Samsung’s oft-rumored Tizen smartphones may be making an appearance soon. The South Korean OEM has sent out invitations to an event for their proprietary operating system for MWC this year. While they already have devices that run Tizen, a camera in particular, a smartphone running the Android competitor has yet to be seen on a wider scale. The invitation promises us “an exclusive sneak preview of the newest Tizen devices”.
 The invitation-only event is taking place at the Arts Hotel in Barcelona on the 23rd of February. That is, like their other events, the day before MWC begins. Expected in attendance are representatives from larger overseas carriers like SK Telecom, KT, and LG U+ — all South Korean companies.
Likely forgoing the event will be NCC DoCoMo, a Japanese carrier. Recently, Samsung and NTT decided to cancel plans for the first Tizen handset launched with a carrier. Their presence at thee event would likely cause confusion, and raise more questions about why the device was scrapped.
Tizen has made subtle appearances here and there, with Samsung continually adding the caveat that it’s not ready for prime time. The OS has been years in the making, and is widely believed to be Samsung’s slow band-aid peel from Android altogether. The operating system is working on a variant of their Galaxy NX camera — an Android powered device, originally — but a camera does not a smartphone make.
We’ll be in Barcelona for MWC, and should we be able to provide details on the device(s), we’ll be sure to share them with you in short order. For all the rumors and speculation that surround Samsung’s pet project, and the time it’s taken to show up, it will be nice to have the opportunity to actually see it.
Two’s company – three’s a crowd.
Sorry Android Community, please could you not using the word “will” in your title while the first line of your article reveal that it’s actually a “rumor” that “may be” true?
What makes you think its a “proprietary operating system”. I thought Tizen is more open than Android???
“Likely forgoing the event will be NCC DoCoMo, a Japanese carrier….” typo?? NTT DoCoMo the real name 🙂
I think Tizen’s test audience should be Africa, South and Southeast Asia. And Samsung Galaxy S5 is still in development and may be rumored instead (by its non-appearance at MWC 2014) to be released later this year.