Samsung Gives Waves to Developers, Plans More bada Phones

South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung has recently held a Samsung Bada Developer Day in Johannesburg, South Africa, where it offered Samsung S8500 Wave units to every journalist and programmer present at the event. In addition, the handset vendor also announced that more devices running under the bada operating system were in the pipe, and that they should become official sometimes in the third quarter of the ongoing year.

This is not the first time that a company offers mobile phones at a press event, but it is worth noticing due to the fact that Wave is the first bada-based device from Samsung, and because the company thus shows its commitment to work hard on the platform's reach around the world. The aforementioned upcoming devices powered by the OS should prove helpful in its attempt, yet we'll still have to wait to see what new features they should bring into the mix.

According to a recent article on PhoneReport, Brett Loubser from Samsung Mobile's Product Division in South Africa, unveiled the fact that the next bada-based device is expected to sport about the same features as Wave, though it should come with a price tag of less than $200. Moreover, the handset vendor is working on a device with sliding QWERTY keyboard, confirming a previous leak regarding upcoming phones from the company.

One important aspect of bada includes its multi-tasking capabilities, which are available only for native applications, meaning that third-party software solutions won't be able to run at the same time on a bada device (Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 OS works in a similar manner). According to Samsung, it plans on launching an app store to support the bada platform, with localized content for each market in which the service will be available.

PhoneReport notes that, “by the second fiscal quarter of this year, there should be 80 local app stores, where users will be able to download free apps, and purchased paid-for ones. Although the general payment method will be with a credit card, Samsung is in talks with operators to enable billing from a user's network account.” On Monday, Samsung Wave was announced as being available for purchase in three European countries, with more markets to follow. The phone should land in South Africa in July, priced at R4000 (around $511).