Samsung pushes first Tizen-powered handset release to next year

Samsung will now be releasing the first smartphone using its Tizen operating system at least four months later than previously forecasted, according to Bloomberg. Yi Woo Bok, a principal engineer at the company’s software R&D center said that Samsung is set to sell the first handset through Japan’s NTT Docomo and France’s Orange SA (ORA) in February next year. The first Tizen-powered tablet was launched last month, and it was hoped that the smartphones would soon follow.

The South Korean company, currently the largest manufacturer to use Google’s Android software, said in March that the first device using the open-source software would be released by September. Samsung, apart from launching the Galaxy S4 and the Note 3 this year, reportedly had plans to bring a Tizen device as one of three new high-end smartphones to compete with rival’s Apple. The new OS, which can be used in mobile phones, tablet computers, televisions and cars, is being backed by companies like Vodafone, Intel and Huawei, among others.

Samsung has now pushed the launch of its first Tizen smartphone to next year

Book, at a recent interview at the Tizen Developer Summit, said that, “We’re trying to prepare every technology that we can come up with since it’s hard to predict how the market will change. The advantage of Tizen over other competitors is that it has the best technology to make devices more compatible with each other.” Mark Skarpness, Director of systems engineering at Intel’s Open Source Technology Center, while talking to the source, also said that the software would be able to support wearable devices in the future.

Samsung was last in the news when it announced a series of milestones as well as plans for the future at its Analyst Day held in Seoul. The company, apart from announcing that it would be shipping over 100 million Galaxy S and Galaxy Note models this year, also said that it would be coming up with custom ARM CPUs by next year, and be the first to introduce 4K panels to smartphones in 2015.