Samsung opens Bada 2.0 to developers

KOREAN ELECTRONICS OUTFIT Samsung's Bada 2.0 operating system (OS) for smartphones is now live and has been opened to developers.

At a Samsung developer day yesterday, the phone maker announced that Bada 2.0 is now live, with a development kit and new features, and that the Wave III smartphone is coming to the UK "later this year".

Samsung mobile UK MD, Simon Stanford said that Bada "will be a big focus" for the company "in 2012 and beyond".

The firm claims to have so far seen 5,300,201 downloads of Bada apps in the UK with 300,000 Bada devices sold in the UK and eight million worldwide.

Samsung also announced several competitions to encourage developers onto Bada 2.0, including a $100,000 cash prize for the first place app with the highest and greatest potential, functionality, usability and design. There is a $50,000 development contract for second prize and a $1m prize fund to reward the most popular Bada 2.0 apps.

New features of Bada 2.0 include enhanced user interface controls, voice recognition technology, app ads, push notifications and web technology.

It also has an updated look and feel with a colour picker, date-time picker, context menu and list view, and the clipboard allows copy and paste.

Bada 2.0 has enhanced face recognition technology, while multitasking adds inter-application communication to allow easier communication between apps. NFC is built in to the SDK.

Samsung claims Bada 2.0 also includes a more secure database and extended connectivity. For web developers there's a new web framework and the ability to use HTML files.

The first phone to feature Bada 2.0 will likely be the Wave III. Check back for The INQUIRER's hands on review of Bada 2.0 on Samsung's Wave III smartphone.. µ