Samsung Redwood and Samsung Melius sporting Tizen 2.1 Magnolia OS spotted in the wild

Samsung had promised at the MWC 2013 that it would release at least 3 phones having its Tizen OS and it seems to have kept it word.  It is coming of with two models, codenamed Samsung GT-I8805 Redwood and GT-I8800 Melius having Tizen 2.1 Magnolia operating system.  The Redwood was spotted in the wild by active blogging community.  The Redwood seems a high end phone while Melius will be a mid range model.

The Samsung Redwood spotted will sport 4G LTE connectivity while the Samsung Melius will apparently come in with a 3G radio onboard only.  Both the phones are slated for release in 3 Q of 2013

Though the reports are very dim about the features, these phones will have, but the GT-I8800 Redwood with the latest Tizen 2.1 was seen having S-Voice, which will wake up when users say “Hi, Tizen” instead of “Hi, Galaxy”.  You will remember my post where I has predicted the next S series to be based on Tizen, maybe this prediction may indeed come true!  You may read the article here.

Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business was seen in an interview saying that Redwood “will be the best product equipped with the best specifications.” 

In addition, Samsung has already introduced the upcoming platform's App store.   The application storefront, which was demonstrated at the Tizen DEVCON, was appreciated by developers.    In the app store, apart from standard sections like featured apps and categories, there also seems to be a special section dedicated entirely for discounted apps, which will be convenient if someone wants to look for titles that may be available at a lower price temporarily like the offer of the day type which will be new sort of strategy from any Play Store.

Unity has already started offering its Engine for free to Tizen developers so now that they can try the new App Store.  As does the Havok which plans to offer free games on Tizen  Do write in your comments on these new phones.

Tizen the new mobile OS gets a new supporter, Havok will list its free games on Tizen

Readers will remember Tizen, the new mobile operating system which is being promoted by Samsung Corporation of South Korea.  For the uninitiated Tizen is a open sourced OS based on Linux and is being flouted as the game changer in the world of Android and iOS.  You can read my complete article on Tizen here.  

Now it seems Tizen couldn't have a better partner, Havok a developers who is publishing PROJECT ANARCHY, has announced plans to list the free to ship platforms on Tizen.

The Havok today said that the full range of technology which forms the Project Anarchy is being optimised for Tizen.  These include the 

Havok Vision Engine, the Havok Physics Engine, Havok AI and Havok Animation Studio. Project Anarchy is Havok's free C++-based mobile game engine.

Havok, if you remember is the provider of core engines to many famous games like Halo 4, Assassin’s Creed III, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.  It is especially good in the physics oriented games space.  

The Tizen platform is an open-source standard operating system which has support of Samsung and other manufacturers. Tizen, which was panned and rubbished by critics at the MWC 2013, will need all the support it can get from Havok.   The two of them together could provide some exhilarating games to the mobile users of the kind they have never played before. 

Samsung has promised around 3 phones based on Tizen by the end of the year 2013, and if they have any of the Halo like games shipped with Tizen, it will surely be a good buy for users.

Vijay Prabhu

Samsung S IV may be the last S series to run on Android?

Years ago in 2010, when the head of Samsung's mobile division launched Samsung Galaxy S series, instead of a single device he launched four different devices.  The names of the devices were Captivate, Vibrant, Fascinate and Epic 4G.  Samsung had to split the Galaxy S into four different phones to satisfy the four different networks in the US.  The experiment failed terribly because the phones were nothing to talk home about.  But on 14th March 2013, when the head of Samsung mobile stands out to the gallery in the Radio City Music Hall, there will be a billion heads watching the launch and the progress of the proceedings.  But some questions remain questions remain unanswered Will this Galaxy be the last one to run on Android operating system?

Ever since the Samsung has tied up with Google and brought out the phones based on Android OS it hasn't looked back.  The Samsung Galaxy S III has unseated the iPhone as the phone of choice in the US and other parts of the world.  One of every three smart phones sold in the world is a Samsung made device.  The CNET named Samsung Galaxy S III as the phone of the year for 2012.  Samsung has shipped 63.7 million smart phones in the fourth quarter of 2012 which a 76 % increase year on year.  The Apple in contrast so a rise of only 29% Y-o-Y with 47.8 million hand sets shipped during the same period.

But Samsung has been a little tentative of its relationship with Google.  It had to discard its Bada operating system in favour of Android and thereby lose a huge chunk of Bada dedicated fans.   It has continuously tried to outgrow the influence of Android on its smart phones after launching its own User Interface.  

The fact that Samsung Galaxy S IV will be a very innovative piece of engineering can be seen from the fact that it will be the first phone to have scroll to eye feature in it.  This essentially means that a sensor will track you retina and as you move your eyes down the screen of your phone, the page will start scrolling to keep up with your retina.  This will be a sure shot game changer given that now a days the phone display sizes are increasing by a inch every day.  

Despite having all the necessary innovations, Samsung is hamstrung with Android palate.  And this is obvious when you consider that Samsung is pushing hard for launch of Tizen phones.  Tizen is a Linux based open source operating system which was first developed by Intel and Samsung together but along the way Samsung lost interest in it and started relying on Android more and more.

But suddenly out of blue, Samsung has started quietly getting together the pieces of Tizen and is intent on launching the first Tizen based smart phone within the third quarter and at least 2 Tizen phones by end of this year.   Samsung unveiled the Tizen at this year MWC and the results were not that assuring for Samsung.  The critics and fans didn't like the feel of Tizen.  But this was just a prototype of what could be coming.

But considering the fact that Samsung is a world leader in the smart phone market, it should get its act together and come up with a original Samsung Tizen by September 2013.  If this experiment can pass the muster of the users, than it is natural that the S V to be launched, whenever it takes place will have Tizen aboard it.  

So does that mean that Android and Samsung are finished doing business together.  This only time will tell.  Maybe my predictions are coming true! Read this article here.

Please post your comments on this article and let me know your thoughts.

Vijay Prabhu