“Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s first smartphone to run on its own operating system received a frosty welcome after its launch in India, with reviewers and consumers criticising its low-resolution cameras and dearth of software applications,” Nivedita Bhattacharjee reports for Reuters. “”
“The South Korean giant’s latest handset stands out not so much for its no-frills specifications but for what lies under the hood – the Tizen operating system Samsung has developed to rival Google Inc’s Android platform,” Bhattacharjee reports. “Samsung is hoping the Z1 will catch on in the world’s third-largest smartphone market, boosting its flagging global market share and gaining a foothold for Tizen among India’s first-time smartphone buyers.”
“But the initial reaction of analysts and consumers after its Jan. 14 launch suggests the Z1 will struggle to get ahead of a crowded field in a country with about 280 smartphone brands on offer, led by Samsung and closely followed by Indian maker Micromax Informatics Ltd.,” Bhattacharjee reports. “‘Samsung has been delaying the launch of this Tizen phone for a long time and when they finally did it, it turned out to be an under-powered phone,’ said Mumbai-based filmmaker Samir Ahmed Sheikh as he shopped for a new phone for his wife. The 3.15 megapixel primary camera and 300,000 pixel front camera are ‘like a phone from 2010,’ he said.”
“Another problem for any Tizen-powered phone is Samsung’s failure to excite software developers to tailor applications like games for the platform, analysts said,” Bhattacharjee reports. “Samsung says more than 1,000 apps will be available for download in the Tizen Store… [In contrast, Apple’s App Store offers over 1.3 million apps].”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Operating systems are hard. Much harder than skinning an off-the-shelf OS to look like Apple’s iOS.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kian” for the heads up.]
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Samsung places bet on its ‘Tizen’ operating system – January 14, 2015