"Bare" Android is no longer trendy. We have choices now: Tizen (from the Linux Foundation,) Firefox OS (I guess you know where it is coming from) and Ubuntu OS. Below you can see videos of Firefox OS and Tizen. After playing with more than 20 different devices, I wasn't able to unlock the Ubuntu OS device. There goes great usability.
Tag: tizen
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MWC 2014: More Variety is Better – Firefox OS, Tizen and Ubuntu
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Samsung SC-03F Tizen Device Seen in FCC Listing
Samsung has been in the news for a while now with regard to its very first Tizen smartphone. Now, the FCC listing has a Tizen smartphone whose model number is SC-03F and it is thought to be bound to NTT DocoMo, a Japanese carrier.
Tizen Indonesia was the first to spot the FCC listing of the claimed Samsung SC-03F and this gadget has a design similar to the Samsung Galaxy S4. However, the alleged SC-03F comes with a sleeker profile than the Galaxy S4. According to the site, Qualcomm MSM8974 Snapdragon chipset, operating it 2.3GHz, powers the alleged Samsung SC-03F. It is worth noting that the same chipset is one that powers Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S4 and the recently released Galaxy J.
The spotted SC-03F model supports radio frequency bands such as WCDMA 850 and 850/1900MHz GSM. The connectivity options are Bluetooth 4.0 (low energy) and Wi-Fi. At this time, the details of the gadget’s innards are yet to be known.
Besides, Sammobile proposes that the Japanese carrier (NTT DoCoMo) will be the very first mobile carrier to start selling the Tizen smartphone. It also suggests that Samsung might release the anticipated Tizen smartphone around February 23. According to an earlier report, Samsung would display its commercial gadets based on the Tizen OS in 2014 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Catalonia.
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Mobile World Congress 2013: The End of Apple Dominance Is Near
The annual meeting Mobile World Congress, ongoing this week in Barcelona, seems to mark more than any other event the end of Apple dominance in the global market for smartphones and tablets and the rise of some rivals with more open operating systems.Mozilla has opened the event in Barcelona unofficially. The nonprofit organization, which used Firefox a decade ago to fight Microsoft control in the online search engine market, wants to change totally the smartphone market as well.
The industry is currently unnaturally controlled by a few companies, said general manager of Mozilla, Gary Kovacs, during the presentation of the first generation of mobile devices with Firefox operating system.
More than 20 telecom industry executives who brought their support to the launch of Firefox OS had similar views.
“We change the industry for the common good,” said Cesar Alienta, general manager of Telefonica, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. Spanish company chief criticized the closed operating systems, such as iOS, and warned that “the smartphone market is making a step back from the internet’s opening feature”. Telefonica wants to introduce shortly Firefox OS devices in Spain, Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela.
America Movil, controlled by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, committed to launch Firefox OS in Mexico “and in all possible markets” soon.
The outgoing General Director of Deutsche Telekom, Rene Obermann, called the Firefox OS release “an important step towards more competition between different systems”. Deutsche Telekom will launch Firefox OS devices starting from this summer in Poland.
Mozilla is not the only company that wants to change the market for smartphones and tablets. Samsung and Intel are also developing an operating system called Tizen, which would be even more open and will allow software developers more important changes compared to Apple's iOS and Google's Android.
Mobile operators are strongly attracted by the prospect of being able to strongly change the operating systems, for an interaction as direct as possible with the user.
The irony in this case is that the success of Samsung with Tizen would make the South Korean company less dependent on Google and stronger in the smartphones and tablets market.
The rest of the world seems to recover the distance to Apple's platform for mobile devices, and the American company must innovate again or will be cannibalized by rivals with cheaper and more accessible devices. Smartphone market seems to have matured, so that real opportunities could be in the expansion in emerging markets.