What happened with the apps in the Samsung Gear App Challenge? - Samsung Gear S2

There are 2 apps that I desperately want on my Gear S2, and before buying the watch I did a search for "Gear S2" and "Backcountry Navigator" and found their submission to the Gear App Challenge. So I bought the watch! The app isn't available. I contacted the developer who said that development has been "put on hold." I found another app - a knitting row counter - that was also submitted to the challenge and also isn't available. What is the deal here? I don't understand app being submitted to the app challenge, and then never released.

So I'm very persistent. Or stubborn. Whichever. I have spoken to the owner of Crittermap - who makes BCNav, and I've spoken to the developer of the row counter I wanted. If folks are wondering why there aren't more apps for Tizen, I'm getting some clues.
The row counter dev did have his app approved by Samsung and it's in the Gear S store, but since I have an S2 I won't see it in the app store so I can't even try and see it would work. Some quotes from him:
"It was an extremely complicated process to get an app onto their platform, and it kept getting rejected and taking two weeks then to get an answer back from them as to why."
"...they stopped supporting their Gear watches well..."
A quote from the BCNav dev:
"Our support for Samsung would be more timely if they didn't change development paths twice a year and if their communication path between the watch and phone weren't so unstable."
It seems like the general consensus is that Tizen is a better overall experience than Android Wear, but the lack of apps is holding it back. So I am really confused and frustrated that Samsung isn't exactly facilitating getting more apps out there. Here are 2 developers that actually did 95% of the legwork, then bailed out because Samsung was such a pain. I'm so disappointed, I'm wishing I'd got a Moto 360

This is interesting. Thanks for sharing it. I've often felt there's something unstable "in the communication path between watch and phone" and that it has to be hard working with Samsung's unpredictable and awkward systems. This stuff is all curable; the simple fact that some folks inside Samsung came up with such a great bit of hardware and interface says that great things can happen inside that company. But whether or not that moment of great work can be translated into great follow up, into more stability, better support for developers, etc. -- well that remains to be seen.

This is what annoys me about Samsung. I personally have only owned Samsung phones starting with the S4 after switching from iphone 4S and now I have the note 4. Have gonna on alright with them and think they're brilliant phones but Samsung just seem to let themselves down quite a lot. Why they removed micro SD card slot from the S6 and note 5 is stupid for one example. But in the case of the S2 it's one of the best watch designs going especially with the bezel but for some stupid reason they seem to have no intention to make it dev friendly and getting devs involved in it.
I haven't looked into the iphone support (not sure if it's available yet) but I sure hope iphone users get the full S2 experience and don't get restricted apps or function because it has the potential to out do the apple watch if Samsung just make it 100% cross platform/device so that android phones and Iphones get the full experience without not being able to pay for apps for example or get limited functionality like no point in them adding iphone support if Iphone users can't send sms from the watch for example. Then they need to put better development documentation (have heard it's poor) and then get more big name devs involved plus make all apps available in all countries fgs.

Related

What Google isn't Doing right (don't hate me)

1st off, My house is an android powered house and I love the platform. It is only after months of being around my girlfriend and her family as they used android, that I started to really put a finer point on why so many people prefer other OS's (yes i understand Android is grabbing up market share like crazy). this is my thoughts after watching people I know use and leave android, use and struggle with android, and use and love android.
1st off, a list of the things that aren't google fault per say, but pit falls due to there lack of control over the final product.
#1) battery life. Due to varying hardware design and the freedom to do as you please to the OS, manufactures have made some phones with really bad battery life. this coupled with the constant updating a android device can do for any apps and the increase in popularity of cloud service, android ends up with wildly varying battery life from device to device.
#2) Consistency. If someone had a Verizon "droid", they could be using a Sense UI, a moto blur UI, or vanilla android. That's just in that one "brand of phone" alone. People dont adapt well to tech if they aren't big tech fans.
#3 quality of hardware, and I'm not talking about specs. Most consumers only judge the internals on how smooth the final product is. No, I'm talking about, build materials and the screen. There is some junk out there (allot of them have great internals). some of these phones are built like toys with race car parts inside them.
Now for where google is falling short.
#1 marketing. This is amazing to me that an Advertising company would fall short here but they do. Google ads focus on strange things like the ability to unlock your bootloader. Most people have no idea what this means and why they should care. They probably shouldn't care since they will never hack there phones.
also, every time Apple comes out with an "I" product ad, they are doing a real good job of showing how there "new feature" will make your life more fun and allot easier. The funny thing is, they are almost always features that android already had.
This is one of the things I really started to notice as I was surrounded by the non tech savvy android users. I would say, "funny, android already does that, has for a while now". My girlfriend would then ask, "does my phone do that?". Wow Google, you should be the master and telling people about all the selling points of your product.
#2 ease of use. This one may also be an issue with the carriers but I am going to put it in this section. One of the things I again noticed as I helped my girlfriend master here Nexus S 4G was, weird quirks that are not even a stumbling block to a Tech savvy user but almost a deal breaker to the average consumer.
Example: when my girlfriend 1st got here nexus, she hated it, couldn't believe I recommended it. One of her issues that stuck in my mind was the SMS limit. She hated that the SMS would cap her before she was done texing a message. She didnt care if it sent as two messages but she wanted to be able to type one continues message and then send it, letting the software sort it out. So I said, no problem, my phone doesn't do that (galaxy nexus) so there must be a deep setting to control this. As it turns out there wasn't, at least I couldn't find it. So again, I said no problem and down loaded handsent witch fixed the problem and she loved the easy theming. Well along came here ICS update that I had been raving about and her phone started crashing. Turns out handsent was the reason. Again, I said, no problem and downloaded Go SMS witch she loves even more.
That's just one example, in the mean time, 4 people in her family have switched from android to I Phones and don't regret it. I feel that one of them was mainly due to the hardware they chose and the rest is because they didn't have the live in tech help that my girlfriend has ( don't mean that to sound arrogant). My girlfriend loves her phone partly because I fix each issue as it arises and inform her of cool features.
Conclusion: I really think that the the lack of consistency is the other side of the open source double edged sword. this shows it self in software and hardware. It can be as small as the order in witch the bottom buttons appear, and as big as the Sense UI that changes everything a little bit. I also feel that no one besides Verizon in the early days, is really advertising Android well. Even Verizon doesn't do as good of a job showing you how much the phones can do and why you should want these features as Apple does.
Oddly I aggree with most of that, esp the marketing, you know I just found out just how good google voice was the other day... I have had android phones now for 3 years... Lol.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
funny you should bring up google voice. That was one of the things that I was thinking about when it comes to advertising short comings. It has been a great feature and a solid performer and now with Jellybean, it has every function of Siri, with the performance level I have come to expect from Google voice.
google needs to talk about it in plain English with every day examples of implementation
All of those faults/cons/criticisms can be attributed to just about any device/thing/object/concept that endorses an open-ended nature. The one off the top of my head that fits the OP's bill nearly word for word is Windows (technically Windows is closed-source). The Playstation 3 is a similar concept too. It's got all the nice bells and tech but its advertising sucks.
Google doesn't need to do any advertising, but rather the respective manufacturers. They're the ones that should be selling what Android does for their phones and why people should choose their phones over the others. If there are feature discrepancies from one phone to the other, the manufacturers should work to get those features implemented, that's the real strength of open-source software. It helps a lot if a manufacturer works together with their modding community to make it happen, which in turns makes your product/device more competitive and play on that.
Google caters to the developers because that's what Google is: a developer. That's why Google has their own line of phones: Nexus. Their phones are catered to the developers and well...us XDA'ers. They do a good job at advertising where it matters: recent one being their own conference just a week ago. If it reassures the OP: the rumor that Google plans to expand the Nexus line to more manufacturers is a good thing for us XDAers and friends of XDAers.
alpha-niner64 said:
All of those faults/cons/criticisms can be attributed to just about any device/thing/object/concept that endorses an open-ended nature. The one off the top of my head that fits the OP's bill nearly word for word is Windows (technically Windows is closed-source). The Playstation 3 is a similar concept too. It's got all the nice bells and tech but its advertising sucks.
Google doesn't need to do any advertising, but rather the respective manufacturers. They're the ones that should be selling what Android does for their phones and why people should choose their phones over the others. If there are feature discrepancies from one phone to the other, the manufacturers should work to get those features implemented, that's the real strength of open-source software. It helps a lot if a manufacturer works together with their modding community to make it happen, which in turns makes your product/device more competitive and play on that.
Google caters to the developers because that's what Google is: a developer. That's why Google has their own line of phones: Nexus. Their phones are catered to the developers and well...us XDA'ers. They do a good job at advertising where it matters: recent one being their own conference just a week ago.
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1st off, other companies doing it too, its not a reason to ignore said issue. Also, windows is taking steps to correct the hardware issue and make there OS consistent (for example)
If you think google doesn't "have to" advertise, I guess your right but even companies like 3M who sells many products to OEM's that then sell to the end user (like google) advertise to further there brand and promote the use of there products by OEM's. Also, 3M knows more about the products than any one OEM that uses there products, not to mention, the OEM's that use 3M consider 3M to be one of the reasons there product is good, and will not focus on key points of the 3M element.
Also, look at gorilla glass from corning, another product that isn't sold direct to the end user. They do there own advertising to promote there product and increase brand recognition to better sell there product.
I also disagree that google is a developer selling to developers only. Google nexus 7 is a perfect example of that. The nexus 7 tab is meant to further the "play store" brand, and is being sold at a vary low price point in the hopes that play store sales will make up for it just like the Kindle. I also don't think the Galaxy Nexus is a "developer device" at least, not exclusively.
So does google have to, no. Should they want to, yes.
What would you have Google advertise about that other companies should be doing in their stead? Google has brand recognition already and it's pretty clear by Google I/O that their intended audience isn't the Apple crowd: so who else would there be to advertise to? If the Apple crowd is whom you're referring to: that should be Samsung, HTC, Sony's job to do. What can Google do to help those manufacturers sell their features to the consumer that those companies aren't already doing themselves?
This is where we are going to disagree. Google has brand recognition but Android has far less. Verizon, did the best job and now the "droid" brand has more recognition than "android", many times "droid" is used and the general brand for all android by consumers. I don't think Google should depend on hardware companies to advertise there product. Even windows advertises there software. The OEM's should ALSO advertise but not ONLY advertise.
Advertising that the Galaxy nexus has a "unlockable" boot loader is un needed and doesnt further the brand. 98% of the people who want a unlocked boot loader, knew the galaxy nexus had one before the ad hit the streets.
The fact that apple fans are oviusly not googles target market is or should be false (proven by samsung). Google should be polishing there OS so that more of apple users would be interested. Google will not be able to continue on for ever just appealing to a small market such as the XDA community. OEM's will abandon them if that was the case. Look at the OEM's and there behavior, they are not interested in selling phones to the developer community only, otherwise Motorola would not lock there phones down as they did, or at least they would offer developers unlock tools like HTC has done. HTC is a little more "developer marketed" but lets be real, they still drag there feet when ever they can or feel pressure from the big 3.
That leads me to the Carrier's, they do not want to sell phones marketed to developers that are easily hacked and modded. they want control. Google should want to sell the most units they can within reason. This means helping the developer community with there goals and helping the OEM's and Carrier's with there's. Google should be (and I think they are) trying to make android more marketable to the masses and then lead that marketing campaign by example.
Its like that old saying, "alone with your principles". You can stand here and say that the OEM's should do all the advertising but it doesn't change the fact that they aren't doing what needs to be done and google need to sell product that is dependent on the platform. They are an advertising company so do they sit back and hope HTC and Samsung start talking more about there product and doing more to show how it will improve our lives or should they step in and show the OEM's how its done, at the same time increasing the value of there products
I think a lot of your issues are going to be solved for the mainstream with more Nexus devices rolling out. The other great thing is that as more people start looking at Nexus flexibility and timely updates the more other OEMs will be forced to follow suit if they want to stay viable. It seems Sony and to some extent HTC and Samsung are pretty serious about both the hardware and update side of things so anyone else will just have to play catch-up.
As a whole though some of these things will continue to persist. One of the draws of Android devices is having smartphone abilities without ridiculous cost. There will always be people who want the goodies but don't have a lot of extra funds and those devices will simply be a little behind the curve. With the optimizations coming via Jellybean though OEMs won't have the excuse of claiming that newer versions are too complex for older phones and I would hope that they continue to push updates for a reasonable period.
Stupid post. Why? Because you have no clue what android is. Android is an open source operating system. OEM's take android, and just so you know, they don't need google's consent, and manipulate it the way they want to put on their hardware. Google has no say in what they do to it, how they arrange their buttons, or the UI that they add to it. So your post is more directed at OEM's than google.
lowandbehold said:
Stupid post. Why? Because you have no clue what android is. Android is an open source operating system. OEM's take android, and just so you know, they don't need google's consent, and manipulate it the way they want to put on their hardware. Google has no say in what they do to it, how they arrange their buttons, or the UI that they add to it. So your post is more directed at OEM's than google.
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if you read my post you would have seen I acknowledge that some of these issues are a side effect of open source. They do in fact charge for the "gaps" suite. all hardware sold with gaps on it has paid licensing to Google.
dB Zac said:
if you read my post you would have seen I acknowledge that some of these issues are a side effect of open source. They do in fact charge for the "gaps" suite. all hardware sold with gaps on it has paid licensing to Google.
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So? Google gets no say in how they manipulate the OS. I mean seriously...battery life? How the f*** could that be a google issue?
I spesificly said that wasn't Google's fault, but a short coming of open source
Sent from my HTC One XL using Tapatalk 2
dB Zac said:
I spesificly said that wasn't Google's fault, but a short coming of open source
Sent from my HTC One XL using Tapatalk 2
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Sounds like you need an Iphone..
lowandbehold said:
Sounds like you need an Iphone..
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So I have to love it and ignore any and all short coming or be crusified? Ok sounds like a page from apple fanboyism
here, since you will not read the whole thing before commenting, i will post the part you seemed to miss
dB Zac said:
1st off, a list of the things that aren't google fault per say, but pit falls due to there lack of control over the final product.
#1) battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dB Zac said:
1st off, My house is an android powered house and I love the platform. It is only after months of being around my girlfriend and her family as they used android, that I started to really put a finer point on why so many people prefer other OS's (yes i understand Android is grabbing up market share like crazy). this is my thoughts after watching people I know use and leave android, use and struggle with android, and use and love android.
1st off, a list of the things that aren't google fault per say, but pit falls due to there lack of control over the final product.
#1) battery life. Due to varying hardware design and the freedom to do as you please to the OS, manufactures have made some phones with really bad battery life. this coupled with the constant updating a android device can do for any apps and the increase in popularity of cloud service, android ends up with wildly varying battery life from device to device.
#2) Consistency. If someone had a Verizon "droid", they could be using a Sense UI, a moto blur UI, or vanilla android. That's just in that one "brand of phone" alone. People dont adapt well to tech if they aren't big tech fans.
#3 quality of hardware, and I'm not talking about specs. Most consumers only judge the internals on how smooth the final product is. No, I'm talking about, build materials and the screen. There is some junk out there (allot of them have great internals). some of these phones are built like toys with race car parts inside them.
Now for where google is falling short.
#1 marketing. This is amazing to me that an Advertising company would fall short here but they do. Google ads focus on strange things like the ability to unlock your bootloader. Most people have no idea what this means and why they should care. They probably shouldn't care since they will never hack there phones.
also, every time Apple comes out with an "I" product ad, they are doing a real good job of showing how there "new feature" will make your life more fun and allot easier. The funny thing is, they are almost always features that android already had.
This is one of the things I really started to notice as I was surrounded by the non tech savvy android users. I would say, "funny, android already does that, has for a while now". My girlfriend would then ask, "does my phone do that?". Wow Google, you should be the master and telling people about all the selling points of your product.
#2 ease of use. This one may also be an issue with the carriers but I am going to put it in this section. One of the things I again noticed as I helped my girlfriend master here Nexus S 4G was, weird quirks that are not even a stumbling block to a Tech savvy user but almost a deal breaker to the average consumer.
Example: when my girlfriend 1st got here nexus, she hated it, couldn't believe I recommended it. One of her issues that stuck in my mind was the SMS limit. She hated that the SMS would cap her before she was done texing a message. She didnt care if it sent as two messages but she wanted to be able to type one continues message and then send it, letting the software sort it out. So I said, no problem, my phone doesn't do that (galaxy nexus) so there must be a deep setting to control this. As it turns out there wasn't, at least I couldn't find it. So again, I said no problem and down loaded handsent witch fixed the problem and she loved the easy theming. Well along came here ICS update that I had been raving about and her phone started crashing. Turns out handsent was the reason. Again, I said, no problem and downloaded Go SMS witch she loves even more.
That's just one example, in the mean time, 4 people in her family have switched from android to I Phones and don't regret it. I feel that one of them was mainly due to the hardware they chose and the rest is because they didn't have the live in tech help that my girlfriend has ( don't mean that to sound arrogant). My girlfriend loves her phone partly because I fix each issue as it arises and inform her of cool features.
Conclusion: I really think that the the lack of consistency is the other side of the open source double edged sword. this shows it self in software and hardware. It can be as small as the order in witch the bottom buttons appear, and as big as the Sense UI that changes everything a little bit. I also feel that no one besides Verizon in the early days, is really advertising Android well. Even Verizon doesn't do as good of a job showing you how much the phones can do and why you should want these features as Apple does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok let me help you out.
#2: Actually, Droid branding is owned by motorola, therefore they will only be using blur UI.
Marketing: Google is not in the business of advertising an OEM's phone. That is up to the OEM and the OEM only.
Ease of use: Apple owns a patent that breaks up the long text AFTER it is typed. Therefore, it would be illegal for Android to use it. Example invalid.
Conclusion: Verizon sucks.
You really did not point out 1 thing that google has control over in your whole post.
lowandbehold said:
Stupid post. Why? Because you have no clue what android is. Android is an open source operating system. OEM's take android, and just so you know, they don't need google's consent, and manipulate it the way they want to put on their hardware. Google has no say in what they do to it, how they arrange their buttons, or the UI that they add to it. So your post is more directed at OEM's than google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/03/14/android-isnt-really-open-its-just-less-closed-than-apple/
Google only cares about advertising (and like to snoop in on what you do, say, what you buy, where you shop, visit, etc... ) of course.
But they do have pretty good control over Android.
lowandbehold said:
Ok let me help you out.
#2: Actually, Droid branding is owned by motorola, therefore they will only be using blur UI.
Marketing: Google is not in the business of advertising an OEM's phone. That is up to the OEM and the OEM only.
Ease of use: Apple owns a patent that breaks up the long text AFTER it is typed. Therefore, it would be illegal for Android to use it. Example invalid.
Conclusion: Verizon sucks.
You really did not point out 1 thing that google has control over in your whole post.
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Click to collapse
1st off, "droid" always running blur was not the point and incorrect. Verizon owns the "droid" name, as it is licensed to them by Lucus Industries. hence the HTC phones under that same brand name. I was commenting on the superior advertizing and Branding that Verizon did. The Droid 1 was a great vanilla phone that did well in a large part, due to advertizing. The verizon campain made "droid" a household name, more so than "Android".
2nd google can advertise features and the OS without advertising a specifice peice of hardware, windows does it all the time. Also, since google does have Google branded harware (nexus), they are in the hardware biz and should advertize aas such.
"Verizon sucks" based on what I can only emagin was your reasoning for this statement, I'm sure all major cariers "suck, not really the point here. Out of all the cariers, Verizon, furthered the android the most in the last 3 years out of anyone. Only now is Samsung beging to be the leader in promoting the android platform.
I agree with you on this, anyone who ask me what phone to get, i personally recommend iPhone UNLESS the guy knows his stuff, i myself LOVE android, been using it for 3 years now but i am software developer and very much familiar with kernels and bootloaders and and and , someone was aksing me the other day, since Android has much bigger marketshare, why everything comes out for iPhone first?
answer is simple, as a developer making things for iPhone is sooooo much easier, you only have "ONE" screen dimension to worry about, you only got 3-4 phones to worry about which 90% of them are similar, now compare this with android phones !!!
and last as everyone mentioned is advertising, personally i think google and all manufacturers do a HORRIBLE job promoting , remember when iCloud came out? nothing new really, just another DropBox, but Apple made such a big deal about it, everyone was AMAZED !!! same with siri, and so many other things,
Personally i think iPhone WORKS, its great for people who dont think outside the box, they want something that WORKS and thats it, they like to be TOLD what to do, how to use your phone , and they follow it.
Android is for thone who like to explore, install custom ROMs , play with OC/UV , etc.
Raul77 said:
remember when iCloud came out? nothing new really, just another DropBox, but Apple made such a big deal about it, everyone was AMAZED !!! same with siri, and so many other things
thats another real good example of, others were 1st but Apple advertizes better
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I actually came from a blackberry, where in convention they make and market their devices.
When I switched to android now essentially Samsung was giving me their flavour of what they call android through Touchwiz and I really hated it.
Google should really take sometime to ensure manufacturers aren't dumbing down the platform for consumers and give users a clear overview of how it can serve them. Which is exactly what Google does with its Nexus.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[Q] Having trouble finding music creation apps like Garage band

I really don't like Apple at all because of their proprietary and self obsessed tendencies. You can't do much of anything that they don't allow you to do. I have been on an Android platform since it came out years ago. That being said I am now producing music and I have been seriously considering getting an Ipad because they have several top notch synth apps and DAW's like Garage Band. The only thing I can find for Android is things that you hit a button and it makes a sound. You can't record into the program or do much of anything. Am I missing something? I would love to stick with Android, but Apple is beckoning me after all these years.
Obviously I am new to the forums, I was discussing this with a guy who told me to come here and if there was a DAW type app you guys would know about it or at least know what is in the works or why it is not coming out.
As a sidenote I have been following this thread on the android Google support forum about this very issue.
If you look up in the android code developers board at code.google dot com /p/android/issues/detail?id=3434 (won't let me post outside links so I had to separate a bunch of stuff .. just fix it to go to the link. it isn't a nefarious link it is google.
Open_Carry said:
I really don't like Apple at all because of their proprietary and self obsessed tendencies. You can't do much of anything that they don't allow you to do. I have been on an Android platform since it came out years ago. That being said I am now producing music and I have been seriously considering getting an Ipad because they have several top notch synth apps and DAW's like Garage Band. The only thing I can find for Android is things that you hit a button and it makes a sound. You can't record into the program or do much of anything. Am I missing something? I would love to stick with Android, but Apple is beckoning me after all these years.
Obviously I am new to the forums, I was discussing this with a guy who told me to come here and if there was a DAW type app you guys would know about it or at least know what is in the works or why it is not coming out.
As a sidenote I have been following this thread on the android Google support forum about this very issue.
If you look up in the android code developers board at code.google dot com /p/android/issues/detail?id=3434 (won't let me post outside links so I had to separate a bunch of stuff .. just fix it to go to the link. it isn't a nefarious link it is google.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No suggestions yet?
Weather you need to make music entirely on phone or you have a studio and you just need more functionality with android devices, I think these two apps can help you.
I'm pretty sure you must have heard of FL Studio Mobile, I've been using it for a long time now and I can say it is the best DAW for Android. It has all the features that you will need as a producer. If your phone is powerful enough then you can produce any genre, there's a few things missing though, like orchestral instruments (there's a very few of those), also synths are not like top notch but they does the job if you are skilled, also Auto-Tune isn't that good yet.
Or you could also try Cubasis 3, it has a free demo version on play store, known as the Cubasis LE. This one is way better and powerful in terms of features but the only reason I wouldn't say it as the best one is that
1. It's not available for all devices.
2. It's really expensive.
But if that doesn't sound like much of a problem, you can try Cubasis, it has more orchestral instruments, better synths, better visuals.

Samsung Gear S2. No thank you!

http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-releases-full-teaser-for-upcoming-gear-s2-smartwatch-20150820/
If this is the best new thing in your Smartwatch lineup, i think I'll pass and stick with my Biktor_gj Gear S. Stop copying apple. Stop forcing Tizen on your users. And please stop tying us down to Samsung phones with your watches. I use to be a HUGE Samsung supporter and loyal customer, but I'm really starting to look at other options. I'm really not liking their strategy/ agenda/ motives/ business model this year.
Sent from my LG-H631 using XDA Free mobile app
Why complain on xda forums. Posting here Samsung won't get a whiff of this post. They clearly are not copying Apple, I see way more differences than similarities. See what Samsung's been good at doing is looking at competitors (Apple) and designing something better at a better price point. I don't like the Apple watch design but Samsung's UI in that video is rather sexy . I like the build design to. Tizen is now really well smoothed out, so if you're having issues with a smoothed out UI, then either its the old phone or maybe the person holding the phone haha xD Seriously though, I see you sent from LG, but they really aren't competitor worthy to Samsung. Apple is Samsung's only real competition. If you can only look at the bad in things then it's not that thing it might be your negative outlook. I mean all this in good humor, no disrespect but don't slam a company you can't even do better then. Also it is possible to use Samsung smartwatches on non Samsung devices.
tonys.94 said:
Why complain on xda forums. Posting here Samsung won't get a whiff of this post. They clearly are not copying Apple, I see way more differences than similarities. See what Samsung's been good at doing is looking at competitors (Apple) and designing something better at a better price point. I don't like the Apple watch design but Samsung's UI in that video is rather sexy . I like the build design to. Tizen is now really well smoothed out, so if you're having issues with a smoothed out UI, then either its the old phone or maybe the person holding the phone haha xD Seriously though, I see you sent from LG, but they really aren't competitor worthy to Samsung. Apple is Samsung's only real competition. If you can only look at the bad in things then it's not that thing it might be your negative outlook. I mean all this in good humor, no disrespect but don't slam a company you can't even do better then. Also it is possible to use Samsung smartwatches on non Samsung devices.
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Thanks. I posted on a General Discussion sub. Lol. Im sorry for voicing my opinion and hurting your feelings. Thanks for preaching your Samsung gospel and your personal love for Tizen. I have now changed my current view and feelings toward Samsung thanks to your heavily informational reply. Let's get some things straight for you, you know, since you know me so well apparently. I've never once owned an Apple product nor do i care to, so don't think for one second I'm just an Apple Fanboy taking up for Apple. I've been a long time Samsung supporter and have always looked forward to getting their "New Best Thing". I, for the first time in 5 years had decided to switch me and my wife to T-Mobile from Sprint. Had to trade in my Galaxy S5 i might add to take advantage of their offer. Before that, i have owned every Galaxy S series down to the Samsung Fascinate. I have owned the Gear and Gear 2, and now the Gear S. As someone who appreciates for one a removable battery and expandable storage that Android (and Samsung has always offered), i decided i would test the waters and get a lil change of scenery and opt for the G4 instead of the way overpriced Galaxy S6 that clearly has its own issues (unless of course we can just blame the " user behind the phone " as you would rather do). You are blind (or just that much of a Samsung fanboy) if you don't see the obvious similarities in the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6 and now the Gear S2 and the Apple Watch UI. You love Tizen eh? Well good for you buddy. Most, including me would rather not have it anywhere near our watch. It's the devil! Thanks to a great dev @biktor_gj ,who has been able to work miracles getting rid of it, we don't have to have that junk on our watch anymore. When his current work is done and he releases a build, you're telling me you're not gonna flash it and go with Android instead of that extremely boring and flat and limited OS Tizen? Doubt it. My "old phone" btw, is a new Lg G4. For you you sit there and say it doesn't compare to Samsung, i would highly recommend you go do some research. When you have other reputable Android sites and news sources calling out Samsung for the very same thing i was venting about, then that's saying something. Need proof? Or you think you can handle the research yourself? Lmk. Also, i and many other loyal Samsung users have more than earned the right to complain. They're losing loyal customers. It's a fact. And wth are you talking about " i can't do better than "??? Lol. I love how you so smoothly throw it out there that you can connect this watch to another phone besides Samsung like it's just as simple and quick as connecting to a Samsung phone. Lol. My guess is you've never had to do it because you own a Samsung phone. But since you like to talk and assume things and accuse someone of not knowing how to operate their phone before doing your research maybe I'll help you out. Connecting our non Samsung phones to our Gear S is nothing short of a pain in the ... well you know where I'm going with that. Once you finally do find the many correct apks to install and hope it works, not to mention editing your build.prop and get it connected via bluetooth, guess what? We're limited to receiving notifications and making and receiving calls only. That's right. No apps. No Appstore. Not even weather data. (Most of those Tizen apps in the App Store are garbage anyway). So yeah. It's a little frustrating if you don't mind that is.....Since I'm not privileged enough to own the late great and best Samsung Galaxy S or Note series. It's clearly my fault. Run a poll and see if I'm alone in my feelings. Find out how many on this Gear S forum own a different phone other than Samsung. While you're at it, find out how many can't wait to flash CM 12.1 onto their watch (thanks to Biktor btw) vs keeping the oh so awesome Tizen.
farewell_goodbye2u said:
http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-releases-full-teaser-for-upcoming-gear-s2-smartwatch-20150820/
If this is the best new thing in your Smartwatch lineup, i think I'll pass and stick with my Biktor_gj Gear S. Stop copying apple. Stop forcing Tizen on your users. And please stop tying us down to Samsung phones with your watches. I use to be a HUGE Samsung supporter and loyal customer, but I'm really starting to look at other options. I'm really not liking their strategy/ agenda/ motives/ business model this year.
Sent from my LG-H631 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How exactly is this a copy of Apple? The round icons? Tizen has had them for some time, well before the iWatch. The original Gear S had them.
I'll have to wait and see, but the design looks 1000x better than either the iWatch or the original Gear S.
My main concern is how it looks and how it works. The Gear S is slow, the pedometer is a joke, the heart rate monitor is useless if you're moving even a little bit. It's got all the right ideas, but really poor execution.
farewell_goodbye2u said:
Thanks. I posted on a General Discussion sub. Lol. Im sorry for voicing my opinion and hurting your feelings. Thanks for preaching your Samsung gospel and your personal love for Tizen. I have now changed my current view and feelings toward Samsung thanks to your heavily informational reply. Let's get some things straight for you, you know, since you know me so well apparently. I've never once owned an Apple product nor do i care to, so don't think for one second I'm just an Apple Fanboy taking up for Apple. I've been a long time Samsung supporter and have always looked forward to getting their "New Best Thing". I, for the first time in 5 years had decided to switch me and my wife to T-Mobile from Sprint. Had to trade in my Galaxy S5 i might add to take advantage of their offer. Before that, i have owned every Galaxy S series down to the Samsung Fascinate. I have owned the Gear and Gear 2, and now the Gear S. As someone who appreciates for one a removable battery and expandable storage that Android (and Samsung has always offered), i decided i would test the waters and get a lil change of scenery and opt for the G4 instead of the way overpriced Galaxy S6 that clearly has its own issues (unless of course we can just blame the " user behind the phone " as you would rather do). You are blind (or just that much of a Samsung fanboy) if you don't see the obvious similarities in the Galaxy S6 and the iPhone 6 and now the Gear S2 and the Apple Watch UI. You love Tizen eh? Well good for you buddy. Most, including me would rather not have it anywhere near our watch. It's the devil! Thanks to a great dev @biktor_gj ,who has been able to work miracles getting rid of it, we don't have to have that junk on our watch anymore. When his current work is done and he releases a build, you're telling me you're not gonna flash it and go with Android instead of that extremely boring and flat and limited OS Tizen? Doubt it. My "old phone" btw, is a new Lg G4. For you you sit there and say it doesn't compare to Samsung, i would highly recommend you go do some research. When you have other reputable Android sites and news sources calling out Samsung for the very same thing i was venting about, then that's saying something. Need proof? Or you think you can handle the research yourself? Lmk. Also, i and many other loyal Samsung users have more than earned the right to complain. They're losing loyal customers. It's a fact. And wth are you talking about " i can't do better than "??? Lol. I love how you so smoothly throw it out there that you can connect this watch to another phone besides Samsung like it's just as simple and quick as connecting to a Samsung phone. Lol. My guess is you've never had to do it because you own a Samsung phone. But since you like to talk and assume things and accuse someone of not knowing how to operate their phone before doing your research maybe I'll help you out. Connecting our non Samsung phones to our Gear S is nothing short of a pain in the ... well you know where I'm going with that. Once you finally do find the many correct apks to install and hope it works, not to mention editing your build.prop and get it connected via bluetooth, guess what? We're limited to receiving notifications and making and receiving calls only. That's right. No apps. No Appstore. Not even weather data. (Most of those Tizen apps in the App Store are garbage anyway). So yeah. It's a little frustrating if you don't mind that is.....Since I'm not privileged enough to own the late great and best Samsung Galaxy S or Note series. It's clearly my fault. Run a poll and see if I'm alone in my feelings. Find out how many on this Gear S forum own a different phone other than Samsung. While you're at it, find out how many can't wait to flash CM 12.1 onto their watch (thanks to Biktor btw) vs keeping the oh so awesome Tizen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll admit you bring some valid points to the table but Tizen has come a long way since its inception. I do plenty of modding and rather savy with computers so I know how to do some things. You had stated that the Gear S can't connect to other phones, I was simply pointing out you can. Believe me Samsung has other things to work out, but like I said, what they've been good at is looking at competitors and making their own versions better, that's what competitors do, and I gotta say Samsung continues to beat Apple. Idk if you actually have seen videos or used the Apple watch but the UI is definitely different than Apple's. It looks cleaned up, redesigned, better Tizen if that's what they're using. Tizen is one of Samsung's trademarks, just because you and less than majority, (or band wagon haters) think it's bad, apparently can't appreciate progress. There are things about Samsung I do not like and things I like about other companies. You see, if there were no negatives and positives about these separate companies, oligopolies arise. CM does do a great job, hence why I like One Plus. Now that I think of it, probably are a better upcoming competitor then Apple if they continue what their doing, (minus the invite system). The biggest thing for me is that AT&T and Verizon locked the bootloaders on the Note 4 which is terrible. The Gear S is a good watch but going from that to the Gear S 2 hella looks worth it considering the huge changes I'm seeing here. I love modding, rooting and exploring other mobile OS's but all in all Samsung does a great job. Their is beauty in their programming. Can it be improved, well everything can be improved. Nothing is in its final stages.
tedkord said:
How exactly is this a copy of Apple? The round icons? Tizen has had them for some time, well before the iWatch. The original Gear S had them.
I'll have to wait and see, but the design looks 1000x better than either the iWatch or the original Gear S.
My main concern is how it looks and how it works. The Gear S is slow, the pedometer is a joke, the heart rate monitor is useless if you're moving even a little bit. It's got all the right ideas, but really poor execution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. At first glance, it's hard to deny the icons are pretty similar. They're even in a circled order format like the iWatch. Now, as for the rest... Yeah. I'm really digging the design as well. Looks pretty sharp other than what looks to be another rubber wrist band. Not sure how i feel about that one when the main part looks so elegant and classy. The specs seem to be the same as our current Gear S if I'm not mistaken. I was hoping they'd bring back the IR blaster. Loved that feature. I guess my main gripe is how they continue to keep you tied down to a Samsung phone to reap all the benefits just like Apple did. Wouldn't they sell more of these watches if you didn't have to be tethered to a Samsung device? Or no? Just asking your honest opinion that matter. I feel like they would but maybe not.
Sent from my LG-H631 using XDA Free mobile app
tonys.94 said:
I'll admit you bring some valid points to the table but Tizen has come a long way since its inception. I do plenty of modding and rather savy with computers so I know how to do some things. You had stated that the Gear S can't connect to other phones, I was simply pointing out you can. Believe me Samsung has other things to work out, but like I said, what they've been good at is looking at competitors and making their own versions better, that's what competitors do, and I gotta say Samsung continues to beat Apple. Idk if you actually have seen videos or used the Apple watch but the UI is definitely different than Apple's. It looks cleaned up, redesigned, better Tizen if that's what they're using. Tizen is one of Samsung's trademarks, just because you and less than majority, (or band wagon haters) think it's bad, apparently can't appreciate progress. There are things about Samsung I do not like and things I like about other companies. You see, if there were no negatives and positives about these separate companies, oligopolies arise. CM does do a great job, hence why I like One Plus. Now that I think of it, probably are a better upcoming competitor then Apple if they continue what their doing, (minus the invite system). The biggest thing for me is that AT&T and Verizon locked the bootloaders on the Note 4 which is terrible. The Gear S is a good watch but going from that to the Gear S 2 hella looks worth it considering the huge changes I'm seeing here. I love modding, rooting and exploring other mobile OS's but all in all Samsung does a great job. Their is beauty in their programming. Can it be improved, well everything can be improved. Nothing is in its final stages.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very good points. I would have to agree. I have played around with the iWatch and was not impressed in the slightest. The main reference i guess i was making is how similar the icons looked to Apples. Not necessarily the entire UI. Like you, i also love rooting, flashing, installing new mods, etc which is why i will probably never leave Android. Lol. And im not saying by any means that Samsung isn't innovative in their own nor do they make crappy products. They have continued to impress for years with each new Galaxy device until the S5. (Which i really loved but i think that alot weren't very impressed when it came out). Then the S6 comes along completely redesigned and truly the slickest and sexiest smartphone I've ever held or seen. But like Apple, for some reason they decided to throw out the options for a removable battery and expanded storage. That ruins it for a lot of people i think. Samsung is still ahead of Apple in sales and i make damn sure to let my Apple loyal friends know about it. Lol. I don't hate Samsung at all. Just s bit disappointed i guess. I love their products which is why i keep buying them until now (speaking of my temporary G4 until i can find a good deal on a T-Mobile Note 4). I do understand Tizen is still young and there's plenty of potential to improve it. I just hope they're not trying to eventually use Tizen permanently in the near future and do away with Android. I'm not a big fan of Tizen, although i do like this new Tizen UI they have improved on. I guess my main issue is the fact the general population of people who want a Samsung Gear S or Gear S2 now will be forced to also own a Samsung phone to be able to take full advantage of the $350 watch, because most of them don't wanna be bothered or even afraid to root or mod their phones to work with a non Sammy device. I dunno. Just my opinion. It just feels to me they are going the direction and taking the same approach as Apple. I hope I'm wrong though.
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farewell_goodbye2u said:
Yeah. At first glance, it's hard to deny the icons are pretty similar. They're even in a circled order format like the iWatch. Now, as for the rest... Yeah. I'm really digging the design as well. Looks pretty sharp other than what looks to be another rubber wrist band. Not sure how i feel about that one when the main part looks so elegant and classy. The specs seem to be the same as our current Gear S if I'm not mistaken. I was hoping they'd bring back the IR blaster. Loved that feature. I guess my main gripe is how they continue to keep you tied down to a Samsung phone to reap all the benefits just like Apple did. Wouldn't they sell more of these watches if you didn't have to be tethered to a Samsung device? Or no? Just asking your honest opinion that matter. I feel like they would but maybe not.
Sent from my LG-H631 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, where in the iWatch are the icons arranged in a circle? From what I've seen, they're arranged in a honeycomb pattern. It's a mess.
As for similarity of the icons, the iWatch icons are similar to the Tizen icons, not the other way around. Tizen (and the original Gear S) had circular icons well before Apple released their device.
tedkord said:
Again, where in the iWatch are the icons arranged in a circle? From what I've seen, they're arranged in a honeycomb pattern. It's a mess.
As for similarity of the icons, the iWatch icons are similar to the Tizen icons, not the other way around. Tizen (and the original Gear S) had circular icons well before Apple released their device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you really wanna argue these are not at all simlilar? Look at the Weather icon for christ sake. Honeycomb, hexagonal, rectangular, idc.
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farewell_goodbye2u said:
Do you really wanna argue these are not at all simlilar? Look at the Weather icon for christ sake. Honeycomb, hexagonal, rectangular, idc.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no argument. Samsung had circular icons on smartwatches before the iWatch existed. It's a fact on the record.
farewell_goodbye2u said:
Do you really wanna argue these are not at all simlilar? Look at the Weather icon for christ sake. Honeycomb, hexagonal, rectangular, idc.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like others are saying circle icons like that have been on android before the iWatch. I'd have to say though, that is a pretty irrelevant point. The question is, will Samsung do it better once again. It appears to be cleaned up, versus Apple's honeycomb (what were you thinking Apple). It's simpler, easier on the eyes and considerate of customers who struggle with lots of things cluttered together, not to mention easier to press the right one, not 5 of them haha. Similar yes, but still not a new type of icon.
tonys.94 said:
Like others are saying circle icons like that have been on android before the iWatch. I'd have to say though, that is a pretty irrelevant point. The question is, will Samsung do it better once again. It appears to be cleaned up, versus Apple's honeycomb (what were you thinking Apple). It's simpler, easier on the eyes and considerate of customers who struggle with lots of things cluttered together, not to mention easier to press the right one, not 5 of them haha. Similar yes, but still not a new type of icon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On point. Let's drop the icon design. The iWatch is a complete mess. Navigating through it is like being lost in the Amazon forest without a compass or gps. They had to put a Smartwatch watch out as soon as they could as they were already late to the game. It's like they threw all that mess together in a day and tried to release it to the public as fast as possible. At least Samsung knows a clutter free and clean GUI will yield a much better user experience and ram management. Oh, and they didn't feel the need to make a version of it out of pure gold and sell it for $13-15k. You can't polish a turd no matter how hard you try.
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Let's face it. Other than the name, Gear S2 has no direct relationship to Gear S as it lacks the standalone phone function that makes Gear S stand out. It's more of a successor to Gear 1/2/Neo. I do hope the new UIs and features can trickle down to Gear S as our current UI is boring and basic.
I guess I read wrong, I thought it had a cell radio. That makes it a disappointment. The standalone feature has become very useful for me
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kieso said:
I guess I read wrong, I thought it had a cell radio. That makes it a disappointment. The standalone feature has become very useful for me
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like it may have a sim card after all: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-Gear-S2-smartwatch-rumored-to-include-nano-SIM-card_id72984
It acts as a stand alone device but it have to be activated as a line to use without phone on you
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chucky80 said:
It acts as a stand alone device but it have to be activated as a line to use without phone on you
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Isn't that the same as with the Gear S?
sefrcoko said:
Isn't that the same as with the Gear S?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is the device I was referring to.
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farewell_goodbye2u said:
Thanks. I posted on a General Discussion sub. Lol...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ouch! My eyes, that's a big block of text!!
I do agree with a lot of what you are saying here (and in your original post). Samsung are not carbon copying Apple products as such. The hardware, especially the AMOLED screens and the cameras are far superior and they do innovate far more than any other OEM out there. But they are definitely following some of Apple's designs (which I am beginning to hate). The new S2 watch, rightly or wrongly, does immediately put you in mind of the Apple Watch.
I really don't like Apple products and I hate Apple as a company. I have a very loyal following of Samsung products for years and I like the fact they take on the mighty Apple inc. (Samsung are the biggest competitor to Apple and must be a thorn in their side!) But Samsung seem to be drifting away from being unique. They seem to think everyone wants an 'Apple-esque' product. I can see the Gear S2 is a far cry from the original Gear S watch, which is a shame. The beautiful curved immersive 2" screen is it's USP in my opinion. I believe they should be launching the S2 as a separate product and just given the original S a bit of a facelift.
apprentice said:
Ouch! My eyes, that's a big block of text!!
I do agree with a lot of what you are saying here (and in your original post). Samsung are not carbon copying Apple products as such. The hardware, especially the AMOLED screens and the cameras are far superior and they do innovate far more than any other OEM out there. But they are definitely following some of Apple's designs (which I am beginning to hate). The new S2 watch, rightly or wrongly, does immediately put you in mind of the Apple Watch.
I really don't like Apple products and I hate Apple as a company. I have a very loyal following of Samsung products for years and I like the fact they take on the mighty Apple inc. (Samsung are the biggest competitor to Apple and must be a thorn in their side!) But Samsung seem to be drifting away from being unique. They seem to think everyone wants an 'Apple-esque' product. I can see the Gear S2 is a far cry from the original Gear S watch, which is a shame. The beautiful curved immersive 2" screen is it's USP in my opinion. I believe they should be launching the S2 as a separate product and just given the original S a bit of a facelift.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If what we've seen so far of the S2 puts you in mind if the iWatch, that says a lot more about you than the S2. It in no way resembles the iWatch. Circle icons were on Tizen (and the original Gear S) well before the iWatch. Apple followed Samsung's lead on that one.

I think I'm gonna jump ship.

So I came across my best buy receipt for my gear s2 classic. It was $380 something bucks. I began to ask myself what value I got from it I hoped for.
1) My first use case i was really looking forward to was samsung pay. But it was delayed and there is no word from samsung about its release. Im beginning to wonder if the gear s2 community will ever use it. This is a HUGE shame on samsung currently IMO.
2) I am a previous user of the gear s. I was certain the galaxy store was to offer a substantial increase in useful apps with the gear s2. There was no way to check since theres no website to browse (only in-app with gear onboarded, scumbaggish samsung). Anyways I browse the appstore every week and nothing ever happens. Its pitiful everybody is so excited for uber. One app I was certain would be available is for the Nest thermostat. Its the perfect user interface! Nope. I best thing ive seen so far is the hue app. Cheers to the dev. The gear s2 dev community needs clones of him. But overall our app selection is outrageously pathetic. I don't see it getting much better soon.
3) Why do I have to use s voice? C'mon. Samsung cant be this pretentious. Let me use google. I also thought there'd be a more seamless integration with google now. Nope. Oh yeah, ever wonder why you cant use voice to text on 3rd party apps? Because samsung locked out that ability.
I have a very good feeling that developing for the tizen smartwatch platform is an upsettingly dreadful experience. I say this because i spent four hours on a Saturday trying to get the development environment setup on OSX. I couldn't even get any sample projects to load. This trickles through. For example I really wanted to have xClock -Agent as my daily watchface but I couldn't condone it. Its affiliated android app caused alarming battery drain - and the app developer does not care one bit to correct the malbehavior. But then i ask myself why doesn't the core gear services provide an api for location so this problem wouldn't even occur? Why not for everything else? Why no S voice or be able to use any sort for speech to text for an app? I need an add on app mostly for the dumbest things. This sucks a lot.
As a product owner myself of two development teams I have been on a desperate search for the product owners of the gear s2 platform and express my concerns on that level. All leads Ive found on linkedin did not reply to my attempts at reaching out. Maybe no product owners exist, because things should not be this bad.
Anyways I would love to love this watch. The industrial design encompasses a wonderful human interface. But I don't love it because it has no soul (useable software). I hope things change. But I'm probably going back to the pebble time.
Okay.
K!
2. Google now won't happen. It is not Samsung's fault. Google does not open the access and I believe they won't. Why would they open it for competitors?
I agree with you on the app development part though. Setting up the development environment is not a trouble for me but dealing with the lack of documents, bugs in the IDE, Samsung review team and their servers are really nightmare.
Occasionally, I came across this reviewer who does not read my instruction for testing app and she rejects my apps very often. I just re-submitted one of my app for review hours ago. Another app got rejected a month ago for the third times and the problems were also their fault. I don't even bother submit it back.
Samsung servers or their Gear app store is very very unstable. Way back in the days of the Gear 2, I already saw the cannot install WO WO issue. It still exists and occur very often for customers. I receive at least 3 emails about downloading problems a day and sometimes I get 1 star rating for problems that I cannot solve.
These are just some notable issues.
So yeah, new devs won't develop apps anymore if they face similar problems. These days, I only see new watch faces submitted using the designer tool. Hardly anyone writes apps
Yeah, I agree with everything -- and just dropped dime to get a Verizon classic 3G to replace my current sport 3G.
Why? I need the 3G.
As soon as cell capabilities are offered on AW, and nothing improves on the Gear side with the issues listed (I'm a developer that walked away from development on the Gear because of the hassle), I'm gone too.
So sad, this is the second time Samsung has lured me into their watch with bad apps. Kept watch too long to take back but would if I could. I have bought numerous Samsung products and they always just move on to the "next big thing" without looking back..
Rsmin said:
So sad, this is the second time Samsung has lured me into their watch with bad apps. Kept watch too long to take back but would if I could. I have bought numerous Samsung products and they always just move on to the "next big thing" without looking back..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here.. I've had s2 classic few days and is been a pain in "A"
When it disconnects I have to reboot phone and watch ... so few apps to use app store is barren
such a shame as its a lovely looking device
I'll give it to the weekend then off it goes back to Amazon if it doesn't settle down
I'm not doing too bad but my requirements aren't huge and there are things the phone is better for. I'd love to use Google - but its not an android watch and i knew that going in. I get my emails, texts, my alarm works well enough, I can answer texts with voice, my appointments and Google Reminders work. I'm pretty happy! Wish it was waterproof. Wish the alarm was stronger. But still, I'm satisfied. At least until the next big thing... I AM a gadget whore.

Are there any app developers out there?

Basically just wondering if anyone out there is still trying to develop apps for this device. I currently have both the Gear S2 Classic and the Huawei watch, and as far as the hardware goes the Gear is miles ahead. The Huawei actually feels cheap, despite costing £100 more.
Problem is, Tizen currently doesnt work properly with certain notifications (whatsapp being a main example), and the only app that allows for initiating a conversation from the watch (It's called "Notifications Wear Style") hasn't been updated since January, and it a bit on the buggy side.
So I'm pretty much living in hope that there are people out there who are working to support the Gear S2 with more than just watch faces.
I'd love to know this as well. I'd do whatever I could to support active development on this watch. I love it but I might return it in the next few days if development seems dead.
My experience is that the Gear S2 apps keep coming, but it's more a trickle than a flood, and many of the most useful apps are coming from individual developers working on their own. You can often communicate directly with the developers, and they often respond to user requests in updates. But the big companies are mostly ignoring Tizen, and rumors suggest Samsung is not helping with its mediocre support for developers. So, app development is not at all dead, but if you want apps for the Gear S2, you have to be prepared to be patient and not set your expectations too high.
tstreete said:
My experience is that the Gear S2 apps keep coming, but it's more a trickle than a flood, and many of the most useful apps are coming from individual developers working on their own. You can often communicate directly with the developers, and they often respond to user requests in updates. But the big companies are mostly ignoring Tizen, and rumors suggest Samsung is not helping with its mediocre support for developers. So, app development is not at all dead, but if you want apps for the Gear S2, you have to be prepared to be patient and not set your expectations too high.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The additional problem is that there are one or two apps that are actually half decent, made by independant developers... but they dont appear in my app store, either because I'm in the UK or because I don't have a samsung phone. Either way, if the few good apps are being restricted that doesn't bode well for patience. It's already a 6 month old product, another 6-9 months and it will have been replaced, and Samsung don't tend to support old devices for long.
I wish the Gear store was more transparent and better curated, that app developers on Tizen were provided a more robust and coherent development environment and that more companies created more and better apps for the Gear S2 series. That said, the whole question of apps on smartwatches is still in flux. Even Apple watch owners complain about the problems with apps on that platform: the apps are on average mediocre, some people say, and Apple has hobbled use of some of the hardware features of the watch, etc. If Samsung has been too quick to release new models (and abandon old ones), Apple fans complain that their company is too slow on that front: today you still have to pay a premium price for an Apple watch that has been out now a full year and is quickly falling behind other watches hardware-wise (especially the Gear S2). I get frustrated with the software limitations of my S2, but in my calmer moments I tell myself that this whole scene still has to play itself out.
[Edit: yet another set of complaints about the Apple Watch: http://www.cnet.com/how-to/7-reasons-people-arent-wearing-their-apple-watch/

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