While powerful hardware and a nice industrial design are some of the makings of a successful handset, a strong ecosystem is just as important, sometimes more so. After all what good is a high-end and powerful smartphone if there are no apps to download, right? Well Samsung is hoping to create such a system for its Tizen-based wearables and has recently launched a Gear App Challenge.
The goal of this challenge is to get developers on board to develop apps for the Samsung Gear 2. The smartwatch, for those unfamiliar, was launched back in MWC 2014 and instead of running on Android like the first Samsung Galaxy Gear, Samsung instead went with Tizen, the company’s mobile platform alternative to Android.
To make it even more enticing, Samsung has announced that they have $1.25 million that they are willing to give away to app developers who create apps for the device, although Samsung did not mention how they will determine who is considered a winner and what they’re judging it based on. However there is a grand prize of $100,000 which will go to the first place winner.
In a way this is a win-win situation for Samsung because since the company is also planning a Tizen smartphone, developers who develop for the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, both of which are powered by Tizen, should have no problems developing for the smartphone as well, so this could be Samsung’s way of easing them into it.
If you’d like to learn more, head on over to Samsung’s developer website for the details. The Gear App Challenge will be kicking off on the 8th of May where developers can register their apps on Samsung Apps in order to participate.
Filed in . Read more about Apps, Gear 2, Samsung, Smartwatches, Tizen and Wearable Tech.