Samsung improves bada

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, today announced the launch of bada 2.0 SDK (Software Development Kit), an application development tool for Samsung’s mobile platform which is expected to expand the global distribution of bada smartphones. Three new Wave smartphones, powered by bada 2.0, will follow later this year, ranging from premium models with enhanced performance to entry-level devices that focus on affordability.

The expansion of the bada platform follows the success of the seven existing Samsung Wave devices, which have seen significant global sales. They have proved extremely popular in Europe, China and Southeast Asia thanks to their affordability and functionality, whilst the user-experience and touch interface have helped introduce existing Samsung feature phone users to smartphone services and application experiences.

bada 2.0 includes a number of new features, including multi-tasking, Wi-Fi Direct, Near Field Communication (NFC) and voice recognition. It enables owners of smartphone devices to experience advanced services such as mobile payment, transport pass-card recharge and file sharing without Internet networking. Improved support for web applications such as Flash and HTML5, means users can enjoy enhanced web capabilities, and anyone with a smartphone based on bada 2.0 will be able to run any web application developed with Flash or HTML.

Simon Stanford, Managing Director, Mobile, Samsung UK and Ireland said: “We are extremely pleased with the success of bada and our Wave devices, and have brought together our key mobile innovations for bada 2.0. Whilst we will continue to work with partners including Google and Microsoft, bada will be a big focus for us in the future as we work to make it a leading mobile platform.”

Developer partners will benefit from the introduction of In-app Ads, allowing them to create new revenue opportunities by inserting advertisements using the Ads API (Application Programming Interface), whilst an improved application development environment will provide increased support. Tools such as Profiler and new addition Emulator, optimise device performance by improving memory and processing power and providing a development process suitable to the target environment.

The ‘Samsung Apps’ retail store, which currently houses approximately 40,000 applications, has been enhanced with full availability now extended to 121 countries worldwide. With bada 2.0, more differentiated functions will be offered from Samsung Apps, including new purchasing options and recommendations. Samsung Apps received 10 million application downloads in the three months following its launch in June 2010 and passed the 100 million-mark in March 2011.

bada 2.0 SDK can be downloaded from the bada developer site (developer.bada.com) and Samsung will be giving away a cash prize to the first 20 developers who reach 100,000 downloads for their application at the global developer event ‘bada 2.0 Power App Race’.

Posted by: James