Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Samsung's Position On Tizen May Hurt Developer Recruitment

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-change-horses dept.

CowboyRobot sends in an article about how Samsung's constantly shifting plans for its smartwatches are making it hard for developers to commit to building apps. Quoting: "Samsung's first smartwatch, released in October last year, ran a modified version of Google's Android platform. The device had access to about 80 apps at launch, all of which were managed by a central smartphone app. Samsung offered developers an SDK for the Galaxy Gear so they could create more apps. Developers obliged. Then Samsung changed direction. Samsung announced a new series of smartwatches in February: the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, and Gear Fit. Unlike the first device, these three run Samsung’s Tizen platform. ... This week, Samsung made things even more interesting. Speaking to Reuters, Yoon Han-kil, senior vice president of Samsung’s product strategy team, said the company is working on a watch that will use Google’s Android Wear platform. In other words, Samsung will bring three different watches to market with three different operating systems in under a year."

9 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. So ... by machineghost · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So basically they're just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks? I suppose that's one way to avoid choosing the wrong platform ...

    1. Re:So ... by sexconker · · Score: 5, Funny

      So basically they're just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks? I suppose that's one way to avoid choosing the wrong platform ...

      Anything that makes "wearables" die out faster is good in my book. Keep releasing different models all running different OSes and all doing different versions of nothing useful. Manufactured product pushes are like diarrhea. The sooner all the products exit the pipeline, the sooner corporate sees that marketing was blowing smoke up their ass when they told them "wearables" were going to be hot, the sooner I don't have to hear about them and, hopefully, the sooner that marketing dipshit is fired.

      The same goes for the asshole who decided that Wendy's, Carl's Jr/Hardees, and Sonic all had to jump on the non-existent pretzel bun bandwagon. Oh wait, nobody actually wanted those? Better jump on the ciabatta bandwagon! That failed too?! Well what about brioche? Still no boost in sales? Revert back to our "classic" buns to save money and leverage our brand!

    2. Re:So ... by Anonymous+Psychopath · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Anything that makes "wearables" die out faster is good in my book. Keep releasing different models all running different OSes and all doing different versions of nothing useful. Manufactured product pushes are like diarrhea. The sooner all the products exit the pipeline, the sooner corporate sees that marketing was blowing smoke up their ass when they told them "wearables" were going to be hot, the sooner I don't have to hear about them and, hopefully, the sooner that marketing dipshit is fired.

      The same goes for the asshole who decided that Wendy's, Carl's Jr/Hardees, and Sonic all had to jump on the non-existent pretzel bun bandwagon. Oh wait, nobody actually wanted those? Better jump on the ciabatta bandwagon! That failed too?! Well what about brioche? Still no boost in sales? Revert back to our "classic" buns to save money and leverage our brand!

      Sometimes the product vision is right but the timing or state of technology is wrong. I think wearables might fall into that category but it's too soon to tell. Groundwork and thought leadership today could reap rewards later. Apple's first tablet was such a colossal failure that many, including me, predicted the same for their second attempt. I was definitely wrong.

      --

      Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

    3. Re:So ... by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Wearable" isn't something bad by definition. It's just that the approach they take to it could not be worse.

      Everything that runs towards "wearable" today is basically a reskinned, retooled and reshaped smartphone. That's not really what wearable computing can or even should be. A wristwatch that is essentially a smartphone has nothing to do with wearable. It's a smartphone in a different format. Where is the "wearable" benefit?

      If you want to create a wearable, create something where we actually benefit from "wearing" it rather than sticking it in a pocket. The least I'd expect from a wearable is having my hands free and either a HMD or a output interface that doesn't require me to take my eyes off whatever I'm busy with. Else there is exactly zero need to "wear" the gadget, I can as well take it into a hand.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. One thing not pointed out by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In the case of Android Wear, if a developer targets that platform, they won't be limited to *just* Samsung.

    This doesn't surprise me. While Android Wear likely won't compete much with the "mostly dumb" smartwatches that consist of only a display and UI for the phone they're tethered to (Sony Smartwatch, Pebble - both of these are able to achieve hardware cost reductions and battery life that Android Wear will never be able to match, putting AW consistently in a different price/functionality market segment than SW and Pebble), Android Wear was a DIRECT competitor for Galaxy Gear - both are in the "High standalone functionality" category. At least by hardware design, that is - a watch running Android should be able to operate almost entirely standalone, using a phone only as a data connection in a manner similar to Google Glass. Unfortunately Samsung totally fucked up Gear and while its hardware capabilities should have made it MORE capable of standalone operation than any other smartwatch out there, Gear wound up the LEAST capable of standalone operation instead - being the ONLY smartwatch which required one of a few specific models of phone as opposed to "any Android phone" (Sony) or "any Android phone or iOS" (Pebble)

    By virtue of being in direct competition with Gear (e.g. identical market segment) AND the fact that it's superior, Wear is going to *crush* Gear. (Wear won't likely crush Pebble or Sony Smartwatch since they have the capability to play in a much lower-cost market segment than Wear will be able to due to having significantly lower hardware requirements.)

    --
    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  3. Worth noting by jkonrath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's most likely that the three different platforms mentioned were developed and evangelized by three different teams at Samsung that never talked to each other. Each team probably thinks their solution is *the* solution.

    When I worked at Samsung, divisions were heavily siloed, and often the first time you heard about what they were doing was when you saw it on a news site. Even within the same platform, teams were heavily divided. Our software dev outreach teams didn't even have a way to talk to the hardware design teams.

  4. "too hard for developers" (sniff) by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't understand the belly-aching. When I wrote code for Apple II machines, I had to know both BASIC and assembler. PC? Batch scripting, VB, C++, C#, SQL, InstallShield and still a little assembler. Web and mobile? Javascript, Java, Perl, PHP, Ruby, C#, ASP, Objective-C plus a few dozen "platforms", "frameworks" and what-not cobbled together with JSON, XML, CSS and various template and scripting syntaxes.

    So, you have to learn three platforms to keep up with a line of devices? Boo hoo. Besides, an "app" should be something you can crap out in a month or two - these generally aren't monolithic platforms like Office - even the context-switching-disabled should be OK.

    1. Re:"too hard for developers" (sniff) by DJCouchyCouch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not the difficulty, it's the potential waste of effort for supporting one platform when Samsung up and decides to change to another. Why support a company you can't rely on being stable?

  5. IBM and SONY syndrome? by goombah99 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Long ago IBM split itself in to 7 internal subdivisions that could to a certain extent compete. At the time all of IBM's equipment ran on chips made by IBM for IBM products. The florida area sub-unit which didn't actually make any computers, put one together from intel chips. It was dubbed the PC. The OS was contracted out to some kids from Seattle.

    Sony's products division is constantly at war with it's content division, leading to the constant hedging on content protection that defeats their products by using non-standard formats with DRM.

    Perhaps Samsung, which is really a humungously diverse set of industries, just has different competing segments within itself. Each has a strategy that is aimed at competing with the other divisions strategy but has to be distinctly different due to the internal politics, just like IBM's PC did.

    Its not s strategy to do everything, that's just the result.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.