‘Looks at perfectly functional Galaxy Watch 3 on my wrist’
Pebble all over again.
I’m just not getting a smartwatch. I don’t even trust Apple to keep supporting their watches after a couple of years.
Built-in obsolescence is bad enough. At the very least, these things should work until the hardware dies. Nope. Not anymore.
Pebble is still going pretty well though, so I don’t know if that’s a good comparison
Apart from a lack of an app store or online services…
I’m still using an Apple Watch 3 that I got in a bundle with my iPhone X from my telco.
I need to charge it twice a day for ~30 minutes each, but it’s still chugging along.
I think I’ll finally upgrade to the new generation this year, but at that point it will be 7 years old - which is commendable for tech.
Sure, but how long until Apple does a whole new OS for their watch and stops supporting the old watches that can’t run it?
There are a lot of legitimate reasons to hate on Apple, but not supporting their products long-term is not one of them.
Eventually they stop providing new OS updates, but they don’t brick/abandon devices.
Hell, I turned on my old iPhone 5 recently for the first time in over a decade and it happily connected to Apple’s servers and updated to the last supported OS version.
Even now that my Apple Watch isn’t receiving any more major OS updates, it can still interact with my up-to-date iPhone 14 without any issues.
I agree that’s true… for now. But when every other company is doing it?
If/when it happens, so be it - I’ll eat crow. But for the time being, Apple at least has long set/surpassed the standard for support lifetimes.
At some point, you just have to have a little bit of faith that not every company is going to immediately screw you over the first chance they get; otherwise you’ll never end up buying anything (new or otherwise), with the fear that the moment you do - they’ll drop support.
I mean, some companies do deserve that level of scepticism - but honestly, for all their other faults Apple is not one of them.
At some point, you just have to have a little bit of faith that not every company is going to immediately screw you over the first chance they ge
We’re talking about the same company that sold a monitor stand for $1000, right?
Well, at least you can expect it to be a long supported, overpriced accessory! 🤣
the watches still work fine with an old OS. my son uses my old watch gen 1. it just doesn’t have all the new features or whatever
I just get a miband every two generations.
I’ve used my Garmin for 2 years now and I’m really happy with it. In fact I have nothing to complain about it.
Dude, 2 years is nothing. Let’s talk about 10 years.
Fair comment. My point is that this watch will probably last 5+ years which in absolute in not that bad. Compared to Apple or Samsung, that’s much better.
You should consider that bad. The average smartwatch is what, $250? Every 5 years? That’s nuts. I realize we have to put up with it because we have no choice, but we shouldn’t have to.
Paying $50/yr. for the value a smartwatch delivers is a fucking bargain.
Perfect, now Google can kill Wear OS without fear of tizen taking it all.
Mission accomplished!
Bad headline. They’re sunsetting Tizen for watches, but not other products.
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This is a huge problem for Samsung. This is proof they cannot maintain an OS, making them further dependent on Google. They chose a Linux compatible toolkit (EFL from Enlightenment) and tried making their own OS. It was terrible and filled with security holes.
I think they should rebase Tizen on PostMarketOS, as I don’t believe Samsung can create their own base.
Of course they can’t. It’s gotten so bad they ship their TVs with antivirus on them. The only reason anyone uses their Android phones is they have the best hardware, most of their add-on software is just useless gimmicks people turn off. Tizen on watches was never going to work. Apple has a large enough ecosystem to attract app developers. Google has a large enough ecosystem to attract app developers. Samsung does not. Smartest thing they could do now is shut down their remaining software development. Ship the TVs with vanilla Google OS like LG, strip the bloatware off their phones, etc. They would lose face but their products would become way better.
Doesn’t LG use WebOS?
Or at least they did three years ago when I wanted to buy a TV but everything was back ordered to he’ll…
My 2 LGs do use WebOS, but I never use it. I have a raspberry pi for one, and the other one is my laptops second screen, so everything is fed from the laptop. I never see the TV’s OS
Smartest thing they could do now is shut down their remaining software development. Ship the TVs with vanilla Google OS
I think there’s a difference between smartwatches and TVs in terms of being able to monetize the operating system. On the tiny screen of a watch you can’t really put any advertisement (at least not without destroying the usability completely) and most of the things you can analyse are happening on the smartphone.
A TV on the other hand gives you a huge surface in the living room of a families home and if you have control of the OS there are plenty of ways to monetize it (and companies willing to pay for it). You can preinstall certain streaming apps (and get payed for it), promote newly released movies and give links to rent them (either your own shop or again for commission), you can collect userdata and sell that to other companies, and much more.
I think it’s telling that monetizing the operating system is the immediate place one jumps to with this, rather than earning more profit by selling more products which are better for the consumer.
Yeah, sadly from a economic perspective it is kind of obvious how a continuous source of revenue might be more appealing compared to a one time purchase. Especially with a product like TVs that usually have a pretty long lifetime before being replaced.
Although i would point out that (at least in our current society) privacy and an ad-free experience in many ways is treated as a luxury good. Persumably a TV with a better OS would be sold at a higher price, and confronted with this choice many consumers would likely choose the cheaper one.
privacy as a luxury good
Sounds like what Apple is trying to do…
Sadly wanting privacy is kind of a niche thing, not a large # of people buying iPhones to avoid surveillance. And most TV buyers DGAF… If a large # of them opted out of content recognition we’d still have dumb TVs on the market.
Unfortunately I think without some kind of regulation that makes personal info a liability / hot potato, it will still be treated as an asset to be collected:(
Sounds like what Apple is trying to do…
Yeah, although sadly Apple isn’t quite the good guy either. I feel like in a way instead of ads they use their walled garden approach to achieve a similar result.
They’ll make it really annoying or even impossible to use alternatives and mix things. This way they you are by design drawn to use their desired solutions.
Does make for a better user experience as long as you pay the price and play by their rules. And probably also better for privacy, because with the closed system approach they don’t need the data as much to target you.
But imo still problematic and Apple doesn’t want to just sell good Hardware, but also services.
Unfortunately I think without some kind of regulation that makes personal info a liability / hot potato, it will still be treated as an asset to be collected:(
Agreed, this is one of those problems where it is much easier to legislate from the top down, rather than trying to get each individual consumer to make fully conscious decisions.
I used to develop smart TV apps, and Tizen / Orsay (older SS TV OS) we an absolute nightmare to develop for. LG’s Web OS, and Android TV were so easy in comparison.
Are they going to allow me to reflash it with whatever i want tho?
haha ha haaaaa
No. Why? Because, duck you, that’s why.
Can we get Louis rossman onto it?
This is not about the smart tv tizen, no? I see the article talks about smartwatches. The naming on Samsung’s side is confusing.
Nope, purely about the watch os
Samsung even used to have a Tizen alternative to Android on smartphones way back when.
Android also has “Android TV”. I suppose “Wear OS” is more unique.
I’ll buy a phone and laptop, but I’m done investing in any other products that won’t guarantee a basic feature set for the life of their device.
Casio gang report in!
Available in gold.
Casio Is GOD TIER
F91W will never not be supported
Solar charging, atomic time sync, durable. Much better than any smartwatch.
Samsung switched from Tizen to WearOS literally 4 months after I got my Galaxy watch 2. That was annoying. $200 is way too much to spend on such a short-lived product.
Similar thing happened to me. Bought a bunch of watch faces too, only to discover that none of them would transfer over when I got a new watch.
Garmin did the same thing with Forerunner. They stopped software support 6 months after release of 220, and the very moment 235 was released. Their tech support’s answer to any problem was “do a factory reset”. And yet they are still considered one of the best brands for navigation and sports.
I mean, Fossil ended support for my Gen 5 a while back and… It still works. I mean, I mostly use it as an alarm and “ability to feel my phone vibrate when ringing” machine but it still operates…
Until it doesn’t, I guess. The battery life is already shit and I’m jealous of my partner’s Garmin.
Garmin is the way to go.
Their hybrid models are chefs kiss
Furtunately (at least for the users), gadgetbridge exists.
As far as I know, gadgetbridge does not support tizenOS smartwatches
Well, then all the users are fucked.
Aren’t smart watches almost universally bricked by default unless you undergo an online activation, sharing all kinds of personal information?
I’m stuck on miband 3, since it’s the last model sold unlocked.
Huawei watches support gadgetbridge and don’t have vendor pair.
Well, or mi unlock, where you need to share your e-mail and phone number. You can’t do anything about it anymore.
As long as I can still get notifications and see the time, I don’t think I care.
I remember Samsung trying to run a WWDC-like conference in San Francisco many years ago. They were offering free Tizen watches as enticement for developers to show up (AppleWatch devs had to buy their own). None of the professional mobile devs I knew back then said they would go.
As Microsoft found out with WindowsPhone, it’s really hard to get traction if you’re third.
Tbf that’s because Microsoft got in bed with Nokia and gave the finger to everyone else
Nokia era Lumias were amazing phones, and I loved the OS, but a lack of apps kept it from ever being a contender. Still miss my live tiles though.
They also didn’t treat devs very well. A lot of folks pulled their apps or let them die on the vine instead of having to majorly replatform to support the latest versions of their mobile OS.
This made their App Store go from mediocre to downright anemic.
MS died after Steve Ballmer era CMV
IMHO, he wasn’t great, but I feel like the their software has really gone downhill since he left. All they do is shuffle chairs, reorg - not ship.
That said, Ballmer didn’t do a great job with the early days of digital music and mobile. He mocked a lot of that stuff, then was forced to get into those games way too late.
Looking forward to getting a Pinetime. It might not be polished, but community support never truly ends.
Isn’t tizen also on their smart TVs?
Yes, but this article and the sources only say this is impacting their watches.
Yes, and fridges and probably washing machines
I think their fridges run Android.
They definitely run Tizen.
The GE Profile “Kitchen Hub” over the range touch screen hood thingy runs Android, though.
The what now
??? Why? That thing is gunna get so greasy
Ugh that just seems so… Useless.
But I guess there’s a buyer for anything out there
My fridges and washing machines plug into the wall and work when I press the GO button. That’s the end of it. I resist “smart” things like the plague.
Are they Samsung?
Obviously not, I said they work.
Lame. WearOS is laggy garbage. My Watch 2 Active was way more responsive and functional than my Watch
34 Classic is. Animations stutter constantly and half the time it doesn’t even react to my touch. Bring back Tizen.
