Samsung makes Tizen available for third-party TVs

Samsung has annnounced novel third-party compatiblity with TVs as part of its 2019 Developer Conference (SDC). This also involves the roll-out of new tools, so as to help developers generate fresh apps for this ecosystem. Therefore, more obsolete or perhaps less-used smart screens could become the face of interesting side projects or new insights into what this OEM's ecosystem could deliver.

This year's SDC also debuted new tools that may make ends like this even easier in the future. They include EastST, which might replace self-contrived playback modules in order to check that content is running on a given TV as planned. Wits is the perhaps overly on-the-nose term for a new tool that allows immediate uploads of code edit to a Tizen-based TV, so that the developers can view said updates without delay. 

However, the most important user-facing new facility here may be TIFA, or Tizen Identifier For Advertising. It allows advertisement opt-outs that may be more informative than ever before. It is less than super-clear why Samsung has taken such steps; however, a prime candidate rationale is to raise awareness of Tizen's open-source and cross-platform nature. Accordingly, it may pull target products into an ecosystem that also includes essentially Linux-based smartwatches, other wearables and pre-existing Samsung TVs.