Some news, now, that I really wasn’t expecting to hear, considering that Samsung already make smartphones using just about all the big smartphone operating systems on the planet. There are Symbian phones with the Samsung badge on, there are Windows Mobile phones, and of course, there are Android phones. It seems that, when it comes to smartphone OSes, Samsung are intent using everything and their dog.
But apparently, that’s not enough any more, because according to IntoMobile, they’ve announced their own, brand new smartphone OS called Bada.
And I’ll be honest, since Samsung already use Symbian, WinMo and Android, I’m having a bit of trouble working out why they’ve announced their own smartphone OS. Or, at least, I was, up until a few minutes ago. Y’see, I have a theory. It’s not a proven theory, so really it’s probably just a hypothesis, but that word’s a whole four letter’s longer to type, so we’re going with ‘theory’, alright?
And yes, it’s unproven. It’s just the mere ramblings of me, unrestrained pleb that I am, but my theory: what if it’s a smartphone OS, that’s not really for smartphones at all…?
Hear me out. The march of technological progress in the mobile arena is ever ongoing, with smartphones getting smarter every day, and crucially, feature phones becoming more like smartphones. I mean think about it, there are phones like the Samsung Jet out there, which are feature phones, but only, let’s be honest, because they don’t use one of the big smartphone operating systems. Now, people are assuming that Bada is meant for top tier phones like the Samsung i8910 HD, but what if it’s not?
What if, actually, it’s not meant to compete against the likes of Android and Symbian, but rather, bridge the gap between smartphones and feature phones, by making feature phones smarter, and giving them the functionality they haven’t had, compared to their top tier siblings, so far? That’d been an intriguing proposition, since it opens the door to cheap feature phones like the Samsung Genio (which you guys reading this blog seem to love), becoming actual cheap smartphones…
Hmmm, I shall await more info on Bada with interest, if that’s the case…
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November 10th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Tech M – check out Samsung’s plans on GSMArean – looks like they want to phase out Symbian on their phones, and drastically reduce their WinMo footprint. Interesting times….
November 11th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Yep, just spotted that myself, on various sources round the ol’ web, now. I’m going to do a blog post on it right now! Keep your eyes peeled on the front page of the blog in the next few minutes…
November 11th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Saw your blog. Nice one. Amazing to think that we have gone from the Symbian Foundation to this in a few short months. Blow me down with a feather… That said maybe rumours of Symbian’s death will be greatly exaggerated as it is still a great OS – perhaps just not the flavour of the month with applications-for-phone seemingly being the new battle-ground – and Android and Apple currently on the offensive in this area. Perhaps they shoud rename it Aymbian.