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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.
Samsung's Won-Pyo Hong: Galaxy Nexus wasn't designed just to skirt Apple patents
Well, so much for that. Samsung's Executive Vice President of Product Strategy -- Won-Pyo Hong -- didn't say a whole heck of a lot on stage here at AsiaD, but he did clarify one thing near the end of his interview: he has 'no idea' where those earlier rumors came from. With "those rumors" regarding the matter of designing the Galaxy Nexus specifically to avoid patent troubles with Apple. According to Dr. Hong, the actual development of the Galaxy Nexus started with Google before the initial lawsuit hammer fell between the two outfits, making it impossible for the suits being flung back and forth today to have any impact on that decision.We believe it. These phones are designed months -- if not years -- in advance, and the actual process from concept to shipping takes a relative eternity. Furthermore, the original source (linked in More Coverage) only tied the quotes from Sammy's Shin Jong-kyun loosely to the Galaxy Nexus, and we're guessing that Samsung takes a look at all potential legal implications before shipping any product. In other words, the company's probably doing everything it can -- including paying Microsoft for every single Android device sold -- to avoid these nasty legal battles, but the Galaxy Nexus wasn't engineered just to sidestep another fight with the lawyers in Cupertino. And now you know.Update: In response to a question from Joanna Stern regarding Samsung's rethinking of hardware and software (mainly TouchWiz) in order to lessen its chances of being sued in the future, Dr. Hong did muster a very vague affirmation that a newer build of TouchWiz will eventually surface, and that it'll almost certainly be tweaked in a way that'll cause Apple's lawyers to salivate less.
