The ambitious Linux project that conquered TVs but retreated from phones
In short: Tizen was designed to be the next great mobile revolution, a successor to Nokia's MeeGo. While it successfully became a dominant force in smart TVs, its journey as a smartphone OS ended in a strategic retreat toward Google's ecosystem.
The origins of Tizen are rooted in the complex evolution of mobile Linux. It began as an Intel-led project in 2007, eventually merging with Nokia Maemo to form MeeGo. When Nokia abandoned MeeGo, the Linux Foundation initiated Tizen in 2011 as its successor. The goal was a versatile platform capable of running HTML5 apps across netbooks, smartphones, tablets, and in-car entertainment systems. A massive coalition of commercial partners joined the effort, including Samsung Electronics, Sony, Panasonic, and various telecommunications giants like Vodafone and SK Telecom.
Samsung became the primary driver of Tizen, merging its own Bada OS into the project in early 2013. For a period, it served as a viable alternative to Android, powering devices like the Gear 2 smartwatch in 2014 and low-cost smartphones for emerging markets between 2015 and 2017. However, the platform faced significant hurdles. In 2017, security researcher Amihai Neiderman identified over 40 zero-day vulnerabilities in Tizen's code that could allow remote access to Samsung products.
The landscape shifted permanently in May 2021. Google and Samsung announced a partnership where Tizen features would be integrated into Google’s Wear OS, while Samsung committed to using Wear OS for future wearables. This effectively signaled the end of Tizen as a primary mobile OS; its app store closed on December 31, 2021. Today, Tizen maintains a stronghold in the living room, where it became the most popular smart TV platform by 2018, and continues to power Samsung Smart TVs with over-the-air updates.
Beyond consumer electronics, Tizen branched into specialized niches. The company developed TizenRT—a fork of the NuttX real-time operating system—specifically for IoT devices and smart home appliances in late 2016. It also established a presence in automotive tech with Tizen IVI (In-Vehicle Infotainment) launched in April 2014.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Tizen
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