A month ago today, Samsung teased us with the announcement they had been developing a new mobile phone operating system, and that it would be revealed at an event held during December. The OS was named bada, and today was the day that Samsung lifted the lid on the more technical aspects of their software.
The concept revolves around bada providing a ’smartphone for everyone’, with a strong application database and plenty of links with social networks and other online services. Bada will offer stylish handsets, touch control and the familiar mobile platform. Unsurprisingly, bada is to based around the TouchWiz user interface – something which Samsung have been steadily improving over the years – and will support accelerometers, tilt sensors, proximity and activity sensors, giving plenty of options not only for interactive apps, but for enhanced control over the handset itself.
Other features include Flash support, face recognition, in-app purchasing and location awareness. The phones themselves will all be 3G with Wi-Fi connectivity, plus feature GPS and WQVGA or WVGA multi-touch capable screens. During the presentation, the Resident Evil game was demoed running on the OS and a brief overview of the UI too, however it was too brief to form much of an impression.
To encourage app development, Samsung are running a Developer Challenge competition whereby developers who create apps using the features of the bada OS have the chance to win a part of a $2.7m prize fund. As new OS’s seem to live or die by their app catalogue at birth these days, it’s is a wise move to stimulate early interest. The bada application store will eventually be global, with 50 countries covered at launch and more to follow during the second part of 2010.
Perhaps most interesting of all is the roster of partner names Samsung shared at the event. Mobile games writers Gameloft, EA Mobile and Capcom are all excited to be developing games for the new platform, while Blockbuster, who recently launched their OnDemand service aboard Samsung Blu-ray players in the USA, clearly aim to continue a similar partnership using bada. Finally, Twitter were also on hand to lend their support and backing.
So the developers have their SDK and competition, and we do have a little more information regarding bada, but it was a shame not to see any hardware. Still, we have a long way to go, as no date other than ‘the first half of 2010′ is being given as the rollout for the first handset. Exciting stuff!
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