Over the last few months there have been a lot of rumors about Tizen smartphone. Samsung is believed to be one of the first vendors that will launch a Tizen smartphone, but so far the device has not materialized. It was rumored late last year that it might be unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2014 but there’s no sign of it as yet, Samsung’s event tomorrow may solely focus on the Galaxy S5. So what about the Tizen phone then? Tizen Association Chairman Ryoichi Roy Sugimara says that it will be launched later this year, but doesn’t give any specific details about the OEM and the time frame.
Tizen Association now has 15 new partners, including China’s ZTE, which also plans to make a phone based on this nascent platform. Sugimara obviously wants to get more vendors on board who may be potentially deterred by the influence of Samsung and Intel, both of whom are champions of the Tizen platform. The only Tizen powered device unveiled at MWC 2014 came from Samsung, the company has unveiled its brand new Galaxy Gear smartwatches which have ditched Android in favor of Tizen. Compare that to Mozilla’s up and coming platform Firefox OS and its evident which platform has taken the lead for now. At an event today, a number of new Firefox phones were unveiled. Those waiting on the Tizen phone now have nothing else to do than just wait.
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