Samsung unveiled its new crop of wearable devices alongside the Galaxy S5 last month. Its first smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear, was launched last year and it was powered by Android. This time around Samsung chose to launch smartwatches powered by Tizen. Its also interesting to note that while the company did not release a SDK or software development kit for the Android powered smartwatch, it has done so for the Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo. Galaxy Gear’s SDK was only offered to a select few partners, it wasn’t released for all developers.
This is good for both developers and consumers. Developers can make apps for these wearable devices, whereas consumers will now have more options when it comes to apps. They will no longer have to make do with the apps created by Samsung or a handful of its select partners. Its essentially expanding the functionality of these new Tizen powered wearables.
The timing seems just abour right for Samsung. Pebble only launched the appstore for its popular smartwatches recently, whereas both Apple and Google are expected to jump on the smartwatch bandwagon soon as well. Samsung would certainly want to establish a lead, while scoring developers for Tizen in the process. Samsung Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo SDK is available starting today.
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