Upcoming Galaxy Gear smartwatch to reportedly ditch Android in favor of Tizen

Himanshu Arora

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According to a USAToday report, anonymous sources familiar with Samsung’s plans revealed that the second generation Gear smartwatch will ship with a new HTML5 version of their Tizen operating system, both of which will be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress later this month in Barcelona.

Through Tizen, which is an in-house open source project of Samsung, the company is attempting to develop a software platform not only for smartphones but also for other devices including televisions, cameras, and more. The project has already suffered delays because of some members dropping out. However, the company on February 12 announced 15 new partners, including mobile and Internet giants Sprint, SoftBank, and Baidu.

Android devices usually include several Google services like maps, e-mail, search, and more. This results in huge advertising revenues for the company, leaving hardware manufacturers with less profits. Installing its own operating system on the wearable device could be Samsung’s way of showing the OS' versatility, and would also result in the company potentially generating more revenue.

This is just speculation for now as nothing is official as yet. A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment.

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Since its Samsung the odds of success are higher but at this point there is an overblown mobile OS market. It would have to be really appealing for people to want in general and then comes the problem of application support.
 
A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment
What use is a spokeswoman if she doesn't speak and a woman who is short of a comment, I'm yet to meet. :)
 
They already have an NX series camera running Tizen, so I guess they are now slowly starting to lessen their reliance on android, a reasonable strategic business decision. Things will get interesting when the launch their first higher end Tizen smartphone though.
 
I could see them pushing the new os now with google becoming a bit more strict on android customizations. it would definetly allow them to make more money, microsoft has proven with enough push anyone can enter into the mobile os platform. Samsung has even larger partners in the mobile world making there push even easier, especially since they aleady make popular phones.
 
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