4. Re:I don't think so by DontBlameCanada · · Score: 2

      It doesn't rule it out either...

      From my experience working with and for HW-centric companies, they all view SW as a zero-revenue expense. As such, they don't invest in the people, tools and processes that make for successful software products.

      I'd tend to think being a top h/w vendor is actually a detriment to delivering good software.

    5. Re:I don't think so by hajile · · Score: 2

      Tizen's biggest problem is samsung. Here's a chat log where rasterman (head of EFL used by Tizen in the background -- they aren't allowing anything but webapps by third parties)

      https://www.tizen.org/irclogs/...

      He talks about how stagnant and copycat the Samsung development bureaucracy is and how it's practically impossible to make any real innovative moves in development.

      Another major issue is that the Tizen SDK (despite all the "Linux Foundation" mantra) is proprietary and gives Samsung near complete control of your code. I don't see any developer agreeing to those terms when he/she is already risking so much on a new OS to begin with.

  3. Competition is always good by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!!

    1. Re:Competition is always good by hattig · · Score: 2

      Does Tizen support Android apps in any manner? (i.e., in a manner like BlackBerry 10 supports Android apps).

      If not, the software ecosystem is going to be very poor, and kill the device.

      If it does, then third-party native software is probably never going to get written.

    2. Re:Competition is always good by Tom · · Score: 2

      But in the end, competition is always good for consumers.

      Actually, I don't think that's always true. The smartphone market is a good example for why. First, you end up with 1000 different Android phones (let's ignore iOS for the moment) that have tiny differences amongst themselves, leading to a choice paradox (you can't decide because there's so many options).

      Second, because the market is so crowded with so many so similar products, it's hard for a vendor to really innovate. What we see is rapid evolution, but not innovation - everyone is moving forward at breakneck speed, but few are moving sideways, exploring different options. The form factor, for example, has largely standardized on the iPhone +/- some deviation in size. But curved shapes are gone, even though we had them in the pre-smartphone mobile market. And that's just one example.

      Third, much of the competition is more show than real. How many players are actually in the market? Where are the small, innovative underdogs? Are there any local players? No, much of the "competition" is not even between companies, but departments of companies - will you get the XYZ-400 or the XYZ-500?

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    3. Re:Competition is always good by gmuslera · · Score: 2

      Sailfish, that is a Tizen cousin, can run android apps in a similar way that does BB10. And if it supports QT will have easier to port native apps from Meego (that have already a good enough core apps package), native BB10 ones, or even Ubuntu Touch.

  4. I love Samsung's smartphones, but... by Zaatxe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...if they ditch Android, I'll ditch Samsung.

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    So say we all
    1. Re:I love Samsung's smartphones, but... by q.kontinuum · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, Tizen might be a reason for me to give them a shot. Unless I get a budget-friendly device with Sailfish OS first :-)

      --
      Trolling is a art!
    2. Re:I love Samsung's smartphones, but... by Kryptonian+Jor-El · · Score: 4, Informative

      Android has multiple app stores, and actually has apps to fill them with. Your argument is invalid

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    3. Re:I love Samsung's smartphones, but... by q.kontinuum · · Score: 2

      SailfishOS has an Android runtime, so Android apps should run on the device. They also plan to provide images compatible with standard Android hardware, claiming that e.g. in the Chinese market it is common for users to pimp their phones with custom roms. So, I might wait for first reviews on how well the compatibility-layer works, but if it works I wouldn't be concerned about lack of apps.

      --
      Trolling is a art!
  5. Re:Am I doing it wrong? by Stormwatch · · Score: 2

    Who buys a smartphone to type a sizable amount of text?

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
  6. Nice phone by reboot246 · · Score: 4, Informative

    with a butt-ugly interface.

    No sir, I don't like it.

  7. Re:Lawsuits pending by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    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)...

  8. Re:Am I doing it wrong? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  9. Re:Am I doing it wrong? by fatphil · · Score: 2

    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
  10. Re:Samsung and Google by Custard+Horse · · Score: 4, Funny

    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!

    They're keeping patent law alive. Not content with being sued by Apple, they will now be sued by microsoft - presumably as their 'tiles' are 'too square'.

  11. markets by Tom · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
  12. Tizen uses EFL by Niznaika · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  13. Perhaps they can pull this off... by Simulant · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...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.

  14. A leak? You mean press release... by matbury · · Score: 2

    "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.

  15. I'm not holding my breath for this! by morgauxo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?!?!