back to article Linux-based Tizen mobile platform lives!

The Linux Foundation has released the source code and SDKs for the first alpha version of Tizen 2.0, its Linux-based smartphone OS, further fueling speculation that Samsung might be close to releasing a handset based on the platform. You could be forgiven for assuming Tizen was dead in the water – if you've heard of it at all …

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  1. Thorne
    FAIL

    Need Apps

    Need apps to build marketshare and need marketshare to get apps.

    Apple got in first. Android got in by not being Apple and Microsoft will fill third place. Anything else will struggle to gain traction.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Need Apps

      Samsung and the other Android OEMs are currently struggling to differentiate their brands from each other. They add layers like TouchWiz but it's still Android and someone who buys a Samsung phone can easily replace it with an HTC phone and keep running the same apps and have everything work pretty much the same way totally unlike trying to switch between Android and iOS. I'm sure Samsung would love to get a little bit of the Apple style lockin so that once someone buys a Samsung it is a more difficult decision to leave them for someone else.

      A small Android vendor couldn't hope to go it alone, but Samsung sells more phones than anyone. If anyone can do this, they can. They can make the API similar enough to Android that ports are easy, pay developers to port some of the most popular apps, and subsidize pricing at first so a GS3 class phone is free with contract. Given that a lot of buyers don't really know what sort of OS their phone runs beyond "there's iPhone, there's Blackberry, and there's everything else", Samsung could probably sell enough to quickly get developer interest even if people who know what Android is and specifically choose it wouldn't touch these.

    2. Raumkraut

      Re: Need Apps

      Depending on how linux-y it is, it could have hundreds of "apps" straight out the door.

      Linux developers haven't spent these past years twiddling their thumbs, waiting for "marketshare" before they wrote anything.

      1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        @RaumKraut re: Need Apps

        It is unlikely that a phone will implement full X11, more likely it will use Qt to provide hardware abstraction from the graphics hardware.

        If it does use Qt, it will mean that there will definitely be some software immediatly, but not as much as is available across all Linux.

        It looks to me like they are probably using the Android system specifications as the target for this. If that is the case, there is a very good chance that it would work on many different handsets and possibly even tablets with fairly minimal changes. I like my Android tablet, but putting a real Linux on it would be much better.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Twiddling"?

        Actually I have spent these past years writing a twiddling app.

        Wait... *thumbs*?

        <Hurriedly checks American dictionary>

    3. foo_bar_baz

      Re: Need Apps

      I'm pretty certain it will run Android apps, considering MeeGo and Maemo can, using Alien Dalvik. Also see:

      http://my-symbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=44032&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

      With WebOS being open source now, it's pretty likely that there will be HTML5 -based apps available.

      Installing old fashioned Linux apps (command line) is just a matter of adding a repository and apt-get install or yum install. Yes you can run command line apps and it's actually a useful feature.

      Then there are native applications from older OS generations that will be simple to update. Personally I find apps overrated. I rarely use any on my phone, mainly the browser and other bundled applications. But that's just me.

      1. petur
        Boffin

        Re: Need Apps

        I'm sorry, but maemo and meego do not run Android apps as Alien Dalvik refuses to sell its technology to users and only wants to license it to handset manufacturers. AND even then the Android apps don't run out of the box.

        You may be confused by the projects to *boot* android on N900 and N9

      2. Greg J Preece

        Re: Need Apps

        With WebOS being open source now, it's pretty likely that there will be HTML5 -based apps available.

        Actually, it's the other way round. HTML5 is being put forward as the primary development language, and they're debating whether the SLP-style Enlightenment APIs will be available. At least, that was the situation the last time I checked in.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        They wouldn't want it to run Android apps

        I'm pretty certain it will run Android apps, considering MeeGo and Maemo can, using Alien Dalvik.

        It wouldn't be in Samsung's interest for it to run Android apps. If it did, then there would be no reason for anyone to ever develop apps specifically for it, and they would have no lock-in.

    4. mistergrantham

      Re: Need Apps

      Unless the core programs that ship with the OS are well developed. A good example is maemo-harmattan, which (for me) is useful out-of-the-box, except for writing, spreadsheets and and a couple of missing services in its aggregator (whatsapp & G+)...

      In any case its no-good having thousands of 3rd-party apps wothout means to filter-out the useless ones (like ads, canned documents, novelties & web-portals) from the repository browser. Otherwise one can waste hours downloading and testing crapware, possibly putting the device into a state of disrepair.

    5. Mark .

      Re: Need Apps

      "Apple got in first."

      Apple were first? I don't think so.

      And Apple are a counterargument to your market share claim. Apple have always been catered first by many companies writing software, even though they've never been the number one platform. Indeed years ago, when their share was even smaller, it seems they were even more likely to be catered for, further disproving the link between application support and market share.

      "Microsoft will fill third place."

      What is this "third place" stuff, as if the market can only support two or three platforms? The market has long had more than three platforms. The current situation of Android first, Apple way behind, and MS behind them is relatively recent - until 2011, Symbian and Android were the two leading major platforms, and there was also Apple, Blackberry, WP. And don't forget Bada either.

      Indeed for years, Apple were third, fourth or even fifth place, and only became second when Nokia ditched Symbian. I don't recall people saying there was no room for Apple, or that it would fail to gain traction.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm...

    Dearth of apps aside, if this turns out to be a decent OS, it might just hit the sweet spot for folks in my demographic:

    1: Apple iGadget user, who's getting heartily sick of having to jump through jailbreak hoops each time the OS is updated, in order to add basic functionality such as customising the default search engine, or printing to non-AirPrint printers —while Apple's development efforts are seemingly chanelled into "flicking the Vs" at Google, or shoehorning FacePuke into every cranny of the OS.

    2: However, slightly prefer this to jumping aboard the Android spyware waggon.

    3: Quite happy to use something *nix based. I use OSX on my desktop machines and Debian on VPSs for my web stuff.

    4: Would rather eat own dung [without salt!] than use anything from Microsoft.

    ...Of course, that demographic might turn out to be one person, which wouldn't auger very well for sales figures!

    1. DutchP

      Re: Hmmm...

      Add to that

      5. A profound wish to stay out of the clutches of Google

      This is what's keeping me from using Android. Of course you can root it and use a different mod, which I wouldn't mind in itself but these mods generally only exist for high end phones. I don't want to spend that much.

      So, if this leads to a decent mid-range phone, I'd be very interested indeed.

      1. DutchP

        Re: Hmmm...

        ok, now i see my number 5 is your no. 2.

        Well, hmmm indeed

      2. Gio Ciampa

        Re: Hmmm...

        Curious - my Wildfire is running an ICS mod quite nicely (see here on XDA - there are others there also), and it's hardly a high end device

        Jelly Bean boots, though there are still issues to fix so it isn't ready for daily use yet (but fingers crossed...)

    2. dogged
      Go

      Re: Hmmm...

      Better Google than Apple.

      Better Microsoft (amazingly) than Google.

      Better linux than all of the above.

      Consider me interested.

  3. mathew42
    Linux

    The biggest problem maemo -> meego -> Joila or Tizen faces is consistency.

    Maemo showed it was possible to run LibreOffice on a mobile phone. With the increasing power of phones and HDMI out this becomes an increasing realistic option. Joila is probably the better option for this as it supports Qt.

    However it is difficult to make any other recommendation apart from iOS or Android.

    1. James 51

      Maemo supports Qt as well.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are Google going to force them to kill this off as well?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      This isn't Android based so they have little excuse to. It would also be very, very bad PR for Google to go after something released by The Linux Foundation given how they try to be open*.

      *but not too open.

  5. petur
    Meh

    If it...

    If it has a hardware keyboard and runs linux apps, I'm buying. Looks like neither of them will be the case. Oh well....

  6. Greg J Preece

    Been following this

    I'm ecstatic that the 2.0-a SDK is out, personally. Aside from this being a spiritual successor to Maemo, which I loved like the runty child I will never have, the 1.0 SDK was 32-bit only, and refused to run in a chroot. Hell, it refused to run on the one 32-bit machine I dug out to try it on.

    Seriously, who releases 32-bit only gear any more? I'm looking around the office and I don't think we have a single machine running a 32-bit OS.

    This new version? Downloaded it yesterday, and it installed and ran perfectly first time. Finally! I've been wanting to play with this thing since the beginning of the year.

    1. Greg J Preece

      Re: Been following this

      And to top it all off, my work phone is an S3. Let's root this bitch!

  7. Conrad Longmore
    Boffin

    Tizen, LiMo, Bada and PalmOS

    Palm really do play the field.. in the past they've dabbled with PalmOS (unsuccessfully) and also LiMo devices (LiMo was folded into Tizen).

    A rumour was going around a few months ago that Tizen and Bada would be folded into the same product going forward. Both are Linux-based OSes, so it might well be possible. Bada has one or two percent of the smartphone market, which is not too shabby I suppose.

  8. Mark .

    "It's a combination of Nokia's Maemo, Intel's Moblin, and the two companies' joint MeeGo project, none of which enjoyed any market success."

    Well, it's reasonable to say they never became major mainstream platforms. Though I note that the Nokia Meego N9 sold one million in approximately 76 days. For context, the original iphone sold one million in 76 days, a figure that was hailed by the media as being an overwhelming success, and it was then used as a benchmark for "market success"...

    (Although I guess it would have been better if the media had said the original iphone didn't enjoy "any market success" either.)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Given the plasticky and cheapo build quality Samsung use - I'm not so interested. Tizen, Jolla and BB10 are probably the three new Linux based OS's I'll be watching out for early next year.

    Lets see what they can come up with. My bets are on BB10 - but thats not to say the others won't be successful.

    1. Rob Beard

      BB10

      BB10 is QNX.

      QNX != Linux

      Rob

  10. Anonymous C0ward

    How many times is this grave going to be dug up?

  11. Wil Palen
    Megaphone

    For me personally the N9 is far ahead of the competition, and for my next phone I will most likely go with Jolla or Tizen if it stays close to what Harmattan/N9 offers right now. With shelving Qt, Nokia threw away one of the best platforms that had a common platform for both smartphones and featurephones, which could have benefitted hugely from a trickle-down effect. Besides, those who dabbled with Qt/QML realize that it offers what HTML5 promises, but doesn't deliver.

    And, who cares about millions of apps if most is substandard anyway. The iOS6 maps app debacle is just one example. Just compare that to what the N9 gives you for free, with lifetime updates, and no sucking sound emanating from your wallet. And not to mention walled gardens and obsessive corporate control. And on the other side of the fence, the android fans seem to be more focused on # of cores and clock ticks, like that matters. Or is it trendy to be mining bitcoins on the phone nowadays and in the process scorch the family jewels?

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