Samsung Electronics has announced the launch of its bada 2.0 SDK (software development kit), an application development tool for the Korean tech firm’s own mobile platform.

The expansion of the company’s bada platform is due to the success of its seven existing Samsung Wave devices. According to the company its Wave smartphones have been doing very well in Europe, China and South-east Asia, where consumers have been attracted to their affordability and functionality.

bada 2.0

Unveiled at Mobile World Congress in February 2011, bada 2.0 includes many new features, including multi-tasking, Wi-Fi Direct, near field communication (NFC) and voice recognition. NFC enables smartphone users to experience advanced services such as mobile payment, transport pass-card recharge and file sharing without internet networking.

In addition, considering the increased use of web using smartphones, bada 2.0 supports HTML5 and improved Flash functions, thus offering enhanced usability and web experience.

Adding ads

Another key feature for developer partners is the introduction of In-app Ads. Using the Ads API (application programming interface) developers for bada 2.0 can insert advertisements, creating new revenue opportunities.

An Emulator has been added to foster a development process suitable to the target environment. Tools such as the Profiler optimise the device’s performance ensuring that resources like memory and processing power are used to their fullest capacity.

The bada 2.0 SDK can be downloaded from the bada developer site and Samsung has improved the ‘Samsung Apps’ retail store and expanded full availability through to 121 countries worldwide. With this 2.0 version, more differentiated functions will be offered from Samsung Apps, including new purchasing options and recommendations.

Samsung Apps has proven itself to be a popular destination for smartphone users, since the launch of the Samsung Wave, the first bada-operating smartphone in June 2010. It received ten million application downloads in just three months and passed the 100 million-mark during March of this year. The store currently sports approx. 40 000 applications, significantly less than app leader Apple’s 425 000+ apps, but more than Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace’s reported 30 000 apps.

“Samsung bada and our Wave devices continue to succeed around the world, taking advantage of the mobile technology and brand awareness of Samsung’s leadership in the market,” said Paulo Ferreira, head of Mobile Product and Business Solutions at Samsung South Africa.

“We have brought together our key mobile innovations in bada 2.0, setting the foundation for it to become a leading mobile platform.”  

In related news Samsung SA and News24 recently announced the development of the first locally developed Smart TV application in Africa.