With its latest update, Samsung is replacing the Galaxy Gear’s Android operating system with Tizen, its home brewed open source OS, SamMobile reports.
The upgrade won’t change the Gear’s interface, but it should bring better performance and battery life to the device. It will also add a few features found on the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, which run Tizen by default. Those include a standalone music player and voice commands when using the Gear’s camera.
It’s as if Samsung is trying to completely erase many of the problems of the first Galaxy Gear at once. In my review, I found it to be a clunky watch that didn’t really do much. For the few who bought the original Galaxy Gear, this update will at least let you do a few more things with the watch.
The update also shows how easily replaceable Android is for wearables, which could be a warning to Google and its Android Wear initiative. Most users likely won’t even notice that the Gear is running a completely different operating system after its upgrade. Google needs to make sure Android is essential to wearables, not something that manufacturers can swap out at their whim.
Samsung isn’t giving up entirely on Android. It’s one of Google’s first Android Wear partners, so we’ll likely see a device powered entirely by that platform from Samsung later this year. Unlike Samsung’s current smartwatches, Android Wear is designed to work with a wide variety of Android phones (and potentially, phones from other platforms).
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Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries and affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol. Samsung was founded by Lee Byung-chull in 1938 as a trading company. Over the next three decades the group diversified into areas including food processing, textiles, insurance, securities and retail. Samsung entered the electronics industry in the late 1960s and the construction and shipbuilding industries in the mid-1970s; these areas would drive its subsequent growth. Following Lee’s death in 1987, Samsung was separated into four business groups – Samsung Group, Shinsegae Group, CJ Group and Hansol Group. Since the 1990s Samsung has increasingly globalised its activities, and electronics, particularly mobile phones and semiconductors, has become its most important source of income.Source | Via
