Updated 15 Feb, 2012, 6:16 pm IST

Samsung Officially Unveils Bada Smartphone Platform

09 Dec, 2009, 11:11 am IST | Shayne Rana |

We’ve been eagerly awaiting Samsung’s announcement of their new smartphone platform, Samsung bada. At its unveiling, Samsung showcased the bada SDK (Software Development Kit) for partners so developers can get started on applications to suit the system. For those coming in late, bada is Korean for Ocean.

Dr Hosoo Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of the Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics said, “In providing Samsung bada, I believe that Samsung will become a true leader in the mobile industry; offering a wider range of smartphone choices for consumers.” He added, “At the same time, Samsung bada presents a powerful opportunity for developers to get their applications onto an unprecedented number of Samsung devices across the world."

Based on Samsung’s TouchWiz UI, the bada platform is designed to provide an easy, simple, and intuitive UI without compromising on efficiency. It will provide flash control, web control, motion sensing, fine-tuned vibration control and face detection. Also, it supports sensor-based, context-aware applications. By using various sensors such as accelerometers, tilt, weather, proximity, and activity sensors, application developers can implement context-aware interactive applications.

Samsung bada is also going to differentiate its position from others by supporting various service-centric features such as social networking, device synchronization, content management, location-based services, and commerce services - all supported by back-end bada servers. Various service applications will be able to share information such as personal profiles, social relations, schedules or contents with user confirmation in order to provide services with greater personal relevance and cooperative service extension.

The company also announced the Samsung bada Developer Challenge. The Challenge is the first chance for developers to win a share of a $2,700,000 prize fund, simply by using the features of the new bada platform to build a wide variety of applications for bada devices. Samsung is also set to announce a series of Developer Days to take place across the world during 2010. Open to all developers, the initial events will be held in Seoul, London and San Francisco, with more events following as the year progresses. The event will also feature insights from current bada development partners including micro blogging service Twitter, movies and games rental outlet Blockbuster Video and iconic games developers CAPCOM, EA Mobile, and Gameloft.

Seems like bada is on to good start in terms of publicity and will draw a lot of attention in the next couple of months. I’m quite anxious to see what the system is actually capable of doing on a handset though.

Tags: bada , Samsung