You’ll be forgiven for thinking Tizen is dead and resting in the large cemetary of failed mobile operating systems. Not only has the Tizen SDK 2.0 alpha been released, with highlights that include broader HTML5 support, USB accessory function support, web UI framework, Tizen web API’s, improved IDE and development tools, but also an actual (insert rumour) phone, named the GT-i9300_TIZEN. Yup, an SIII running Tizen.
I was thinking “wow, they want to put it on high-end hardware, they are really betting on it and giving the finger to Google!”, and then I realized it has maybe more to do with economies of scale (recycling existing hardware) – because they don’t want to invest in Tizen-specific hardware – and knowing that this is an uphill battle, so they better offer a nice hardware to compensate all the shortcomings of Tizen (including and not limited to mindshare)…
And HTML5 being slow (except when running in FirefoxOS).
Maybe also, they want to see if customers can make a difference between Touchwizz-hiding-Android and Touchwizz-hiding-Tizen.
The first Tizen phone will be dual-core imo, but time will tell.
Tizen and FF are part of the same HTML5 ecosystem: Tizen’s success is good for FF and vice versa. Even Blackberry10 browser’s excellent HTML5 score is an important milestone:
http://html5test.com/results/mobile.html
The Tizen roadmap: Tizen 2.0 in December, devices in Q1 2013
Touchwiz is just a zero cost UI on a Samsung prototype: each participant in the TA will have his own UI of course: http://www.tizenassociation.org/en/
The Automotive Grade Linux Workgroup will work with Tizen as the reference distro optimized for a broad set of automotive apps:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2012/09/lin…
Edited 2012-09-28 03:39 UTC
Are will Tizen and FFOS apps that use phone services compatible with each other?
yep, Tizen & FF have a common goal: to create an open, standardized ecosystem
http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/mozillas-simpson-warns-html5-f…
Yes but, who wants a phone OS that’s even more skinny than Android? And only runs HTML5 apps? This is what the people behind FirefoxOS and Tizen don’t get, Android is already simple enough for the user, and has apps much better than anything coded in HTML5. Frankly, the only OS I am looking forward to is Jolla.
HTML5 is the best option to avoid a Google monopoly, esp in emerging markets:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-04/telefonica-bids-to-own-the…
Tizen also improves the Linux drivers situation, with Samsung, Intel, NEC, Nvidia and Texas Instruments on board.
Edited 2012-09-28 11:10 UTC
It would be infinitely cool to have stock Linux / DRI2 drivers covering GS3 guts.