Samsung to be first to sell Tizen-based smartphone

Samsung has been working on a device based on Tizen for quite some time now and is all set to be the first company to sell a phone based on the operating system, according to CNET. Samsung, along with partners such as NTT Docomo, hopes to build a platform that can rival the likes of iOS and Android with Tizen.

Tizen is an operating system that is based on Linux. It emerged after the death of Nokia's open source operating system—MeeGo. Samsung took over the development of the OS and dubbed it Tizen. The OS aims to be more open than Google's Android.

Tizen during its early days

We first heard of Tizen back in September 2011, as a project that was being developed by two major Linux software groups—Samsung and Intel. Samsung intensified development of the OS after Bada failed to deliver. Tizen is designed to support multiple devices, such as smartphones, tablets and Samsung’s own Smart TVs as well as in-car infotainment systems.

In 2012, Samsung released the SDK and source code for Tizen v1.0 Larkspur and expected developers to start working on designing apps. The SDK and source code includes a browser-based simulator for running and debugging web apps and an improved emulator. Samsung handed out reference hardware at the Tizen Developer Conference, around which it expects the developers to design the apps. The device features a 4.3-inch screen with a 1024x720 pixels display and a 1.2GHz dual-core ARM processor.

In May 2012, a video emerged showing a device running Tizen. As it was an initial release, it didn't have too many apps bundled along with it, not even the camera app. The UI looks similar to TouchWiz and also features a pull down notification status bar and power widget. There’s a home button on the notification bar, which can be accessed on any screen. Pressing it will take you back to the homescreen. There is also a physical home button, just like all other Samsung phones. Long pressing the home button lets you access the task manager and recent apps, which again is just like Google’s existing Android platform. There’s even an onscreen back key at the bottom.

The phone running Tizen supports NFC and has Facebook, Twitter and Samsung’s AllShare app. The web browser on this device is designed to further optimise the user experience of the mobile web and has the highest HTML5 score in comparison to other browsers. The device itself looks interesting enough, but is obviously rather simple.

From the looks of it, Tizen has really good and smooth flowing transition effects thanks to the 1.2GHz dual-core chip.