Unless you are a complete smart TV fanatic, this piece of news may come as a, well, non-news to you. In any case, this is what’s going to happen to Samsung smart TVs in 2015: all of them will be running a new platform built around the Tizen operating system. Yup. You heard that right. Tizen. The fairly new OS which Samsung has been an active advocator and have since seen adoption in at least one smartphone and a couple of smartwatches. So what can you expect from Tizen OS? Well, there is a redesign in the UI with the Smart Hub now on one screen for easy navigation and quick access to, say for example, your most recent content, as well as tailored content recommendations. There is also an optimized four-direction control which Sammy said is both “playful and responsive”. We hate lag on anything and so if Tizen can solve the problem and promise no lag, we will be embracing it wholeheartedly (we are not Smart TV fanatics, btw).
And then there is the seamless sharing between the Tizen-powered TV with other devices too. This feature enables you to sync with compatible mobile devices through WiFi Direct with a single click. Using Bluetooth Low Energy, the TV will automatically search and connect to Samsung mobile devices in the immediate vicinity, thus allowing your TV watching experience to expand beyond your smart TV and onto your mobile devices. One example of such ‘synergy’ is that it will allow you to watch live TV program on your mobile devices anywhere on your home network, even if the TV is not switched on. Well, by that I assume they meant to say the TV is not turned on but still powered on standby. Don’t know. We could be wrong.
Anyways, along with the new OS, Samsung also announces some key contents partnerships, among them includes Playstation Now cloud-streaming game service in North America, Ubisoft’s Just Dance Now game, and a la YouTube/DailyMotion video channel known as Milk Video (odd name, if you ask me) that curates popular and interesting video clips from websites. If you are heading to CES this year, you will be able to catch the Tizen-powered smart TVs on display. Not sure why the switch to Tizen when everyone is headed to the cosy arms of Android ecosystem, but in any case, we think getting smart TVs to adopt this new OS is a sound strategy to further promote the OS presence and show off what it has to offer, well, at least on smart TV. After all, what’s the OS on a TV doesn’t quite bother consumers as much as what’s the OS on a smartphone or smartwatch. If that’s the case, then we see it as a strategy well played.
