Samsung to debut Tizen-powered Galaxy Gear sequel along side the S5 next week [RUMOR]
We’ve already got our flight booked for this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. It’s no secret that Samsung will officially unveil their next Galaxy flagship during their Unpacked 5 event on February 24th — that much we know. What we don’t know is what else Sammy has up their sleeve (literally).
According to sources with “direct knowledge on the matter,” Samsung is also planning to unveil the sequel to their smartwatch, the Samsung Galaxy Gear. The original Galaxy Gear originally launched barely six months ago amid rumors Apple would enter into the wearables market with a smartwatch of their own. Of course, that didn’t exactly pan out (at least not yet), leaving Samsung with, what many felt, was a rushed effort.
Samsung is taking many of those criticisms to heart, and in a strange twist, it’s now being reported that we could see multiple Galaxy Gear wearables debut at MWC, one that might not even run Android this time around. According to USA Today, Samsung will instead rely on their own in-house Tizen operating system, giving Android the boot completely.
Unlike with the original Gear running the full Android operating system, this particular version of the Gear will run a special HTML5 version of Tizen catered to smaller displays and less powerful devices. It appears Samsung could be targeting developers already familiar with creating web apps to help create apps designed specifically for their smartwatch.
Can’t say Samsung would be stepping on Google’s toes with the move given Google hasn’t exactly created a version of their OS designed with wearables in mind. While we at Phandroid are Android all the way, we wouldn’t be directly opposed to a smartwatch running a different operating system a la the Pebble. How ’bout you?