bada
Latest
Hands-on with Tizen 2.0 on Samsung's developer handset (video)
Shuffle along, shuffle along, because this couch is about to get crowded. Alongside the big four, we now have Ubuntu, Firefox OS and the latest version of Tizen all elbowing each other for room. Tizen has one particularly strong backer, Samsung, who built the reference device we play with in the video after the break, and whereas Firefox OS is destined only for the low-end, Tizen seems far more ambitious -- at least judging from the 720p resolution of this developer handset. Since the introduction of version 2.0, the OS is designed to run both native and HTML5 apps, or apps which mix the two layers -- such as the Vimeo app you'll see in the video, which has a web-based interface but accesses the hardware for the purpose of video acceleration. Huge swathes of the interface are remarkable only by their familiarity: a home screen with a grid of apps; a single navigation button to take you back to this screen or alternatively to a multi-tasking screen by way of a long press; and a top-to-bottom pull-down for notifications and quick access to settings. It's basic, but it represents pretty much what all these new operating systems are supposed to be: ways of getting functionality that is at least close to Android but without all the licensing costs associated with running Google services. Beyond that, however, Tizen at least seems capable of delivering smartphone fundamentals like a fast camera (with burst mode, incidentally). Tizen's mostly likely rival will be Ubuntu, at least once that other Linux-based OS progresses beyond entry-level phones at some point in 2014. From the sound of it though, Tizen is about to beat it to the punch.
Bada to be retired, will see its best features absorbed by Tizen
It's been over a year since rumors and statements suggested Samsung's Bada OS was due to be terminated, but that some form of it would live on within the open-source Tizen OS. Now, Samsung exec Won-Pyo Hong has confirmed as such with Korean news agency Yonhap. Rather than a complete fusion of the two, Tizen will select only the best qualities of the featurephone-friendly Bada for assimilation. Samsung's Tizen 2.0-based handsets arriving in 2013 will put the final nail in Bada's coffin, but out of respect for its fallen comrade, Tizen will obligingly run apps designed for the retired OS. Like some kind of mobile software Highlander, Tizen is now drawing power from several perished peers, and has even set its sights on the mighty Android. There can be only one.
Viber comes to Symbian, S40 and Bada, adds HD voice calling and group messaging to Nokia Lumia handsets
VoIP-over-3G app Viber broke down in tears when it learned that, after Android, iOS and Windows Phone, there were no new worlds to conquer. Then a helpful soul pointed out that there were more than 1.5 Billion S40 devices in the world, and it set about adding that to the existing 100 million users of its service. In addition, it's bringing its free-calls platform to Symbian and Bada handsets while current Nokia Lumia owners running Windows Phone 7 will find they can now access HD voice calls and group calls. iOS users shouldn't feel left out, however, since an update to their app will add support for a variety of languages including Simplified Chinese, Hebrew and Portuguese.
Samsung becomes a Platinum-level Linux Foundation member, open-source gets a Korean accent
Samsung's business virtually revolves around open-source code and Linux, both through obvious software like Android and Tizen as well as behind-the-scenes code for TVs and even home appliances. It almost shouldn't be a surprise, then, that the company just became a Platinum-level member of the Linux Foundation, giving it much more control over how the platform advances. The favor is being returned in kind, both through a $500,000 cash injection as well as a Samsung pledge to become a better open-source neighbor. Any long-term plans of Samsung's are being kept under wraps, but going to the Platinum tier puts it at a rare level enjoyed only by the likes of core Linux supporters like IBM, Intel and Oracle -- it's even higher than Google.
IDC: Android has a heady 59 percent of world smartphone share, iPhone still on the way up
We've been jonesing for a more international look at smartphone market share for the start of 2012, and IDC is now more than willing to oblige. In case you'd thought Android's relentless march upwards was just an American fling, Google's OS has jumped from 36.1 percent of the world's share a year ago to exactly 59 percent in the first quarter of this year. That's nearly two thirds of all smartphones, folks. As we've seen in the past, Android is siphoning off legacy users looking for something fresher: Symbian and the BlackBerry have both lost more than half of their share in one year's time, while Linux (led mostly by Bada) and Windows Mobile / Phone together lost small pieces of the pie despite raw shipment numbers going up. As for Apple? Even with all the heat in the kitchen, the iPhone's share grew to 23 percent, leading to a staggering 82 percent of smartphone buyers siding with either the Cupertino or Mountain View camps.
Tizen OS will run Android apps -- with a little help from third-party software (video)
As Tizen's open-source OS continues to make its first steps into the world, there's some good news for anyone concerned with a weak app line-up. It looks like both Android versions and Samsung's own Bada SDK will be supported through an application compatibility layer (ACL) which works along similar lines to the Android app player on BlackBerry's Playbook. Open Mobile, which is responsible for the ACL, claim it'll have 100 percent compatibility with Google's back catalogue and be just as responsive -- some pretty heady statements. The company wants its program be included on the OEM side of the equation -- this isn't aimed at humble end-user tinkerers. For now, you can check how its ACL fares in a quick video walkthrough after the break. (It's worth noting that the demo tablet isn't running on the Tizen UI -- it looks like we'll have to loiter around for some more hardware.)
Samsung ChatON now available as web-based messaging client
ChatON is Samsung's mobile messaging platform available for Bada, Android, BlackBerry and, yes, iOS phones. Now it's pulled the sheets from the web-based version of the service that allows you to message your frenemies from the comfort of your desktop. As well as short messages, you'll get group chat, multimedia sending, profile pages and buddy charts to let you know who your BFFs are. All of your communiqués and shared multimedia are stored in the "Trunk," a repository for those office-party pictures you wish you'd never sent. You'll also be able to link your desktop and phone accounts so that you're accessible at whatever device you're sat at. Head on down to our source link to go straight to sign up.
Samsung's Bada - Tizen merger still looking pretty likely
Last week, rumors began circulating around Samsung's Bada OS, with Forbes reporting that the platform would soon be merged with Intel's Tizen project. If finalized, the move would reportedly allow Bada apps to run on Tizen, though it remains unclear whether or not a decision has been made yet. On Monday, a company spokesman apparently confirmed these rumors to Reuters, though Samsung later denied these claims, in a statement provided to All Things D: Samsung and other members of Tizen Association have not made a firm decision regarding the merge of bada and Tizen. We are carefully looking at it as an option to make the platforms serve better for customers. As Samsung's essential part of multi-platform portfolio, bada will continue to play an important role in democratizing smartphone experience in all markets. Samsung will also support open source based development and continue to work together with other industry stakeholders.So, um, is it happening? We'll let you know.
Samsung to merge Bada with Tizen: the OS party just got a little freaky
While everyone was watching Windows Phone parting the iOS / Android curtains, no one noticed Bada and Tizen making cheeky eyes at each other. It was rumored Samsung might open-source its featurephone OS, but according to Forbes, it'll now fuse it with the Intel-backed Tizen project. Once the nuptials are complete, it's reported Bada apps will play nice with Tizen -- including full backwards compatibility -- with developers getting a new integrated SDK and API. We're guessing then, that it's the Bada brand getting the chop when the two linux-based systems tie the knot. The spirit of MeeGo, of course, also lives on in Tizen making this one big concept cocktail. One we should see being poured into "at least one or two" Samsung handsets, and eventually other products, sometime this year -- failing any last-minute cold feet.
TomTom powering Samsung Wave 3 Bada Maps
The ink is drying on the agreement 'twixt Samsung and TomTom for the latter's maps and location content will appear on the Wave 3 Bada smartphone. Owners of the device will get access to TomTom's global maps, point of interest information, 3D city maps as well as live traffic updates and speed camera notifications. It's premature to speculate, but given Android and Nokia's free GPS apps, we could see this as the start of a new direction for the mapping company. There's no word on if the service will be free to use or when it'll be available, but we've got plenty of other details tucked below the break.
Tizen OS exposed, apparently running on an unknown Samsung 'I9500'
An outfit called Realnorth, which claims to be frustrated by the lack of openness around the Tizen OS, has gotten its hands on the SDK and released some screenshots to prove it. If legit, they reveal a basic UI that seems to be inspired by a range of other OSs -- in addition to Tizen's progenitor, MeeGo -- while also managing to look a bit uninspired. It's hard to know whether the absence of frills like widgets is due to this being an early build, or whether it's because Tizen is intended as a lower-end OS, but either way it's too early to make any harsh judgement. Curiously, the user-agent used to grab the screenshots is listed as a "Samsung GT-I9500," which at the very least reminds us that there's a Tizen-running Sammyphone somewhere on the horizon. In fact, this could even become Bada 3.0. Update: It turns out the screenshots are indeed legit and come from a "very early preview" of the Tizen OS that is now openly available -- see more coverage at the CNXSoft link below.
Samsung claims record 300 million mobile sales this year
Add together ten million Galaxy S IIs, a dollop of Galaxy Nexii, a gargantuan gathering of Galaxy Notes and a healthy serving of Badas, and what do you get? 300 million handset sales so far in 2011, that's what. And Samsung claims that makes this the best year in its mobile-making history, surpassing 2010 by a whopping 20 million. Of course, more sales doesn't necessarily translate into greater revenue -- Nokia is still the world's largest manufacturer by volume and is a case in point. Nevertheless, we'll know more when Samsung reveals its Q4 earnings next month.
Samsung Wave 3 crashes onto French shores
Samsung's new Bada flagship has just docked into our illustrative French port. Announced back in the summer, the Wave 3 arrives on the refreshed Bada 2.0 OS, powered by a 1.4GHz processor and packing a four-inch 800 x 480 Super AMOLED display. Storage matches the watery iteration, with 3GB of memory baked-in, with expansion possible through microSD. Meanwhile, an auto-focus five megapixel shooter will do its best to fill all that space. Not content with France (where Bada-powered handsets have established a niche fanbase), the HSPA-connected smartphone is also penned to hit Germany, Russia and Italy before the end of the year.
Microsoft and Samsung sitting in a tree, patent s-h-a-r-i-n-g
Microsoft put on its nicest suit when it invited Samsung to the patent-licensing barn dance. Whatever it whispered as the two snuggled close during the slow jams about rescuing the Korean giant from the quagmire of Android litigation, it worked. Sammy has entered into a deal to license Redmond's vast patent archive and, if the rumors are to be believed, it will pay $15 per handset sold for the privilege. (No word on if that includes the $45 million in fees that would just cover sales of the Galaxy S II.) This seems like it could be an implicit vote of no-confidence concerning Google's promises that its acquisition of Motorola would make courtroom drama a thing of the past. There's also a strong reference to the pair collaborating on Mango, and we can only assume that it comes with a significantly less punitive licensing charge in place. Between Android, Windows Phone, Bada and Tizen, it's clear Samsung is hedging its operating system bets. There's a press release after the break, but take our word on it, at no point does it mention Steve Ballmer, lying naked on a bed of money, laughing to himself.
Android powered 56 percent of smartphones sold in the last three months
When last we checked in with Nielsen (which was earlier this month) Google's mobile OS had a sizable lead, powering just under 42-percent of smartphones sold, while Apple had cornered a more than respectable 28-percent of the market. In the few short weeks since, Android has seen its share grow to 43-percent. More interestingly, of the over 25,500 surveyed who had purchased a smartphone in the last three months, a whopping 56-percent chose to go with the Goog. Apple held a steady 28-percent across the board. Big G's gains came at the expense of RIM (only 9-percent of phones sold in the last three months were BlackBerries) and the ambiguous "other" (Symbian, Windows Phone 7, Bada, MeeGo, etc... accounted for 6-percent of sales). More important than choice of platform though, is that smartphone sales in general are climbing -- accounting for 58-percent of all handsets sold in August and driving smartphone penetration to 43-percent.
OpenMobile demos ACL for MeeGo, promises 100 percent compatibility with Android apps (video)
OpenMobile is a new company on the application compatibility scene whose primary product, the Application Compatibility Layer, promises to bring Android's large volume of apps to smaller platforms. In the following video, ACL is shown running on MeeGo, where the creators promise full compatibility with every Android app -- without the need for developer modification -- by leveraging Google's runtime environment and Dalvik VM. While support for Intel and Nokia's misbegotten lovechild is first out the door (along with Linux itself), the company plans to introduce similar versions for Bada, QNX, Symbian, WebOS and Windows. Like its competitor, Alien Dalvik, OpenMobile is positioning its Application Compatibility Layer to OEM manufacturers rather than consumers. Unfortunately, this eliminates any hope you might've had for installing Hanging with Friends on that N9 you've pre-ordered -- unless OpenMobile's able to convince the folks in Espoo with a mighty good sales pitch, anyway. [Thanks, Mikko]
Samsung taking Bada open source in 2012?
Samsung invited the world to adventure with its own smartphone OS, Bada, almost two years ago and so far most of us have turned down the offer. Of course, that trip could look more appealing if a Wall Street Journal rumor is true and the company is planning to open source it for use by developers and other manufacturers alike next year. Citing the usual "person familiar with the situation", Samsung apparently isn't interested in snagging any outside companies like, say, webOS, but wants to strengthen its independence from Android after Google announced it will purchase Motorola. Right now, it feels like we've already seen this story play out for the still-kicking Symbian. On the other hand, maybe Samsung, with its massive manufacturing capabilities and current hit-making prowess, can strike the right balance of hardware, software and apps to make it worthwhile. If it tries and fails, well, maybe the folks in Redmond will be looking for another close friend.
Mobile Miscellany: week of September 12, 2011
This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here's some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of September 12, 2011: Vodacom South Africa has joined the data throttling club, though this carrier is taking a slightly different spin: BlackBerry users consuming more than 100MB of data each month will find their download speeds downgraded to GPRS or EDGE. The company claims this will only affect less than five percent of its BlackBerry customers. [via N4BB] Bada fans: the Samsung Wave 578 is featured on Orange's site as "coming soon." [via The Inquirer] Motorola announced the availability of the Fire and Fire XT in India this week. [via Motorola] The Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray is now being sold at Vodafone UK. [via Vodafone] Parrot announced the most recent addition to its lineup of Bluetooth products, called the Minikit+, a refresh of its popular hands-free speakerphone. The new model offers simultaneous pairing and voice commands. [via Parrot] Research in Motion is hoping to put the NFC functionality in OS 7 to good use, as it announced that the BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9330 as well as the Curve 9350 / 9360 will support HID's iCLASS digital keys, which means corporate folks will able to use their smartphone as an access card. [via PhoneScoop] While digging through the Droid Bionic's webtop app, the names of two unknown Motorola phones were discovered: the Edison and the Common. Little is known about the Common, but a recent FCC filing mentioned the Edison and is speculated to be the follow-up to the Atrix, albeit sans LTE as originally hoped. [via Droid-Life] The manager of the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, Matt Bencke, wrote a post pleading developers to submit their Mango-compatible apps as soon as possible, as the new update is coming to existing phones soon and it's obviously very important to have Windows Phone 7.5 run as smooth as possible. [via WMPowerUser] A leaked Radio Shack roadmap indicates the HTC Vigor should be available in stores by October 20th, and the QWERTY-packing Samsung Stratosphere will be up for online ordering as early as October 6th. As this is a third-party retailer, we can't say with surety that these dates reflect the carrier's official release. [via Droid-Life]
All Samsung Wave phones will get Bada 2.0, if they can handle the upgrade
Bada 2.0 won't just be riding the Wave 3, Wave M and Wave Y, but according to a tweet from Samsung, it'll be available on all older Wave models as well. The company did warn that the OS could run "differently" between devices based on specifications like CPU and memory size, which may affect lower end models like the Wave 525 and Wave 533. However, if you are the proud owner of any of the fancier Wave phones like the S8500, expect the full OS makeover. The upgrade is due to splash across Europe some time in the fourth quarter, rolling out worldwide soon thereafter.
Samsung Wave 3 hands-on (video)
Had enough Samsung this morning? Well, how about a little more Samsung, then. Also on the company's laundry list of new devices is the Wave, which was announced earlier this week. The Wave 3 is the highest end of the three new devices carrying that name, packing a zippy 1.4GHz processor, which seems to handle tasks with ease. Like most of the rest of the products introduced here at IFA, the screen is the centerpiece of the device, a brilliant 4-inch WVGA unit. Also like the rest of Samsung's handsets, the hardware is really terrific on the Wave, glossy screen complimenting a brushed aluminum back. The handset runs Bada 2.0, which means that we're not likely to be seeing the thing in the US any time in the near future -- Samsung has largely backed away from US support for the mobile operating system, though it promises to expand its selection of applications from third-party app developers. Also new on the software front is ChatON, a mobile messaging service which we were unfortunately unable to give a spin here in Berlin. Click on past the break for a hands-on video. %Gallery-132288%
