Here we go, folks, we’ve known it was coming for a while, but today, Samsung’s brand new mobile phone OS has been officially unveiled. Bada has arrived. Only they’ve not actually shown us it in action. Or given out that many details. Or shown us any screenshots. But hey, there was a press event, so that’s good, and they did chuck out a press release.
So, the big question is: what is Bada? Is it something brand new, something utterly mind-blowing that’s never been seen before? Well, no, it’s TouchWiz is what it is, only it appears they’ve made it all open and configurable. It does seem they’ve taken the whole concept of openness to extremes, as well, as literally everything about the OS can be customised, and apps can use absolutely any part of the phone, whether it’s the dialler, or the contacts list, or whatever. So, yes, that’s pretty cool. And hey, since it’s based on TouchWiz, it should be at least as user-friendly as that interface is (which is to say, very user-friendly).
However, quite a lot of people are saying the big press event actually turned out to be a bit of a non-event. With the most annoying bit being the endless parade of people, such as reps from Blockbuster, Capcom and Twitter, who just talked. And apparently showed no apps, or software, or anything…
Y’see, I have to concede that while I don’t like the iPhone, Apple know how to do a product launch. And then, of course, there was the Palm Pre launch, where I sat drooling all the way through.
It’s a shame there was nothing on display, really, because with big names like Blockbuster (ooh, over-the-air movie downloads, maybe?) and Capcom (ooh, proper mobile gaming), it could have been properly mind-blowing. Instead, apparently, it was a bit tedious, which is a shame, since the Bada OS itself sounds pretty damn cool. And it’s not as if Samsung can’t do a good product unveiling. We know they can, we saw the Samsung Jet unveiling.
Ah well, at least this story gave me my biggest laugh of the day. Take a look at the image right at the top of this blog post. Look down in the bottom-left-hand corner. Between Western Labs and Beagle. And then say, out loud, the exact same thing I said:
What? Mills & Boon? Really??
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