TIZEN | The New Software Platform

Tizen is an open source, standards-based software platform for multiple device categories, including smartphones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, and more. Tizen offers an innovative operating system, applications, and a user experience that consumers can take from device to device. It’s based on Linux kernel and WebKit runtime. This means that users can obtain the source code that Tizen is based on, allowing smartphone owners to tinker with and alter a device’s software. Android, Firefox OS and Ubuntu are also open-source, unlike Apple’s closed iOS mobile operating system.

The Tizen OS is a project within the Linux Foundation and is overseen by a Technical Steering Group that consists of Intel and Samsung. Samsung smartphones come with a heavily skinned version of Android known as TouchWiz, which puts Samsung’s own spin on the Android interface and includes its own Samsung Apps store.

Tizen encourages its developers to write apps in HTML5. Other operating systems such as Android and iOS use Java and Objective-C as their primary coding languages. HTML5 essentially enables a smoother Web browsing experience for mobile devices, such as the ability to display embedded videos or play music without an additional plugins and save data offline.

 The Tizen operating system is built to interact with certain touch gestures that consist of taps, swipes and flicks among other actions. As is the case with most touch screen devices, tapping an item will select it and long-pressing will launch an app-specific option menu. Pinch to zoom, dragging and dropping icons, and flicking to quick scroll are all supported within the Tizen UI.

Tizen may be touted as Samsung’s new Android alternative, but the truth is the software isn’t made just for mobile devices. Tizen is also used in tablets and netbooks as well as smartphones, but it’s also slated to Smart TVs. This isn't very surprising considering Samsung is a major player in pioneering the Smart TV category.

Samsung has already introduced a low-cost smartphone using Tizen in India, the Samsung Z1 On January 14, 2015.