Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

osnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 89 posts

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#11

Post by shadowmint »

"For most Samsung smartphone owners, TouchWiz is Android, and since Tizen could easily get a TouchWiz-like user interface, the average consumer wouldn't notice a thing."

You've got to be kidding.

Do you remember the demo? www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ1y7CpIaVA

Smooth. :/

To be fair, I'm sure they're working on the UI, but UI is something that's hard to get right. It took android what, 4 years to reach a point where it's actually nice to use.

...and you think maybe consumers are just stupid and won't be able to tell the difference between a smooth responsive and well designed UI and a rubbish new UI (as all new UIs are, to start with)?

yeah...

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#12

Post by darklajid »

odiroot wrote: post #5

I for one welcome this move. It seems Tizen somewhat follows Maemo's way. Let's hope Samsung is not going to stuff it with loads of bloatware. I wish as well the ecosystem is more like Firefox OS's than iOS's in terms of openness -- I don't know what to think about current Samsung moves regarding Android.

Owning a Samsung 'Smart TV' that, as soon as it is connected to the internet, forcefully downloads the worst crapware I've seen in my life with no option to hide or remove that stuff (according to research online and customer service) I'm convinced that I do not want a Samsung controlled device again and don't share your high hopes, even if we're talking about totally disconnected branches of a huge company.

(Incidently I got a S3 before this weekend as a corporate phone. I didn't even once boot it before flashing ClockworkMod / CyanogenMod)

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#13

Post by james-skemp »

RyanZAG wrote: post #4

While I'm sure Samsung would love to replace Android with Tizen, I doubt they will actually be able to do it. While Apple and Google make it appear easy to create an OS that users enjoy using, the reality is that it is incredibly difficult. Just look at Windows Phone - I'm fairly sure that Microsoft is more able to create a technically superior OS to Samsung, and I think the amount of money Microsoft has poured into…

I have Windows Phone 7.5 that I love. But my next phone will be Android.

Yes, Windows Phone rocks, but they don't have the apps iOS and Android have. And while I can certainly browse sites directly (preference anyway), web developers forget about it during testing. Not that I blame them, since being one myself I know it's still a niche group.

If their OS can run Android apps ... they're already ahead of MS.

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#14

Post by MatthewPhillips »

RyanZAG wrote: post #4

While I'm sure Samsung would love to replace Android with Tizen, I doubt they will actually be able to do it. While Apple and Google make it appear easy to create an OS that users enjoy using, the reality is that it is incredibly difficult. Just look at Windows Phone - I'm fairly sure that Microsoft is more able to create a technically superior OS to Samsung, and I think the amount of money Microsoft has poured into…

I reached a different conclusion from Windows Phone's failure; that being good isn't necessarily enough. Momentum matters a whole lot.

Which, to me, makes Tizen a bit of a mystery. If Android has the momentum Tizen will fail, but if Samsung has it Tizen might just have a chance.

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#15

Post by Zigurd »

This is unlikely.

Samsung and Intel need to learn how to cooperate on Tizen. There is no agreed Tizen road map. No unified governance.

HTML5 is an unproven, and some would say disproven, mobile app platform. Browsers, compilers, SDKs, and frameworks are immature. There are no success stories despite several tries.

Samsung, and its likely carrier partners, have no ecosystem comparable to Apple's or Google's. The only 3rd party ecosystem success story is Amazon with the Android-derived Kindle Fire.

I believe it is possible to compete with Apple and Google, but Tizen is not close to being able, as it is today. At this point Tizen is well behind Windows Phone, Blackberry, Sailfish, B2G, and even Ubuntu in being ready to compete.

Having a decades-long duopoly will be boring in many ways, so I hope somebody gets their act together. But it's serious business. Hobby projects will go nowhere.

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#16

Post by RyanZAG »

RyanZAG wrote: post #4

While I'm sure Samsung would love to replace Android with Tizen, I doubt they will actually be able to do it. While Apple and Google make it appear easy to create an OS that users enjoy using, the reality is that it is incredibly difficult. Just look at Windows Phone - I'm fairly sure that Microsoft is more able to create a technically superior OS to Samsung, and I think the amount of money Microsoft has poured into…

Replying to my own comment...

Regarding Touchwizz and Android app compatibility - without the core Google services (maps, play, etc), many popular Android apps will not run. The differences in the underlying platform is also likely to cause many errors and incompatibilities on non-modified Android apps run on Tizen. This means more app crashes and more uncertainty.

In any event, full Android app compatibility and Android apps as first class apps means that Tizen basically is Android in any case - it will have to have Dalvik, Linux ARM compatibility, identical OpenGL interfaces, identical Linux interfaces, etc. Seeing as Android is Apache licensed anyway, I'm having difficulty in seeing the point? Why not just take Android, create a fork, and rename it to Tizen? I don't see any benefits in re-inventing a platform that will just mimic Android (and have all the same limitations to keep compatibility).

Legal issues - I can't see any legal difference in forking Apache licensed code and renaming vs starting from scratch.

Usability - both Samsung Android devices and Tizen devices will have the same Touchwizz UI. Far as I can tell, Samsung is actually aiming for identical usability here.

Compatibility - all of the Google Maps based Apps won't work. Users won't get the great gmail/gtalk/google now integration that they can on Android. No free best-of-breed navigation. No Google Play - users will have to rely on devs uploading their app to Samsung store along with Google Play. Seems like a big point against Tizen here.

Control (for Samsung) - Samsung can already add/remove whatever they want to Android. I'm guessing Google puts certain demands on Samsung to use the Android name and Google apps, but Samsung can just use a different name and no Google apps. In Tizen they're going to have to do this anyway.

The more I look into this, the stranger it becomes. I can't work out what Samsung is trying to accomplish here. This smells like a project they inherited with Intel with the likely purpose being rivalry with Nokia and perhaps internal politics. Maybe some misunderstanding of how much freedom they actually have with Apache licensed Android?

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#17

Post by yareally »

RyanZAG wrote: post #4

While I'm sure Samsung would love to replace Android with Tizen, I doubt they will actually be able to do it. While Apple and Google make it appear easy to create an OS that users enjoy using, the reality is that it is incredibly difficult. Just look at Windows Phone - I'm fairly sure that Microsoft is more able to create a technically superior OS to Samsung, and I think the amount of money Microsoft has poured into…

Perhaps the largest hurdle is convincing users it's worth giving up all the apps they invested in by purchasing that won't carry over to the Tizen ecosystem. Granted that many Android apps are free, but that's only one part. Most users would hate to give up the apps they are used to having and the data they have stored in them as well. Users already mull it over when they switch between iOS and Android (or vice versa). Committing to Tizen or anything else is for many users, too high of a risk with the costs of the hardware and also the time to set it up and find app alternatives.

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#18

Post by MatthewPhillips »

shadowmint wrote: post #11

"For most Samsung smartphone owners, TouchWiz is Android, and since Tizen could easily get a TouchWiz-like user interface, the average consumer wouldn't notice a thing." You've got to be kidding. Do you remember the demo? www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ1y7CpIaVA Smooth. :/ To be fair, I'm sure they're working on the UI, but UI is something that's hard to get right. It took android what, 4 years to reach a point where it's…

If you believe that about Android your conclusion doesn't follow; Android and The Galaxy line was selling well before your 4-years-in point of niceness.

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#19

Post by ttflee »

RyanZAG wrote: post #4

While I'm sure Samsung would love to replace Android with Tizen, I doubt they will actually be able to do it. While Apple and Google make it appear easy to create an OS that users enjoy using, the reality is that it is incredibly difficult. Just look at Windows Phone - I'm fairly sure that Microsoft is more able to create a technically superior OS to Samsung, and I think the amount of money Microsoft has poured into…

I don't see why Tizen could get any traction against Android even in China. Android has been incorporated by manufacturers, especially those smaller ones who used to make feature phones. Unless samsung were ready to make huge amount of subsidies, it would hardly happen, IMHO.

Re: Samsung's future is Tizen, not Android

#20

Post by mayankj08 »

One of the major factor that makes ios and Android so popular is no. of apps in their respective stores. Even if Samsung comes with their own OS building such a huge repository of apps takes time. So i don't think so that Samsung would launch it's OS without comparable no. of apps in Tizen too.
Post reply on HN