Meego will will be merged out of existence. MeeGo will become Tizen. Tizen is a software platform and a mobile and device operating system based on Linux and other popular upstream projects. According to Intel, Tizen will build upon the strengths of both LiMo and MeeGo and Intel will work with MeeGo partners to help them move from MeeGo to Tizen.
The Tizen project is hosted at the Linux Foundation and offers an operating system and an HTML5 development environment within which applications can be produced to run on multiple types of hardware. The Tizen application programming interfaces are based on HTML5 and other web standards, and it is anticipates that the vast majority of Tizen application development will be based on these emerging standards. Tizen will provide a robust and flexible environment for application developers, based on HTML5 and Wholesale Applications Community (WAC). The Tizen SDK and API will allow developers to use HTML5 and related web technologies to write applications that run across multiple device segments, including smartphone, tablet, smart TV, in-vehicle infotainment, and netbook. So the application development is expect to shift from Meego/Qt now to Tizen/HTML5.
For those who use native code in their applications (small percentage of the applications), the Tizen SDK will include a native development kit.
Tizen sounds an awful lot like WebOS to me. Why do we need more Linux OS? Will this really replace the ones it is combining together or fragmenting the market more? The situation in mobile Linux field seems to be pretty similar to what happens at xkcd:Standards comic to standards.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Z’s Tizen OS demoed on video
http://www.sammobile.com/2014/06/03/samsung-zs-tizen-os-demoed-on-video/
Samsung unveiled its first Tizen-powered smartphone yesterday, the Samsung Z, which is slated to go on sale in Russia in the third quarter of this year. The Samsung Z, being the first commercial Tizen phone, runs what is the final consumer version of Tizen, which hasn’t been shown to the public yet as all prototype devices ran test versions of the OS. But thanks to the folks over at TheHandheldBlog, we can take a look at what Tizen will look and work like on the Samsung Z – the demo was done on a test unit, but the software is the same version as that which will power the Z.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tizen UI from the Samsung Z
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPx5WmBncIQ
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s why the new Tizen smartphone OS will go nowhere
http://www.generatorresearch.com/tekcarta/analysis-insight/heres-why-the-new-tizen-smartphone-OS-will-go-nowhere/
Tizen is a new operating system for connected devices which is a direct competitor to Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS.
The project has existed for three years and is backed by a consortium of industry heavyweights including Intel, Samsung, LG, Huawei, Japan’s DoCoMo and Britain’s Vodafone, plus others. These players are positioning Tizen as an ‘OS of Everything’ – where ‘everything’ means mobile devices, wearables, automotive systems and TVs.
Is Tizen going anywhere?
In a word, no.
Here’s what I think in a nutshell:
Tizen is at least 5 years too late
Taking Android as an example, the market power of this ecosystem comes from six layers of value which are laid on top of each other in a kind of inverted pyramid: the OS itself sits at the very bottom and contributes the least value. Therefore, the Tizen OS should be seen as a the first stage in a long process.
The least commercial value comes from the operating system itself which sits at the bottom of the pyramid, whilst the highest commercial value comes from deep-level behavioral and other data that Google holds for the 1.5 billion individuals who use Google Search every day.
Tizen has been at the lowest, easiest and least-valuable layer in the pyramid for the last three years.
Because most developers already write their apps for Android and iOS, a decision to start developing for Tizen will mean allocating 30% of their development time to a platform that accounts for a vanishingly small percentage of the market. This does not sound like a very interesting business case.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meego / Meltemi not dead, may metamorphose into a cloud-based Nokia OS in future
http://www.nokiapoweruser.com/2014/08/17/meego-meltemi-not-dead-may-metamorphose-into-a-cloud-based-nokia-os-in-future/
All Nokia fans do remember Meego, the beautiful and promising Nokia’s homegrown OS, that was first and last seen on Nokia N9 before it was considered dead.
Now, if our trusted sources have to believed, it seems Meego or its successor Meltemi which was also scrapped may not be dead after all. Though they may not come back in the form already seen but metamorphose into a “Cloud-based OS solution”. Our sources tell us,
Meego / Meltemi is not dead. CTO ( The central team behind special projects like emerging devics and tech at Nokia ) kept it alive as a special project. 100+ people kept working on this cloud enabled solution built from meego scraps. This team is active since 2011 in US and Finland.
This does make sense as Nokia is planning to venture back into “consumer products and applications”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Elec to launch Tizen smartphone in India – S.Korea paper
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/01/samsung-elec-smartphone-tizen-idUSL3N0TL20620141201
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd plans to launch a new sub-$100 smartphone running on its own Tizen operating system in India later this month, South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper said on Monday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tizen Phones Selling in India Compete with Android One
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1325483&
Samsung is introducing their second Tizen OS smartphone, the Z1, initially just for the Indian market.
Smartphone manufacturers and internet companies are determined that 2015 will be the year to connect the “next billion” subscribers. Everyone agrees that developing markets such as India, China, Brazil and the African continent are the ones experiencing the fastest smartphone adoption.
Now Samsung is introducing their second Tizen OS smartphone, the Z1, initially just for the Indian market. Samsung already hinted last year that the Tizen devices will be initially available in selected markets, as low cost devices, but chose to launch the first model in June, the Samsung Z as a midrange device for the Russian market. But, at the time of writing this article the Russians are still waiting to get their hands on the device.
Now Samsung has announced that Z1 is available immediately in the Indian market.The Z1 is a compact smartphone full of features one can expect in more expensive models.
Samsung has not announced the number of Apps available for the phone, but initial reports suggest that the phone will include popular apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and probably WhatsApp.
Despite its nice design and features I don’t see the new Samsung Z1 competing with the Android One devices. For starters the Android OS is well established and has all the apps customers want, most of them free. And the Android One devices run stock Android OS 4.4 (kitkat) directly from Google. They have a faster processor, more battery power and similar connectivity. The devices have been available in India from three manufacturers since the first half on November. Both the Android One and the Samsung Z1 retail for less that $100.
But here is the catch: Samsung has made agreements with two of the most important cell carriers in the country, Reliance Communications & Aircel, to offer free 500MB/month 3G data during six months.
Obviously Samsung is counting on music and movies to be the strong selling point of the Z1, especially since most of the potential Z1 customers never had a smartphone before.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:
The first Tizen smartphone isn’t an “Android killer”—it’s a bad Android clone
The first Tizen smartphone isn’t an “Android killer”—it’s a bad Android clone
Review: Samsung’s Android alternative arrives, but it’s no match for the real thing.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/samsung-z1-review-the-first-tizen-smartphone-still-feels-like-plan-b/
This is the Samsung Z1—the world’s first Tizen phone. After one of the bumpiest pre-launch situations in recent memory, Samsung’s home-grown OS has finally hit smartphones.
Tizen, if you’ll recall, is Samsung’s “Android Killer.” While Samsung rose to power on a wave of Android devices, it was also quietly developing its own OS in the background. If Samsung ever got tired of Google’s Android requirements, Tizen would be there as a cold war threat and good negotiation leverage for Google Play licensing talks.
Samsung and Android rocketed up the market share charts together, but was Android successful because of Samsung, or was Samsung successful because of Android? Tizen was supposed to answer that question.
At least, this was the conventional wisdom about Tizen a few years ago, when Samsung was dominating the Android ecosystem and making record profits. Today, the threat of Samsung dumping Android sounds like something from a bygone era. Better competition from Apple, Chinese OEMs, and the rest of the Android ecosystem sent Samsung sales plummeting and put the company on the defensive. Basically, everyone started making big screen phones, and Samsung’s good times were over.
If Tizen feels late to the party, that’s because it is. The OS was originally scheduled to debut in 2012, but it ended up being delayed,
When we last saw Tizen on a smartphone, it looked rather promising. It was running on a flagship device that looked a lot like a Galaxy S4
Sometime in the last six months, though, Tizen’s smartphone strategy was rebooted. A blog post this month from the company claimed “Tizen is ‘lighter’ than other operating systems,” positioning the OS as a good choice for low-end devices and a key to Samsung’s “Internet of Things” strategy.
Which brings us to our vessel for Tizen: the Samsung Z1—a low-end $92 device debuting in India.
The Z1 will have to do battle with the likes of Google’s $105 Android One smartphones and Xiaomi, which set up shop in India a few months ago.
The Z1 is undoubtedly a Samsung device. In fact, the device looks nearly identical to 2011′s Galaxy SII.
With Tizen, Samsung finally has a smartphone OS to call its own, which puts it in a position of nearly Apple-esque control over everything from the design to the internals to the software: the OS, the SoC, the screen, and the phone body. For the Z1, though, Samsung skipped its Exynos division and went with someone else’s SoC: a 1.2GHz dual-core Spreadtrum SC7727S SoC.
The menu button betrays Tizen’s age. It was designed circa-2012 as a drop-in Android replacement that would run on the same hardware.
Tizen is the Highlander of the mobile world. The Linux-based OS is an amalgamation of every other failed or aborted Linux smartphone platform. If it’s Linux-based and not made by Google, there’s a good chance it’s been rolled into Tizen at some point. Tizen’s family tree includes Moblin, Meego, LiMo, and Bada, with large chunks of code written by the Linux Foundation, Intel, Samsung, and even the pre-Microsoft Nokia.
Make no mistake though, this OS is Samsung’s baby, and it’s Samsung that controls it. While the footer at Tizen.org says it is “a Linux Foundation Project,” Samsung is the only company making Tizen products, a Samsung executive VP is co-chair of the Tizen Technical Steering Group, and the first paragraph of the Tizen SDK EULA states that it is “a legal agreement between you and Samsung.”
The company in second place for control of Tizen is Intel, though ironically the company’s chips have nothing to do with the ARM-powered Z1.
The core OS is open source, but some applications that sit on top of the OS are developed by Samsung, and a patent license for these components is only available for the “Tizen Certified Platform.” It’s basically the “Google Play” strategy: have an open source core for easy porting by partners, but lock down important interface components so that you still have some control over the OS. At this stage Samsung probably won’t be picky about who uses Tizen, but the option for control is there.
There are two types of Tizen apps: HTML5 apps and native Tizen apps (written in C or C++).
The dueling programming methods are a result of Tizen’s development history. Meego and Tizen 1.0 both used HTML5 apps, but when the project merged with Samsung’s Bada, it also picked up Bada’s native app development.
Our Samsung Z1 is running Tizen 2.3, the latest stable version of the OS. Unlike Android, Tizen has an open development process, and work on the next version—Tizen 3.0—is being done in public.
While there are other HTML5-based platforms out there, right now Tizen doesn’t seem to care about interoperability. The move to Crosswalk would allow developers to write an HTML5 app and spit out versions for Android, iOS, Chrome, and Tizen. And for the record, Tizen currently doesn’t have any official support for Android apps.
Most of the Tizen basics are similar to Android.
Things get a little weird on the home screen, though.
Tizen makes the awful mistake of going with a menu button, just like Android used to do back in the Gingerbread days
Tizen comes with a suite of apps that covers most of the basics.
Tizen relies heavily on a Samsung Account, just as Android does with a Google account. This will sync and backup all your settings, texts, and data. Samsung has also built sync adapters for Google, Dropbox, Facebook, and Exchange.
Tizen has an app store that covers everything you would expect: there’s support for free and paid apps, top lists, categories, updates, permissions disclosure, and user reviews.
The problem comes when you look at what’s in the app store—or, in this case, what isn’t in there. Tizen has about 1,000 apps. Compare that to Android or iOS, which estimate about 1.3 million apps each.
Running an Android app on Tizen on this third-party middleware is very strange. ACL brings over the ancient Gingerbread Android keyboard and all the little UI pieces from Android’s framework.
Samsung has slowly built up a massive Android ecosystem.
None of these are on Tizen.
Every new OS starts off without an ecosystem, but for Android the “anchor” was always great support for Google services. Google and Apple both know it’s up to the platform creator to lead the rest of the ecosystem.
The Samsung Z1 has a measly 3.15MP camera
Tizen has actually gotten worse over the last year…
We got to try a Tizen phone about a year ago at Mobile World Congress 2014, and there’s something we don’t understand: Tizen has gotten worse over the last year. In 2014 we called Tizen “impressive,” but literally every feature we liked in our hands-on has been removed. Not all of the changes can be attributed to the Z1′s distribution region or its low-end hardware either.
Why would anyone pick this over Android?
The million dollar question for any new OS is always “Why would anyone pick this over Android?” Google’s free OS seems purpose-built to smother upstart operating systems like Tizen. It has tons of developer support (even Samsung supports Android more than Tizen), killer integration with Google services, and is available on any kind of hardware you can imagine.
Samsung hasn’t provided a good answer to this question, which makes its outlook especially bleak in the hyper-competitive smartphone OS market. New OSes always have problems, usually with app selection and hardware availability, but they’re supposed to make up for their ecosystem problems by bringing something new to the table.
Tizen is just a less mature version of Android with no apps and no major ecosystem player supporting it. The OS feels like it’s straight out of that Dilbert comic where the Pointy-Haired Boss suggests “If we work day and night, we can match our competitors’ features within twelve months.” Tizen seems to have done a good job copying an OS from several years ago, but it never evolved while its competitors did. For now, the conclusion of any Tizen-based smartphone review will always say “this would have been a better product if it ran Android.”
Even with Samsung’s full support, Tizen would be a tough sell. But when even the creator of the OS isn’t supporting it, why would anyone invest in this ecosystem?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Se Young Lee / Reuters:
Samsung says it sold 1M Z1 Tizen phones, will launch several more in 2015 according to source — Samsung Electronics plans more Tizen smartphones this year: source — Leading smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co Ltd plans to launch more handsets running on its own Tizen operating system later …
Samsung Electronics plans more Tizen smartphones this year: source
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/29/us-samsung-elec-tizen-idUSKCN0P911I20150629
Leading smartphone maker Samsung Electronics Co Ltd plans to launch more handsets running on its own Tizen operating system later this year, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday.
Samsung will launch several Tizen smartphones at varying prices, the person said without disclosing other specifications.
The company launched its first Tizen smartphone, the Z1, in India in January and has since been selling the device in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It has sold 1 million Z1s so far in India, the world’s third-biggest smartphone market.
The Z1 was the best-selling smartphone in Bangladesh in January-March
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tizen Uprising: Will a mid-range Z3 allow Samsung’s OS to reach a larger crowd?
http://www.androidauthority.com/tizen-based-samsung-z3-tol-be-bigger-and-better-640234/
Despite initial reports that Samsung’s first commercially released Tizen smartphone was a flop, the device went on hit a major milestone in key markets where it was sold. Still, the mainstream media and phone-loving public were quick to dismiss the device, known as the Z1, both because of its unabashed low-end specs, and the fact that it runs an, essentially, brand new mobile OS that is devoid of the robust app marketplace Android and iOS enjoy.
Much as how Microsoft sought to skip Windows 9, so too does it look like Samsung will play parlay with darling digits: the upcoming – yet still unofficial – Z3 smartphone is shaping up to be bigger and better than its predecessor in every way possible. Literally.
A story of success, however “small” it may be
As far as Tizen goes, this is a significant upgrade that is posed to pounce on customers in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal where the device is supposedly going to launch. There may be a larger picture in mind however, given that reports have been surfacing for some time now indicating Samsung may have an intention to release this device, or a future one, in Europe. Indeed Russia was once going to be the testing bed for Tizen for the scrapped Samsung Z device that never made it to market.
Given that the Z1 had sold a million units as of June, clearly it found a market. In fact, it found a market curiously larger than last year’s Galaxy Note Edge which, as of this February, had only sold an estimated 630,000 units worldwide. Naturally pricing was an issue here, and indeed the Z1 can currently be purchased directly from Samsung India for an impressively reasonable 4,990 Rupees (roughly $75 US).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Port Tizen to RaspberryPiZero
built OS image, just need a device to boot it
https://hackaday.io/project/9649-port-tizen-to-raspberrypizero
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fast Company:
Samsung says no Android Wear devices are in development or being planned, citing better battery efficiency of Tizen OS — It was at Google I/O two years ago that Samsung announced its Gear Live smartwatch (now discontinued) running the Android Wear OS. Two years later the collaboration is over.
Samsung is done with the Android Wear OS
https://news.fastcompany.com/samsung-is-done-with-the-android-wear-os-4008110
The executives said Samsung’s own Tizen OS, used in almost all the company’s wearables now, is far more battery-efficient than Android Wear. Also, Tizen is becoming the standard OS on other Samsung products from TVs to refrigerators, the executives said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung launches first Tizen-powered 4G smartphone for $68
http://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/8/23/12602468/samsung-tizen-z2-4g-smartphone
Samsung’s latest mobile — the Z2 — launches in India today, and it’s a straightforward play to appeal to the country’s growing number of smartphone users. The Z2 costs INR 4,590, or around $68 (just two dollars less than the average price of a mobile phone in India) and is powered by Tizen, Samsung’s home-grown mobile OS. It’s also the first Tizen device to support 4G.
The Z2 certainly isn’t a powerhouse (there’s a 1.5GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of internal memory), but it does provide a cheap way for consumers to get more out of their mobile. As well as its 4G connection, the Z2 comes with a 90-day free trial for various entertainment apps from Indian mobile operator Jio.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google joins the .NET Foundation while Samsung adds .NET support on its Tizen platform — Microsoft is hosting its annual Connect(); developer event in New York today. With .NET being at the core of many of its efforts, including on the open-source side, it’s no surprise that the event …
Google signs on to the .NET Foundation as Samsung brings .NET support to Tizen
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/16/google-signs-on-to-the-net-foundation-and-samsung-brings-net-support-to-tizen/
Microsoft is hosting its annual Connect(); developer event in New York today. With .NET being at the core of many of its efforts, including on the open-source side, it’s no surprise that the event also featured a few .NET-centric announcements, as well. For the most part, these center around the .NET Foundation, the open-source organization Microsoft established to guide the future development of the .NET Core project.
As the company announced today, Google is now a member of the .NET Foundation, where it joins the likes of Red Hat, Unity, Samsung JetBrains and (of course) Microsoft in the Technical Steering Group.
Google already allows developers on its Cloud Platform to deploy .NET applications thanks to its support for Windows Server, and offers .NET libraries for more than 200 of its cloud services. The company is also an active .NET contributor already.
Samsung, too, is deepening its commitment to .NET by launching support for it on its Tizen platform. As Samsung’s Hong-Seok Kim told me, Samsung was looking for a framework in addition to the web framework and C API that Tizen developers currently use to write their applications. “We looked into alternatives but .NET was superior,”
Given .NET’s existing ecosystem, Samsung surely hopes that this move will also broaden its own Tizen developer ecosystem.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung’s Android Replacement Is a Hacker’s Dream
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/samsung-tizen-operating-system-bugs-vulnerabilities
A security researcher has found 40 unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in Tizen, the operating system that runs on millions of Samsung products.