Rumours surfaced earlier this week that Samsung had decided to delay the launch of its Tizen smartphones to ensure that there would be a good selection of apps available along with the devices. Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin has now waded in, suggesting that the delay may be a sign of worse news to come. He suggests that Tizen is “almost dead” and that its key backers, Samsung and Intel, may simply pull the plug on the project.
Tizen is almost dead. It isn't delay. That's cancel of the whole project. I doubt that samsung will launch more than one device for 2014
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) July 3, 2013
Murtazin also suggests that Samsung may launch a single device rather than the several that it had confirmed in the past.
In a second tweet, Murtazin suggests that Tizen’s main backers, Samsung and Intel, are already working on a separate project. Expected to be Android-based, it promises to be “more interesting in all ways” but there are no further details about it.
@LSAwesome it will be another intel connected project (android based). It's more interesting in all ways
— Eldar Murtazin (@eldarmurtazin) July 3, 2013
Could some Tizen-features make their way into Android or in Samsung’s Android add-on apps?
Interestingly, Tizen yesterday released a beta version of its Tizen 2.2 SDK. Tizen is also appearing at a number of events in July and into October.
All in all, it appears that Tizen’s future is at best murky. Even if Samsung releases one or more Tizen-powered devices, it remains to be seen how the operating system will fare against the Android and iOS juggernauts and even smaller players such as Windows Phone, BlackBerry 10 and Firefox OS.