Apps for Samsung devices are about to get a lot better
There’s something to be said about the value of familiarity. The most highly sought after developers of the world can work with almost any language to do anything they want, but for those who prefer to stick with something that they have expertise in, this can be a problem.
For example: in Android’s early years, many developers were asked to code in Java as this was the only programming language the platform supported at the time. For many top developers and, of course, Java coders, this wasn’t a problem. Big companies likely had developers with multiple levels of experience under their belt, and independent Java developers with big ideas felt right at home.
The Android Market wasn’t always great.
But it wasn’t until Google started adding support for other popular languages like C and C++, as well as extended functionality through suites like Mono which added support for C# and .Net, and various other scripting languages, that the app scene started to explode.
This is because more developers were able to join in on the fun with their preferred programming language. And even for those developers who took the time to learn new languages to develop on Android, this allowed them to go forward with new projects (or even rewrite existing ones) using their favorite methods, something that helps contribute to higher quality and less bugs.
Well, the same is about to happen for Samsung with Tizen, with the company announcing a partnership with Microsoft to bring support for C# and .Net to the platform with full Visual Studio support. Of course, Samsung’s most popular phones don’t (yet) run Tizen, so this obviously doesn’t apply to those. But for all the Smart TVs, SmartThings home hubs, Samsung Gear smartwatches, and other Tizen-equipped devices in the company’s range of products, this is going to be a boon.
It’s not as if Tizen is using an alien programming language unbeknownst to your common developer. It supports C, C++, and HTML5, all of which should be on any serious software engineer’s resume.
For the hordes of independent, student, or simply specialty developers already deeply engrained in C# and .Net and unwilling to bend to Tizen’s current will, this is going to enable them to bring their apps over to Samsung’s devices quickly and efficiently, and that’ll go a long way toward courting new developers to the platform over time (which Samsung certainly needs if they ever want to completely break free from Android).
Long story short, more languages means more developers, more developers means more apps, and more apps bring more users, and that’s what’s hopefully poised to happen for the other half of Samsung’s smart technology spectrum in the years to come.
[via Samsung]