Samsung releases Tizen v1.0 "Larkspur" SDK and source code

Samsung had announced back in January about their plans to quit further development of Bada and concentrate on project “Tizen”, an open source effort backed up by Intel. The idea was to work on a new OS based on MeeGo that would one day compete with the likes of Android. Today, they’ve finally launched the first build for developers, codenamed “Larkspur”, along with the SDK and source code. This release is specifically designed for developers, as it gives them all the tools necessary to start building and testing apps for the new OS.

Work in progress...

Along with improvements and tweaks, the new version includes the following changes:

• Simulator: A new browser-based tool that supports the Tizen APIs and allows you to run and debug your web applications, and simulate running applications with various device profiles. This gives you the convenience of testing the app quickly and more efficiently.
• IDE: Enhancements include more flexibility around templates and debugging tools.
• Emulator: Significantly improved emulator performance through Intel's Hardware Acceleration Manager for Windows and OpenGL acceleration for Linux. Developers can now test out games and applications easily thanks to the hardware acceleration.

Other updates to the platform source code include full web support for additional features of W3C/HTML5 specification, location support for POI (Point of Interest) and route search and Wi-Fi Direct key features. This is just a small list as there are plenty of other changes so for the full list, you can go to the site itself. There’s still no word on when we’ll see an actual device based on this OS, but it’s good to know that development is picking up pace. The fate of Bada was a bit unfortunate and we hope Tizen doesn’t suffer the same fate, somewhere down the line, just because somebody ‘gave up’ on it.