The Game Developers Conference, being held this year from March 14 to 18 in San Francisco, is the world’s largest annual event in the gaming industry. With some 26,000 gaming professionals on hand, GDC is the hot-bed for all the latest trends, experiments and innovations in gaming—and Samsung is there, too.

This year, Samsung Electronics—in cooperation with Unity—is presenting an important development, bringing the popular and powerful Unity 3D game engine to Tizen. Visitors to the exhibition were able to try out Tizen Unity demo for the Z1 and Z3 smartphones, as well as for Samsung Smart TV.

Through this powerful new tool, developers will be better able to create engaging, innovative games for the latest Tizen-powered devices.

Check out these photos of the Unity 3D game engine for Tizen in use at GDC 2016.

BY Technical Steering Group, 22 Sep 2015

We are pleased to announce that Tizen 2.3.1 source code is now available including support for the circular type wearable profile. Developers and manufactures may utilize Tizen to their wearable devices based on this source code.

Highlights of this release include, among other improvements:

• Support web & native UI framework for wearable devices with a circular screen
• Custom event for the notifications on detected rotary detents
• Wearable native APIs for wearable native applications

We are pleased to announce that Tizen 2.3.1 SDK is now available including support for the circular type wearable profile.

Tizen 2.3.1 SDK is now available on the SDK download page.

Highlights of this release include, among other improvements:

• Support web & native UI framework for wearable devices with a circular screen
• Custom event for the notifications on detected rotary detents
• Wearable native APIs for wearable native applications

Tizen and its partners attended MWC 2015 in Barcelona, where we showcased the latest innovations in connected devices and apps. Attendees who stopped by Tizen booth were able to get their hands on several Tizen devices including the Samsung Z1 and the Samsung Gear S, while our partners demonstrated their various technologies built on Tizen.

MWC has grown dramatically, and much of that growth has to do with a broadened appeal, stretching the imagination and the innovation that envelops “mobile”. To tap into all of the unique perspectives and viewpoints at the show, we conducted a survey of more than 300 attendees, asking questions about their preferences in mobile handsets, operating systems and connected devices. What we learned falls right in line with our views on the future of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Tizen.

But first… some interesting takes on the deciding factors in device choice. With many exhibitors launching new mobile devices at the show, it was extremely relevant to ask people what their top priority was when choosing a new mobile device. The answer? Respondents seemed to favor usability above all else, with 65% deeming it the most important feature. Quality of the camera was a distant second at 11%. Power consumption and breadth of available apps were slightly less dominant at 10% and 9% respectively.

So what does this mean for Tizen? Today’s mobile phone buyers are primarily interested in a smartphone that is user-friendly, customizable and convenient. Vendors should continue offering devices with more personalized experiences that take user preferences and context into account, allowing consumers to quickly complete everyday tasks with just a few taps and finger swipes.

This strong demand for usability in mobile devices is inevitably linked to the device’s OS, and 66% of our respondents confirmed this assumption by pointing to a device’s operating system as very important when deciding whether to buy a device or not. With usability increasingly becoming more a product of software than hardware, Tizen community is intent on developing a flexible and efficient operating system that can adapt to a wide variety of connected devices. Tizen can deliver a high level of usability across devices thanks to its lightweight and open source nature, providing a high level of customization through comprehensive access to common open source libraries. From a device maker’s perspective, having the ability to create custom user experiences is a huge opportunity to finding that consumer sweet spot while still maintaining differentiation.

As the borders of mobility expand, there’s more and more talk about IoT, with close to 90% of survey respondents deemed cross-device communication as important, and nearly half said it was very important. To top it off, 76% of the respondents answered that they expected to use 3 or more connected devices outside of their smartphones in the next two years. Connected devices and the inter-connectivity between them will undoubtedly be vital in the coming years, and establishing a unified platform for these devices is more important now than ever.

PUBLISHED 09 FEB 2015

We are pleased to announce Tizen 2.3 source code release which now includes support for the wearable profile. Developers and manufactures may utilize Tizen to their wearable devices based on this source code.

Highlights of this release include, among other improvements:

• Support for mobile and wearable profiles.
• New and improved Native framework which provides fast, highly scalable and themeable graphics. 
• Extensive Web and Native API improvements.