Tizen Developer Conference Recap: New devices, profiles, developer tools and Internet of Things roadmap

Today marked the closing of the third-annual TDC event in San Francisco. The event saw a record number of developers and media attendees witness the official unveiling of the world’s first Tizen smartphone, the Samsung Z, set to launch in Q3 of 2014 in Russia. A number of other new device prototypes, software, device profiles and developer tools were also on display at the event. Highlights included:

• Keynote from Tizen Technical Steering Group unveiling the Samsung Z smartphone—Imad Sousou of Intel and JD Choi of Samsung, co-chairs of Tizen Technical Steering Group, kicked off the conference with the unveiling of the Samsung Z smartphone, which was demonstrated for the first time ever during the keynote and shortly thereafter in the TDC 2014 Tech Showcase.

• Tizen In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) 3.0—Tizen IVI 3.0 was displayed in a pair of automotive demonstrations featuring a Chevrolet Corvette and a Land Rover SUV. Leading up to TDC, Intel Corporation announced its Intel® In-Vehicle Solutions module, which is optimized to run Tizen IVI and is being used in development with several additional automotive manufactures.

• Tizen Smart Television Software Development Kit and Prototypes—Just prior to TDC 2014, Samsung announced the release of Tizen SDK for Samsung smart televisions that allows developers to extend their native Tizen apps and HTML5 web apps to the television and Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Samsung showcased Tizen TV prototypes at the event, including 65-inch curved screen and flat-screen models running Tizen operating system.

• Connected Home and Fitness Demonstrations—Other Samsung demonstrations at the event included WiFi and Bluetooth connected devices managed by the Samsung Gear 2 and Gear Neo, including interactive control and management of connected lighting, vacuums, air conditioning units and entertainment systems.

• Tizen Partner Program Growth and Development—Tizen’s Partner Program continues to grow, with the announcement of 37 new partners leading up to the show. A number of Tizen partners had news announcements around the conference, including appbackr, Atooma and FocusMotion.

TDC 2014 delivered a number of major announcements across Tizen open source platform, creating momentum that the growing ecosystem will look to continue at the newly announced Tizen Developer Summit, slated for Shanghai, China. More details on TDS can be found here.