Bada (operating system)

Bada
developer	Samsung Electronics
License (s)	GPL and proprietary
Current  version	2.0.6 SDK (February 28, 2013)
Kernel	Linux and RTOS
ancestry	GNU / Linux ↳ Bada
Architecture (s)	POOR
Languages)	C / C ++
Others	Development stopped
www.bada.com

Bada ( proper spelling : bada ) was an operating system for mobile devices. The name is a copy of the Korean word "바다" for ocean or sea from letters of the Latin alphabet . The operating system was developed by Samsung Electronics and used between 2010 and 2013 on its smartphones, which are also known as "Wave", in Asia and Europe (not in the USA).

The flagship model Samsung Wave S8500 appeared as the first mobile phone with Bada in April 2010 . Two direct successors in the high-end sector, various models in the mid-price segment, most recently also low-end devices, followed by the end of 2012. In February 2013, Samsung announced that it would no longer develop the operating system. Samsung brought parts of the system and the Bada apps into the successor operating system Tizen, which was launched by Intel and the Linux Foundation and is also based on Linux .

history

Introduction and initial success

Bada was announced in autumn 2009 and officially presented in London in December 2009 together with a software development kit (SDK). As the first mobile phone based on Bada, Samsung presented the Wave S8500 at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona . At the end of May 2010 the device was launched in Asia and Europe. Compared to the competition, it stood out due to its flat design and the use of a sensor screen in "Super AMOLED technology", which was able to display a resolution of 480 × 800 pixels, which at that time was considered to be high. Three more devices appeared in quick succession, and in October of the same year Samsung launched a new flagship model, the Wave II S8530, on which the further developed Bada version 1.2 was already installed ex works.

On February 14, 2011, Samsung announced that the upcoming Wave 578 model would be equipped with a chip for Near Field Communication (NFC). Support for NFC, the ability of devices to communicate with each other via WLAN without an access point, and, last but not least, multitasking between applications will be introduced with Bada Version 2.0, which should be completed by September 2011. Samsung was able to demonstrate an alpha version on a Wave II S8530 during the 2011 GSMA Mobile World Congress . At this point in time, many experts expected, similar to Windows Phone 7, that Bada would benefit from the coming merging of mobile applications and the mobile Internet. In fact, there has been considerable success in Germany with more than 750,000 devices sold since the operating system was introduced, but also in Europe and Asia with 3.5 million devices in the first quarter of 2011. Significantly more than Windows Phone 7, with only 2 5 million units sold. However, this trend did not last long. The Samsung Wave II S8530, with its LCD built in as a savings measure or as a step backwards compared to the previous model, could not match the sales figures of the predecessor when it was introduced.

Bada 2.0

Great expectations were placed on the announced new version of the operating system. At the Internationale Funkausstellung 2011 in Berlin, Samsung announced that Bada 2.0 would only be available on newly introduced smartphones and for the three premium models. However, the Bada developers then announced via Twitter that an update to Bada 2.0 would be available for all Wave smartphones by the end of the year. From July 2011, illegal beta versions for the Wave II S8530 and then also for the Wave S8500 appeared on the Internet several times .

By the end of 2011, three devices with preinstalled version 2.0 appeared, including the Samsung Wave III S8600, again a successor to the flagship models. The official distribution of the software for the older models via Kies was delayed until February (Wave II S8530) or March 2012 (Wave S8500). For the Wave 525 and 544, the release of a new operating system version was canceled in December because their hardware was too weak. Samsung announced a value package as a replacement. When the Wave 723 finally received its new software via the Kies update utility almost a year late on November 11, 2012, Samsung had already declared its intention to integrate its Bada operating system into Tizen .

Cessation of development

In February 2013, the further developments for Bada were officially stopped. Further versions (Bada 3.0) should no longer exist. On May 30th, 2013 the so-called "Bada Premium Support Service" for developers was discontinued and the last Bada devices in the so-called "Remote Test Lab" were shut down. The growing hope that Samsung is now working on bringing Tizen to the Wave devices has not been fulfilled. After this announcement, Bada's market share fell drastically and was already below one percent in the 2nd quarter of 2013.

architecture

The layers of Bada

	Applications
4th	Framework
3.	Services
2.	Device
1.	(Linux) kernel

Bada is based on Linux and consists of four layers:

1. The first layer is a kernel, whereby according to the specification either the Linux kernel or another kernel with real-time capability can be used.
2. The second layer, called “Device”, is an abstraction layer that provides devices and other basic functions - such as access rights or a graphics server - for the layers above.
3. The third layer is the “Services”. It is next to a Flash player and WebKit to telephony functions, network protocols , GPS functions, social networking clients, replication functions, database server, localization and a PIM framework.
4. The framework is the top layer. It includes the user interface and an API . Applications are written in C ++ . Many popular GNU tools are part of Bada to make app development easier.

equipment

Smartphones with Bada OS installed:

• Samsung Wave S8500
• Samsung Wave II S8530
• Samsung Wave III S8600
• Samsung Wave 525 S5250
• Samsung Wave 533 S5330
• Samsung Wave 575 S5750
• Samsung Wave 578 S5780
• Samsung Wave 723 S7230E
• Samsung Wave Y S5380
• Samsung Wave M S7250
• Partly also Samsung S and GT-S series

criticism

In terms of development, the following aspects of Bada were criticized:

• The source code of the apps from Samsung's online store was not publicly available and users were prevented from downloading applications from other servers.
• The programming interface to the sensors. Only proximity , acceleration , localization and inclination sensors and magnetometers were provided. No new sensors could be added and applications could not access sensors directly, only the information from the programming interface.
• The "Bada Framework" only allowed one app to run at a time. Multitasking is supported between the one application and the Bada basic applications, which are stored in ROM . Multitasking was only introduced with Bada 2.0.

Bada users criticized the significantly smaller number of apps compared to Apple iOS and Android , especially the lack of popular WhatsApp , Skype , TrackID or Shazam . An app was available for Dropbox , but it was only made available by a third party.

distribution

Sales figures for Bada and Windows Phone in comparison, from 2nd quarter 2010 to 3rd quarter 2012.

Worldwide sales of Bada mobile phones (source: Gartner)

• 2nd quarter 2010: 0.577 million, 0.9% market share
• 3rd quarter 2010: 0.920 million, 1.1% market share
• 4th quarter 2010: 2.026 million, 2.0% market share
• 1st quarter 2011: 1.862 million, 1.9% market share
• 2nd quarter 2011: 2.055 million, 1.9% market share
• 3rd quarter 2011: 2.478 million, 2.2% market share
• 4th quarter 2011: 3.111 million, 2.1% market share
• 1st quarter 2012: 3.842 million, 2.7% market share
• 2nd quarter 2012: 4.208 million, 2.7% market share
• 3rd quarter 2012: 5.054 million, 3.0% market share
• 4th quarter 2012: 2.684 million, 1.3% market share
• 1st quarter 2013: 1.370 million, 0.7% market share

Without US market, since Bada OS was not introduced there.

Versions

Parts of Bada have been integrated into Tizen

version	publication	Major innovations
1.0	June 2010	Bada release
1.0.2	September 2010	Improved IMAP support Optimized OpenGL API Additional widgets Fixed stability issues
1.1	October 2010	Support of resolution WQVGA (240 × 400 pixels) AutoScale support Extended system info API Automatic switch from 3G to WiFi (if WiFi is active and nearby) HTTP stream support
1.2	December 2010	Cybercash and prepaid card support (China only) OpenGL-ES extensions are now fully supported URI scheme samsungapps://added Improved storage management No purchase popup for free apps
2.0	August 2011	Support of resolution HVGA (480 × 320 pixels) WAC2.0, HTML5 , Near Field Communication , CSS3, FlashLite 4, ActionScript 3.0 support multitasking New user interface (UI) with TouchWiz 4.0 for Bada Improved storage management WiFi direct support Speech output and recognition ("Text-To-Speech" and "Speech-to-Text") Multiscreen support (improved type of AutoScale) Push notification VPN support Revised camera application voice control
3.0	unpublished	Dual SIM support Multicore support Linux instead of Samsung Handset Platform as the basis Advanced voice control

Web links

• Special bada on golem.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Samsung hires Bada, apps run on Tizen. In: The Standard . February 15, 2013, accessed February 25, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Samsung starts bada. In: Heise online . November 10, 2009, accessed February 25, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Bada. (No longer available online.) In: IT knowledge. November 10, 2009, archived from the original on March 1, 2014 ; Retrieved February 25, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ bada's Big: Samsung Announces First bada Phone. In: PC Magazine. February 14, 2010, accessed November 26, 2011 . 
5. ↑ Samsung brings Wave II. In: Heise online . October 4, 2010, accessed November 26, 2011 . 
6. ↑ All information about the new mobile phone OS. (No longer available online.) In: CHIP Online . February 24, 2011, archived from the original on March 1, 2014 ; Retrieved February 25, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Samsung Wave & Wave II: Update to bada 2.0 here. (No longer available online.) In: CHIP Online . March 7, 2012, archived from the original on March 1, 2014 ; Retrieved February 25, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Samsung: 750,000 Bada cell phones in Germany. In: onlinekosten.de. March 14, 2011, accessed February 25, 2014 . 
9. ↑ The OS you never heard of trounces Windows Phone 7. In: InfoWorld. May 13, 2011, accessed February 25, 2014 . 
10. ↑ All Samsung phones receive Bada updates. In: netzwelt . September 9, 2011, accessed November 26, 2011 . 
11. ↑ bada 2.0: No update for Samsung Wave 525 & 533. (No longer available online.) In: CHIP Online . December 8, 2011, archived from the original on January 8, 2012 ; Retrieved December 29, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ Smartphone: Samsung wants to merge Bada and Tizen. In: golem.de . October 10, 2012, accessed February 25, 2014 . 
13. ↑ What is bada? (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 2, 2010 ; accessed on November 26, 2011 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ ^{a b} What’s so bad about Samsung's bada? In: The Register. March 9, 2010, accessed November 12, 2010 . 
15. ↑ bada continue without WhatsApp. In: all about Samsung. January 24, 2012. Retrieved April 20, 2012 . 
16. ↑ Discontinued model Bada ahead of Microsoft. In: Statista . January 24, 2012. Retrieved April 20, 2012 .